The Morning Fade – 1.13.11

Richard Croome (Aggiesports.com) with a good Turgeon quote – “‘I didn’t expect this,’ Turgeon said. ‘I thought OSU was potentially, and I still feel this way, the best team we played all year. They have inside presence. They have shooters. They have depth, and they guard you. We just locked down defensively. They missed some shots normally they would make. We shared the ball better in the second half, moved it better. We got to the foul line, and we had a lot of guys play well.'”

Helsley on OSUs loss – “‘You look at the way they played…’ Ford said. ‘I don’t know if it was because we were on the road. I don’t know the reason. Guys can read their press clippings a little bit and feel good about themselves. That’s why I was very hesitant to get overly excited about the last game. I said it was a good game, but this is a long road. And a hard road.’ And the road awaits, with the Cowboys, now 13-3 overall and 1-1 in the Big 12, due at Colorado on Saturday. The Buffaloes are 10-0 at home and now 2-0 in the Big 12 after winning at Kansas State Wednesday night.

Ryan Sharp on the Weeden/golf team story – “Cowboy golf coach Mike McGraw confirmed Weeden was indeed the newest Cowboy golfer.’He’s going to walk on for us,’ McGraw said in a phone interview. ‘He’s a great leader, he loves golf and he’s a great Cowboy.'” He’s a ‘great Cowboy’ — I love that quote.

Tramel on what coming back means – “No other quarterback on campus is a classic dropback passer. No offensive coordinator has been hired in Dana Holgorsen’s stead. It’s possible Gundy would have had to scrap Holgorsen’s version of the Air Raid offense and gone to something that matched his young quarterbacks’ talents. ‘If he would have departed, we would have looked considerably different on offense,’ Gundy said of Weeden. No one in orange wants that. Now, that nightmare is averted. The Cowboys have their pitcher and their catcher and are poised to make 2011 another special season. Maybe the most special in OSU history.” He’s right on with ‘nobody in orange wants that’ — all we want is Gramps Weeden dropping back and slinging it all over Boone’s field.

Ubben on Blackmon and Weeden coming back – “The Sooners look like one of the favorites to open the 2011 preseason as the nation’s No. 1 team. Oklahoma State, which still must hire an offensive coordinator, could be solidly in the top 10 with two of its best players returning, and both playing behind five returning offensive linemen. That’s a good sign for the Big 12. And a good sign for anyone watching college football. More than anything else, Weeden, Jones, Blackmon and Broyles are fun to watch. The pair of duos have now given us another season to see them do their thing. They’ve all but guaranteed a compelling race for the first “true” Big 12 title, when the Big 12 shifts to a round-robin, nine-game conference schedule in 2011.”

Rush The Court calls out OSU and Georgia – “Both of these teams had gaudy records coming into tonight’s road games, but they were both exposed as the frauds that they are in losing to Vandy and Texas A&M, respectively. Georgia has a chance to make some waves given that they’ll have six games against the SEC West this season, but OSU has to deal with the loaded Big 12.”

John Klein on Blackmon and Weeden’s historical impact – “The decisions of Justin Blackmon and Brandon Weeden to pass on entering the NFL draft could be the most significant moment of the last quarter-century of Oklahoma State football.” That might be a little hyperbolic but it’s a solid article nonetheless.

Ubben with the best/worst of the Big XII bowls – “Best unsung hero: Dan Bailey, K/P, Oklahoma State. Bailey was forced into punting duty because Quinn Sharp was academically ineligible. All five of his punts were solid, and he pinned one inside the 20-yard line. He also hit all three of his field goals, two of which came from beyond 40 yards and another that was from 50.” All we do is recruit awesome kickers.

Eamonn Brennan on the Big XIIs scrappiest teams – “And though Oklahoma State is clearly hurting from the loss of talented scorer James Anderson, the Cowboys have been hanging tough thanks to Marshall Moses and Keiton Page, the latter of whom is a 5-foot-10 sharpshooting guard whose photo you might see if you look up “scrappiness” in the dictionary. (Ha. Like anyone uses dictionaries anymore.)”