In the way of #1 – OU

Photo Attribution: Icon SMI

Welcome to a new series on what must take place for Oklahoma State to reach #1 in the polls this year. Who must win in order for the Cowboys to sit atop the college football world?

Here’s your full fan’s guide to who OSU fans should be rooting for this season.

We’ve looked at Texas A&M, Boise St.,Stanford, Florida St., LSU, Oregon, and Alabama so far and now we’ll take a look at the easiest “who do I root for” guide ever, OU’s.

The Sooners open with Tulsa in Norman which should actually be a decent gauge for how many OSU will score on then two weeks later.

They take an early week off after that before heading to Tallahassee for a game I’m completely conflicted about. On one hand, as we discussed earlier, Florida State’s schedule is pretty easy and I don’t need them having some “we just beat #1” momentum going into the rest of the year but on the other hand…how can I root for OU here, especially since OSU will get a chance to clear them out of the way whether or not they win this game against FSU? Plus, I wouldn’t trust E.J. Manuel to make me a peanut butter sandwich, much less on the read at Clemson and BC. And yes, I know I picked him for our Heisman fantasy draft.

OU comes back home for a Ball State warmup before heading to Dallas for the Texas game. Do you think Brent Venables and Bob Stoops send each other texts like “Hehe did you see Mack can’t decide between that paper mache kid they ran out last year and a 3-star freshman?! LOL!!!”…or no? I mean they have to at least have mentioned it, no?

Kansas in Lawerence (which would be nice if this was February and we were talking about basketball), Tech in Norman, and at K-State round out their October.

November gets a little interesting with A&M in Norman [obligatory Stoops is 72-2 at home mention], at Baylor, Iowa St. and then OSU in Stillwater on December 3. Okay, maybe it’s not all that interesting.

I don’t know how I feel about this OU team yet, are they wildly overrated and becoming more so by the day with the loss of Travis Lewis? Or will it just be business as usual in Norman?

Something tells me they won’t be running the gauntlet this year, but I’m also glad we don’t really them to win any of their games for OSU to move up to #1.

We can take care of that in December.

How worried I am:      (out of 10)

If you haven’t checked out our other series on the 20 most important people to a 2011 national title you can do so here.