ARLINGTON – One of the most enduring myths of President George H.W. Bush, may he rest in peace, is the story of his encounter with a grocery-store scanner.
The episode was either just before or in the midst of his failed reelection campaign in 1992, the memory bank is faulty at times, but it did him no favors in appearing seemingly amazed at the “new technology” of a supermarket scanner.
It wasn’t new at all, by that time scanners were a regular feature for the commoners. But political opponents were able to label him as elite and out of touch with the common man.
In fact, the scanner that drew the president’s attention was indeed different. It could read labels that were ripped up and jumbled. That was the technology that amazed him.
But the perception stuck, and perception is reality.
Oklahoma, a 39-27 winner over Texas on Saturday in the Big 12 Championship Game, finds itself in a similar predicament on College Football Playoff selection Sunday.
The No. 5 Sooners, who are trying to creep into one of four slots in the playoff, have been labeled.
The allegation: The one-loss Sooners aren’t well-rounded enough to be among the four best teams. In other words, their defense stinks.
In the end, there might be other issues that keep OU outside in the college football cold.
One is Georgia, No. 4 before a loss to No. 1 Alabama.
However, the Bulldogs gave the best team, clearly the best team, its best game all season. That alone might be enough to keep them in. To the skeptics, though, that second loss of the season is enough to be found wanting, no matter who it was against or how competitive they were.
No. 6 Ohio State, with a reputation for worming its way into the playoff, made its case the past two weeks with victories over Michigan and on Saturday night over — insert eye roll here — Northwestern.
“We’ve beat everybody on our schedule,” Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said. “You’ve got to win by win point in these games last time I checked. I feel like we can score points on people and I feel like we can stop people. I feel like we’re gaining traction defensively. I feel like we have our highest performances in the last couple of weeks in huge games against dynamic offenses, and I don’t think we’ve played our best yet this year, and I think we’re going to get there.
“I absolutely feel like it.”
Having possibly the best player in college football — Kyler Murray — doesn’t hurt either.
Our local college football Plato, his own self a defensive savant, has a point of view that he shared a couple of weeks ago.
“I’m a coach. I just watch. I played Ohio State. I played both,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said. “I know who I’d rather play again and who I wouldn’t. They’re both good football teams.
“Everybody wants to say that Oklahoma … they’re not playing very good defense. It really doesn’t make any difference. This thing I hear about, ‘well, you have to be a complete team.’ No, you don’t. You just have to have one side of the ball that’s better than anything anybody else can do. All these people out there who have all those opinions about all that. They need to try to defend them.”
Oklahoma’s offense is all of that.
That was a far better endorsement than the mild testimonial Texas coach Tom Herman gave on Saturday. Of whether the Sooners belong in the CFP, Herman replied with a very underwhelming “I don’t know.”
He hasn’t seen all the others, he said.
Perhaps he wasn’t aware of the windfall the conference’s institutions stand to make with an appearance. Then again, Texas doesn’t have a sterling reputation when it comes to being company men.
The Big 12 itself isn’t a top-shelf item on Oklahoma’s résumé.
The conference is good, to be sure, but it’s not great. That’s an assertion the TCU coach would disagree with. You try playing these offenses, he has said.
That’s not to say it doesn’t stack up well in comparison with the other Power 5s, though there is no comparison to the SEC … West.
But Oklahoma’s application is a no-brainer acceptance if Texas is the Texas of old.
Simply put, the Big 12’s reputation is far better when Texas is good. In this writer’s assessment, Texas being down was as much a hindrance to Baylor and TCU in 2014 than the lack of a conference championship game.
When Texas and Oklahoma are both good, it’s good for the conference.
Make no mistake, the Longhorns are trending in the right direction. Texas is getting there.
“I think that we learned that we can hang with anybody when we play well,” Texas QB Sam Ehlinger said. “We really bought into what the coaches preached … we’ve learned that the only thing that can stop us is us.
“I think it’s enlightening to know that we are going in the right direction. We can fix those things.”
In time, the conversation might be whether two Big 12 teams belong in the CFP, regardless of the labels.
One of these days.
