Tramel's ScissorTales: Kansas State still No. 1 in Big 12 rankings, but OU up to No. 2

We’ve reached the back third of September and still know very little about Big 12 football. 

We assume the Sooners are the class of the league; the Sooners always are the class of the league. But OU has played two opponents outside of Western Carolina. Both Tulane and Nebraska could be described as mediocre. So-so Big Ten. So-so mid-major. OU beat the former by five and the latter by seven. 

OSU is unbeaten, with victory margins of seven (Missouri State), five (Tulsa) and one (Boise State).  

Kansas State is unbeaten, with two decent victories, but has lost its quarterback, Skylar Thompson. 

Texas Christian is unbeaten but has an advantage, it’s only played two games. 

Texas, as usual, is an enigma. The Longhorns seem likely to be on both ends of upsets throughout the year. 

Iowa State? Who knows yet? 

West Virginia? Cold and hot. 

The Monday ScissorTales take a look at the OU-Nebraska game and post the finale Boise travelblog. But we start with the Big 12 football rankings. 

Big 12 play begins in earnest Saturday (Baylor at Kansas hardly counts), and the hunt for a Big 12 Championship Game berth, ostensibly against OU, seems open to a bunch of teams. 

Let’s get to the rankings, and remember, these are based on what teams have done. Who they played, where they played and how they did. 

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1. Kansas State 3-0

Another impressive win for the Wildcats. Nevada was hot coming in, having beaten California. So of the Big 12’s eight solid wins in non-conference, KSU has two of them, one with Will Howard quarterbacking. 

“What a win,” said K-State coach Chris Klieman said. “We challenged the guys early in the week that we needed to take the next step as a football team. We've been prepared for it, we kind of built for this, we knew the non-con schedule was going to be extremely difficult. We knew adversity had struck losing Skylar, and we challenged the guys to rise up, get their game to the next level and show that we can play with a really quality team like Nevada.” 

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2. Oklahoma 3-0

When the Sooners struggled with Tulane in the opener, winning 40-35, the hope was perhaps that the Green Wave is better than advertised. Score from Saturday – Ole Miss 61, Tulane 21. 

“Proud of our team for finding a way to win,” Lincoln Riley said. “I thought we were in the fight the whole way. Our mentality is starting to take shape a little bit. We’ll get another challenge next week on that. But I’m pleased with what I’m seeing from our mentality.” 

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3. Oklahoma State 3-0

Wasn’t pretty, wasn’t easy, wasn’t void of officiating controversy. But OSU won 21-20 at Boise State, and any win in Boise is to be treasured. Both Oregon and Washington lost in their only trip to Albertsons Stadium. 

“I told the team after the game that because of the way that we have to play football right now, we’re learning how to play as a team,” Mike Gundy said. “We have a culture in place that allows guys to ignore the conditions and keep playing, and that's what they did." 

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4. West Virginia 2-1

I didn’t figure the Mountaineers for losing at Maryland 30-24, then beating Virginia Tech 27-21 Saturday. I would have expected a reversal. Either way, it puts you ahead of the curve in the Big 12. 

"Really happy for our team, for our fans,” WVU coach Neal Brown said. “I'm worn out. I feel like I played. This was going to be a grind-it-out game from the start. Winning is hard, and I thought this was going to be a defining moment for us and this team, where we're at." 

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5. TCU 2-0

The Horned Frogs have a huge non-conference game this week, against cross-Metroplex rival Southern Methodist. 

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6. Texas 2-1

Casey Thompson looked solid at quarterback in his first start for the Longhorns, against Rice. The most important piece of information in that previous sentence was the word “Rice.” 

Still, UT coach Steve Sarkisian was pleased with Thompson. 

“I imagine Casey will kind of lead the charge next week against Texas Tech,” Sark said. 

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7. Texas Tech 3-0

The Red Raiders’ victory over Houston remains a feat of unknown import. Tech rallied to beat Stephen F. Austin a week ago, then eventually routed Florida International 54-21. 

