Oakman wanted to know where I voted his team. I told him second. He asked why.
I mentioned Mike Stoops having another year with his defensive playmakers. I mentioned the last time I saw the Sooners, they were beating Alabama.
“Is that so?” Oakman smiled. “You realize if it’s not the national championship, Alabama don’t even care who they play.”
He wasn’t buying it. So I brought up this year’s Baylor-OU tussle in Norman, the out-of-the-gate favorite for Big 12 Game of the Year. I asked what kind of fight he was expecting from the Sooners, given their 41-12 defeat in Waco last November.
“I don’t know,” Oakman said. “I can only speak on what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to come out there, execute on every play, read our keys. And we should be victorious, just like last year. Trust me.”
Surely he doesn’t expect it to be as one-sided as last year.
“I do,” he fired back.
But doesn’t playing in Norman count for something?
The fans are not really a factor,” he said. “It’s what you put on the field. It’s the product you put on the field.
“That game from OU last year, that should have showed you that that (OU) product was nowhere near as good as the product that Baylor was putting on the field. The execution, the players from each and every position… You could tell we were on a different level from OU. Just straight out.”
Might this be a different season?
“It is. But they’ve still got the same people. And we’ve still got the same cats,” Oakman said. “It’s the product. Some things don’t change. We’ve got Kaz Kazadi. We’ve got Art Briles. And we’ve got Phil Bennett. And we’re gonna do the same thing. And we’re gonna be great.”