Linking Up: Bill Connelly's Oklahoma Sooners season preview
Some of the things you should be paying attention to around the internet:
*If you surveyed the college football intelligentsia this offseason, I suspect the general consensus would be that Oklahoma will come back closer to the pack this year in the Big 12, making the conference race fairly wide open. In that respect, CFB analytics guru Bill Connelly appears downright bullish on the Sooners.
To be fair, Bill's efficiency numbers rank OU as ninth overall in the preseason, so we're not talking about the Sooners as some kind of juggernaut. However, even with the departure of Baker Mayfield, Bill pegs the Sooners as the Big 12's clear favorite with a real shot at another trip to the College Football Playoff. Notably, he favors the Sooners by more than a touchdown in every game except for their October trip to TCU.
(I can't help but get a little more optimistic about the upcoming season as time passes.)
*I've done a lot of writing recently for Athlon on Big 12 scheduling. In addition to ranking the conference's toughest schedules for the upcoming season, I also did breakdowns of the slates for OU, Oklahoma State and Texas.
*Would it shock you to learn that David Boren claims little involvement in hiring John Blake and Howard Schnellenberger back in the '90s?
Another stunner: DBo says he took charge in the coaching search that landed Bob Stoops. Classic.
*Note the anecdote at the end of Joel Anderson's piece on Kyler Murray's introduction with the Oakland A's.
*I've almost finished the new Tiger Woods bio by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. I've heard some criticism of the book for its salacious details about Woods' behavior in the bedroom, but what has stuck with me the most is the portrayal of his upbringing. It inflicted so much damage on him, which became evident once he reached adulthood.
*Two podcast recommendations.
The first is In the Dark, a true crime joint from American Public Media. The first season, which analyzes the fallout from a child abduction case in Minnesota, is very good. The podcast takes things to another level in the second season, though, when it looks beneath the lid of a case involving a man accused of quadruple homicide in Mississippi. The investigative team's breakdown of jury selection deserves special recognition.
On a lighter note, I really dig Cocaine & Rhinestones, which delves into the history and apocrypha behind country music in the 20th century. (Think Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, etc.) You don't have to be an aficionado of the musical genre to appreciate the depth of research and the level of obsession it took to curate these stories.
What should I be reading/watching/listening to?