OU and WVU by comparison
4 years 1 week ago #24
by wvu4u2
OU and WVU by comparison was created by wvu4u2
MORGANTOWN — Every year now when Oklahoma week arrives, you can't but help think about the domination the Sooners have had over West Virginia since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 in 2012.
Eight games, eight losses.
And that makes you start thinking thoughts like this:
"What does Oklahoma have that West Virginia doesn't have?"
Some of it, of course, is quite obvious:
- Seven claimed national championships to none for West Virginia
- Seven Heisman Trophy winners to none for West Virginia
- History's longest winning streak of 47 games. West Virginia's longest winning streak was 13 games from 1952 to 1953.
- 162 first team All-Americans, 80 of them consensus All-Americans. West Virginia has had 11 consensus All-Americans.
- Oklahoma has had four coaches win 100 or more games. For WVU only Don Nehlen, with 149 wins, has surpassed 100.
- Oklahoma has won 49 conference championships. West Virginia has won or shared 15 conference titles, eight of them in the Southern Conference, seven in the Big East.
In other words, if college football were a commercial jetliner, Oklahoma would be in the first-class section while WVU rides coach. Not standby, not economy coach...but separated from the historical giants in the game by a curtain nonetheless.
So, naturally, as you think about that, you wonder how wide the differential really is at the present moment.
And perhaps just how wide the gap is at the present moment was driven home best on Monday during the Big 12 coaches' conference call.
It was noted by one of the callers that each of the last four Oklahoma quarterbacks had played for an NFL team on Sunday.
Think about that for a moment. Three of them were Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals; Baker Mayfield, Cleveland Browns; Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles.
All three of them threw touchdown passes in the games they played.
Think about that for a minute and then think about WVU, which has been blessed with quarterbacks, but the best three they have had in recent years — Patrick White, Geno Smith and Will Grier — have started exactly 33 games, 31 of them by Smith and two by Grier.
Now it's true that WVU did have a Super Bowl winning quarterback in Jeff Hostetler back in the day, but Oklahoma has become a quarterback factory with Mayfield, Murray and Hurts starting at OU each of the past three years. And the Sooners now have the top quarterback out of the class two years ago in Spencer Rattler starting for them as a redshirt freshman.
This, of course, is not to cast dispersions upon WVU's quarterback play over that time or presently, but simply to re-emphasis just what you go against when you face the Sooners, as WVU does this Saturday at noon in a game that will be televised on ABC.
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley has quarterbacks lining up to learn under him and play at Oklahoma, so much so that he was asked during the call just how many Oklahoma quarterbacks he can send to the NFL.
"I hope all of them can," he said. "That's the goal with our guys here...get good enough players in here and (have them) become developed and progress enough that they can eventually have that opportunity."
You can say the goal is the same at West Virginia, but history tells us that it's more likely to happen if you come out of Oklahoma.
"It's pretty cool that all three of (our) last starters — not just our last three starters, but the three starters over the last three years — are starting in the NFL," Riley said. "It's not like they all had three- or four-year playing careers here. Only Baker did. It's pretty cool to see those guys there and having success early in their careers."
Certainly, few college teams at any position can say they sent their last three starters to the NFL from the last three years, for college careers traditionally last four years, sometimes five, and even more after this COVID season where everyone has been granted an extra year of eligibility.
It makes it extremely difficult to compete with a program that every year has a Heisman candidate running its team at quarterback, another backing him up, and yet another sitting out as a redshirt.
WVU coach Neal Brown did not have the good fortune Lincoln Riley had in following Bob Stoops as head coach and taking over a program where the national championship is an annual expectation, and, in most years, a very realistic one.
It was a smooth coaching handoff at Oklahoma with a big hole and open field ahead of Riley, but with that comes the pressure of carrying on in the tradition, which Riley has done.
Despite two losses this year — one to league regular season Big 12 champion Iowa State and the other to Kansas State, both as he broke in the new freshman quarterback — Oklahoma has recovered and become the Sooners of old, as they have run off six straight wins and played themselves into the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 19 against Iowa State.
This, in a way, puts WVU in an enviable spot in its matchup with Oklahoma this year. A two-loss team probably can't get into the national playoffs, so this becomes a relatively meaningless game to the Sooners as they look ahead to the rematch with Iowa State.