“You look back on the first two games, and resilient is the first word that comes to mind,” Tech coach Matt Wells said. “Down 14 at half, down seven at half, nobody bickering, nobody griping, nobody arguing, playing together and then having a sense of urgency in the third quarter to tie games to take leads and find ways to win at the end. I think I learned that we are in pretty good condition, we are built for a fourth quarter game.” 

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8. Iowa State 2-1

What if the Cyclones’ loss to Iowa looks better and better as the season progresses? The Hawkeyes appear to be a load. 

Anyway, it’s a good sign that Iowa State finally blew out an overmatched foe, Nevada-Las Vegas, 48-3. The Cyclones had opened the season with a narrow victory over Northern Iowa. 

“I think we played with the intensity and the sense of urgency that really I expected our football team to have,” ISU coach Matt Campbell said. “For whatever reason, I've done a poor job prior to maybe early on this week of getting that sense of urgency demanded … I put those things on my shoulders. And I thought, in terms of a sense of urgency and energy, I certainly think some of those things were much improved from where we were the first two weeks." 

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9. Baylor 3-0

The Bears host Iowa State on Saturday. We start learning a lot more about the Bears. 

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10. Kansas 0-3

KU trailed only 14-7 at halftime against Baylor. That’s progress. 

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OU’s third-down defense must improve 

OU’s 23-16 survival of Nebraska was much more competitive than most thought. It looked like old-fashioned Sooners-Huskers, except it was much hotter Saturday in Norman than in those old November showdowns. 

Much has been written about the game, but here are some observations. 

► OU’s third-down defense was not good. 

The Sooner defense in general played well. Holding Nebraska to 384 total yards, 18 first downs and 16 points is winning football. That’s probably winning football in 1974, much less 2021. 

But remember, the Cornhuskers had only nine possessions. So that makes a difference. 

And OU had a troubling trend on third down. One reason it was a low-possession game was the Sooner defense’s inability to get off the field. Nebraska had only two possessions without a first down. 

The primary reason? Nebraska success on third-and-long plays. 

The Huskers converted six of 14 third downs, which is not-terrible defense. But get this. Nebraska never faced third-and-short. The Huskers once needed four yards on third down and twice needed five yards on third down. 

The other 11 third downs faced by Nebraska needed at least six yards. And the Huskers converted four: 

1. A 31-yard completion from Adrian Martinez to Omar Manning on third-and-12, on Nebraska’s first drive; 

2. Martinez’s eight-yard completion to Rahmir Johnson on third-and-6, on that opening drive, setting up a field goal. 

3. Gabe Ervin’s 13-yard run on third-and-12, when NU was backed up at its 2-yard line late in the first half. That play allowed the Huskers to run out most of the clock in the first half, and the Sooners settled for a 7-3 halftime lead. 

4. A seven-yard scramble by Martinez on third-and-7 in the third quarter, extending a drive that resulted in a third-quarter touchdown. 

Third downs can be deceiving. But the Sooners played excellent defense on first and second down; not so much on third downs. 

“Guys made a couple plays,” Lincoln Riley said of the third-down defense. “A couple times we were in three-man rushes and didn’t quite get the pressure that we feel like we should have. Several of them were kind of on broken plays with that. That’s the chess game back and forth, especially with an athletic quarterback like him. He’s so good at pulling it down and running it that that in a lot of ways can be their best third down offense and maybe the toughest one to defend. 

“I thought we adjusted a little as it went on. It’s kind of like the Tulane game where all of a sudden it’s four-down territory all the time. When you are playing a team where it’s four downs instead of three, it’s just a different world. We’d all be a lot better on offense if we knew we had four downs every time we touched the football. I’m sure there’s some things we can clean up coverage wise, but hard to fault our pass rush. A couple times we’ve got to get there, couple times we’ve got to lock in and cover better on the back end.” 

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► Eric Gray finally showed why the OU coaches have him starting at tailback. Kennedy Brooks looked like the superior runner through two games, which is no surprise, since Brooks effectively made Trey Sermon a backup. 

Brooks was good against Nebraska, with 75 yards on 14 carries. But Gray was good, too, with 84 yards on 15 carries. 

