It was made official on Sunday, OU is in the 2015 College Football Playoff semifinal! The Sooners slipped to #4 in the rankings on Friday but will play the #1 Clemson Tigers in the semifinal game in the Orange Bowl in Miami on New Years Eve.
(Image by ESPN)That very same evening #2 Alabama will play #3 Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The winners will meet on Monday, January 11th, 2016 in Glendale, AZ. This will be OU’s seventeenth consecutive bowl appearance under the leadership of head coach Bob Stoops who is now wrapping up his seventeenth year at the helm in Norman. It would be fair to say that Coach Stoops earned his salary this year. This will be OU’s 49th bowl appearance and will enter with a bowl record of 28-19-1.
I will again admit that I did not give the 2015 Sooners much of a chance after laying down before the worst Texas team in a decade in Dallas back in October. However, this team is riding a seven game winning streak and defeated an AP Top 11 ranked team in each of its final three games, two of them on the road. Their average margin of victory in that seven game streak has been 52 to 19.
This semifinal game is shaping up to be a rematch of last year’s OU season finale against these same Clemson Tigers. I remember posting my thoughts on that post-season debacle in the in a contest that really wasn’t that close. Redemption for such a poor showing a year ago I’m sure will serve as a potent motivator for this OU team that has really turned things around and dialed up the intensity after a most disappointing effort against their archrival Longhorns. Regardless of the outcome, the 2015 Sooners led by walk-on QB Baker Mayfield have had an impressive run and their performance late in the season bodes well for the program moving forward. Obviously keeping my season tickets was the right call. So right of a call in fact that I will let it ride.
Here’s to OU having two more “W’s” in them for this season!