What's more, it is being played in Morgantown, where WVU is 5-0.
see more at Times wv .com
Eight games, eight losses.
And that makes you start thinking thoughts like this:
"What does Oklahoma have that West Virginia doesn't have?"
Some of it, of course, is quite obvious:
- Seven claimed national championships to none for West Virginia
- Seven Heisman Trophy winners to none for West Virginia
- History's longest winning streak of 47 games. West Virginia's longest winning streak was 13 games from 1952 to 1953.
- 162 first team All-Americans, 80 of them consensus All-Americans. West Virginia has had 11 consensus All-Americans.
- Oklahoma has had four coaches win 100 or more games. For WVU only Don Nehlen, with 149 wins, has surpassed 100.
- Oklahoma has won 49 conference championships. West Virginia has won or shared 15 conference titles, eight of them in the Southern Conference, seven in the Big East.
In other words, if college football were a commercial jetliner, Oklahoma would be in the first-class section while WVU rides coach. Not standby, not economy coach...but separated from the historical giants in the game by a curtain nonetheless.
So, naturally, as you think about that, you wonder how wide the differential really is at the present moment.
And perhaps just how wide the gap is at the present moment was driven home best on Monday during the Big 12 coaches' conference call.
It was noted by one of the callers that each of the last four Oklahoma quarterbacks had played for an NFL team on Sunday.
Think about that for a moment. Three of them were Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals; Baker Mayfield, Cleveland Browns; Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles.
All three of them threw touchdown passes in the games they played.
Think about that for a minute and then think about WVU, which has been blessed with quarterbacks, but the best three they have had in recent years — Patrick White, Geno Smith and Will Grier — have started exactly 33 games, 31 of them by Smith and two by Grier.
Now it's true that WVU did have a Super Bowl winning quarterback in Jeff Hostetler back in the day, but Oklahoma has become a quarterback factory with Mayfield, Murray and Hurts starting at OU each of the past three years. And the Sooners now have the top quarterback out of the class two years ago in Spencer Rattler starting for them as a redshirt freshman.
This, of course, is not to cast dispersions upon WVU's quarterback play over that time or presently, but simply to re-emphasis just what you go against when you face the Sooners, as WVU does this Saturday at noon in a game that will be televised on ABC.
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley has quarterbacks lining up to learn under him and play at Oklahoma, so much so that he was asked during the call just how many Oklahoma quarterbacks he can send to the NFL.
"I hope all of them can," he said. "That's the goal with our guys here...get good enough players in here and (have them) become developed and progress enough that they can eventually have that opportunity."
You can say the goal is the same at West Virginia, but history tells us that it's more likely to happen if you come out of Oklahoma.
"It's pretty cool that all three of (our) last starters — not just our last three starters, but the three starters over the last three years — are starting in the NFL," Riley said. "It's not like they all had three- or four-year playing careers here. Only Baker did. It's pretty cool to see those guys there and having success early in their careers."
Certainly, few college teams at any position can say they sent their last three starters to the NFL from the last three years, for college careers traditionally last four years, sometimes five, and even more after this COVID season where everyone has been granted an extra year of eligibility.
It makes it extremely difficult to compete with a program that every year has a Heisman candidate running its team at quarterback, another backing him up, and yet another sitting out as a redshirt.
WVU coach Neal Brown did not have the good fortune Lincoln Riley had in following Bob Stoops as head coach and taking over a program where the national championship is an annual expectation, and, in most years, a very realistic one.
It was a smooth coaching handoff at Oklahoma with a big hole and open field ahead of Riley, but with that comes the pressure of carrying on in the tradition, which Riley has done.
Despite two losses this year — one to league regular season Big 12 champion Iowa State and the other to Kansas State, both as he broke in the new freshman quarterback — Oklahoma has recovered and become the Sooners of old, as they have run off six straight wins and played themselves into the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 19 against Iowa State.
This, in a way, puts WVU in an enviable spot in its matchup with Oklahoma this year. A two-loss team probably can't get into the national playoffs, so this becomes a relatively meaningless game to the Sooners as they look ahead to the rematch with Iowa State.
What's more, it is being played in Morgantown, where WVU is 5-0.
see more at Times wv .com
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