Gray made a huge play late. With OU facing second-and-10 from its 8-yard line, holding a seven-point lead with maybe 4½ left in the game, Gray took a handoff on an outside zone play and scooted around left end for 16 yards, making a good cut to give the Sooners much-needed breathing room. 

I love Brooks. But Gray is handy, too. 

“He did great,” Riley said. “He dominated. I mean he ran the ball tough. Man, he’s a baller. He’s a great guy. He’s just a person that goes out there and does his job.” 

► OU’s deep-passing game has been mostly ineffective through three games, particularly against Nebraska. It looked to me like the Huskers were determined to make the Sooners play the short game. 

Spencer Rattler only launched three downfield balls all game. Two were well-covered and fell incomplete. Another connected with Marvin Mims for 23 yards.   

It’s not like Rattler is missing on the long throws. He’s just got no one open. 

Expect West Virginia to mimic Nebraska’s success. 

“Obviously we saw what they wanted to do,” Rattler said of Nebraska’s soft zone pass coverage. “Throughout the first half, they were bringing a lot of pressure and dropping into zone. That gives us a challenge. Our offense … we like to go. We like to take shots and do this and that.” 

► OU won this game with its red-zone defense. 

The Sooners penetrated the Nebraska 20-yard line thrice and produced three touchdowns; 21 points. 

The Cornhuskers penetrated the OU 20-yard line four times and produced two touchdowns and no field goals; 13 points. 

To open the third quarter, Nebraska reached the OU 18-yard line with a first down. But safety Pat Fields tackled Ervin for no gain on first down, Fields and Jalen Redmond held Ervin to a 1-yard gain, then Redmond and Isaiah Thomas hurried Martinez into an incompletion. Nebraska missed a 35-yard field goal kick. 

Trailing 23-9 early in the fourth quarter, Nebraska reached the OU 17-yard line with a first down. But Martinez gained only one yard on a power keeper, overthrew tight end Austin Allen in the end zone, then was sacked by Redmond. On fourth down, D.J. Graham made that sensational interception. 

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Boise travelblog: ‘Quite a setting’ describes Idaho 

Our Idaho adventure is over, capped by quite a game in quite a setting. Of course, quite a setting describes much of the state. 

Trish the Dish flew home Saturday, leaving me to cover OSU-Boise State, which the Cowboys won 21-20 at Albertsons Stadium, which is known for its blue turf, to the detriment of its fabulous setting hard against what the locals call the Boise foothills but what we would call mountains. 

Our last Idaho adventure before GameDay was a trip north out of Boise, to the resort town of McCall. We had tried to get there Thursday but were turned back by a closed mountain highway. 

We persevered. To give us a different look, we didn’t drive straight to McCall. We went around on the west, even scraping through about two miles of Oregon.  

We saw a lot of the high desert landscape that we saw going east from Boise to Sun Valley, but with one major distinction. We saw miles and miles of lush agriculture. Gorgeous green fields in valleys surrounded by the brown of the Rockies. 

We saw all kinds of sights, including a pickup pulling a recreation vehicle that apparently had run over a cow. I shouldn’t say that. That’s jumping to conclusions. But the pickup/RV was parked on the side of the road, with a cow lying on the pavement under the RV. I’m sure it happens in Oklahoma all the time, but I’ve never seen it. 

Eventually, we reached the alpine area of the mountains, just north of McCall, and it was as gorgeous as what you see in Colorado. 

McCall sits on Payette Lake. The town of about 3,500 originally was a logging community, but the last sawmill closed in the 1970s, and today McCall is an all-seasons resort, with a major Winter Carnival and sporting some of Idaho’s largest snowfalls. Skiing and snowmobiling brings visitors from all over.

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McCall apparently is a summer hotspot, too, for outdoor activities. It is built around the lake, with houses and condos backing up to the water and available for tourists, with tons more places in town. 

McCall is an idyllic setting. “Northwest Passage,” a 1940 film starring Robert Young, Walter Brennan and Spencer Tracy, was filmed in McCall. 

It was a great place to tour for a few hours – the Dish hit quite a few shops – and would be great for a weekend getaway. 

Just another reminder of all the hidden jewels around Idaho. 

