Daily Bullets (July 22): Football’s Defining Three-Game Stretch, Recapping Rickie’s Sunday Round

“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” — Arthur Ashe

Bullets Rundown

• A defining three-game stretch
• Rickie’s Sunday recap
• Defensive line updated

OSU Bullets

• Looking over the 2019 football schedule, there’s a super important stretch for the Pokes bracketing the conference opener against Texas and the finale against OU.

…(T)here is no overly-difficult stretch for Oklahoma State, but there is a three-game run that starts in late October that will define the season: vs. Baylor, at Iowa State, vs. TCU. These are the three teams who are also trying to be the team that surprises the Big 12 Conference with a run to a conference championship game. If Oklahoma State wants to shock the Big 12, then they have to have a 3-0 stretch during those games, along with splitting the Texas and Oklahoma game. [HCS]

Beating those three teams (or the other teams vying for second through fifth in the Big 12 standings) is how OSU has made their hay under Gundy. Winning those games and splitting the Red River rivals would be a wildly successful season after a seven-win year.

• Here’s what you need to know about Rickie Fowler’s final round at Portrush.

T6. Rickie Fowler (-5): A round of unfortunate bounces started with the worst of breaks, an ominous sign of struggles to come in Fowler’s push to chase down Lowry. Fowler’s tee shot at 1 was slightly off line and initially bounced in bounds before hitting a marshal and bouncing out of bounds. The penalty resulted in a double-bogey for Fowler, sending him on his way to a final round 74. [CBS Sports]

• Somewhat of a minor programming note but Robert Allen noted a positional development along the defensive line.

…(G)raduate transfer Kyle Junior from Bowling Green State University is not going to slim down from his 280 pound playing weight for the Falcons, where he was a smaller Mid-America Conference defensive tackle and become a defensive end for the Cowboys. The new Oklahoma State Football Media Guide revealed that Junior is now weighing 305 pounds and will be a defensive tackle. [GoPokes]

So Junior will be joining Brandon Evers, Israel Antwine and Co. playing tackle instead of defensive end. When you come in at 275/280 pounds, you have some flexibility but sticking with his position that he played previously (defensive tackle at previous school) would probably be a smoother transition anyways.

• BusinessInsider has Stillwater as a top-ten college town to start your career in

• Cowboy alum Kristoffer Ventura locked up his PGA tour card for next year with a win over the weekend.

• I love all the height in the defensive backfield – crazy that both of the second levels average out at 6’1″.

Just checked out the new OSU Media Guide. Average size for projected starters/rotational players by position:

CB – 6'1 190
S – 6'1 198
LB – 6'1 228

Not sure if 8 lbs is compelling or not. I guess we will see in a few years. https://t.co/HxWHP4iM7H

— Adam Lunt (@AdamLunt817) July 21, 2019

• Here ya go Pokes – add sleep pods during the next renovation

Setting The Standard pic.twitter.com/d7QUJfKL6M

— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) July 22, 2019

Non-OSU Bullets

• An oral history of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”

• Interesting read here on process with the Indianapolis Colts GM‘ Chris Ballard

• It’s a short-term thought and mostly irrelevant but I agree that the Thunder could be a playoff team as currently constructed. I think the team gets blown up by the deadline anyways (CP3 and Gallinari moved).

Bonus: some solid information here on how/when OKC players can be moved in this piece