It’s a big state, a long way from Oklahoma, so we know little about it. But Idaho is 14th among the 50 states in area, 38th in population. Idaho is 479 miles tall, counting the panhandle, and 305 miles wide. Big ol’ place, and it’s getting more people. Idaho’s population has doubled since 1980, up to 1.8 million. It’s the ninth-fastest-growing state, behind Utah, Texas, Florida, Colorado, North Dakota, Nevada, Arizona and Washington.

Friday, we drove back to Boise, picked up colleague Scotty Wright, who had flown in earlier in the afternoon, and joined friends Cameron and Stephanie Johnston for dinner. 

Cameron is a CPA in Chickasha, Stephanie works at the OU College of Law, and they are big OSU fans who try to make as many road games as they can. 

We went to a small Italian joint called Luciano’s. It was spectacular. I had seafood risotto and couldn’t finish it, which never happens and probably did this time because the Dish ordered three splentabulous appetizers. 

We had a great time. The same could be said for the entire trip. 

Saturday was all about business. I watched OU-Nebraska, took the Dish to the airport, watched more college football and then headed to the blue turf. 

Scotty and I worked until about 2 a.m. Boise time, returned to the Springhill Suites and recorded a podcast. Finally got to sleep about 4 a.m., woke up around 8:30 and watched pro football until my 6 p.m. flight, which was full of OSU fans. 

Good-bye, Idaho. Hope to return soon. 

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Mailbag: OU-Nebraska from prehistoric days 

All the OU-Nebraska revelry from last week only produced more OU-Nebraska revelry. 

Ed: “I know it stamps me as old, but in all the stuff I saw about OU-Nebraska games of the past, I didn't see anything about one of my favorites, the 49-35 win in 1950, no doubt because I was there for it, in the stadium, and saw Bobby Reynolds score all 21 of Nebraska's first-half points, including PATs, by himself – to forge a 21-21 tie at that intermission. He was remarkable that year, but we had the better team, which showed in the second half. A treasured memory. (Billy) Vessels is probably my favorite Sooner, but Reynolds might be my favorite opponent. As far as my age, I'm not as old as either Switzer or Osborne!” 

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Tramel: Bobby Reynolds was known as Mr. Touchdown at Nebraska. He was from Grand Island, Nebraska, and was a sophomore sensation in 1950, then was beset by injuries the next two years. 

Reynolds got the Mr. Touchdown nickname after RCA (Radio Corporation of America, an electronics company) offered a television set and a silver-plated album to the college football player in 1950 who scored the most touchdowns. It was to promote the song, “Mr. Touchdown, U.S.A.” 

Ed’s email got me to thinking about MY favorite opponents for OU or OSU. I know this is going to seem odd, but I always liked Kliff Kingsbury when he quarterbacked Texas Tech. From Big Eight days, I liked Colorado tailback Charlie Davis and Missouri quarterback Steve Pisarkiewicz. Wish I could have seen more of those guys. Television was limited. 

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Classic Flick Pick: 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'

My all-time favorite movie hero is Zorro. But Robin Hood is a strong second, and it stems from 1938.  

Filmed in technicolor, “The Adventures of Robin Hood” is a robust story, brilliantly filmed with cool action and a great score. 

Errol Flynn plays the title character, and Basil Rathbone is one of Hollywood’s great villains, as Guy of Gisbourne. The fencing scenes between Flynn and Rathbone are fantastic; Rathbone in real life was a skilled swordsman. 

You know the story. Sir Robin of Locksle leads an outlaw band of Saxons rebelling against Prince John and the Norman lords, in King Richard the Lionheart’s absence to the Holy Land during the Crusades. 

Flynn turns Robin Hood into an iconic Hollywood hero, and the story is fast-moving and the action is packed. 

Flynn and Rathbone are joined by some all-timers. Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian, the glorious Claude Rains as Prince John, Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck (he played a similar role in “The Mark of Zorro”) and Alan Hale Sr. as Little John. 

The movie won the Oscar for best art direction (Carl Jules Weyl), best film editing (Ralph Dawson) and best original score (Erich Wolfgang Korngold – the love theme of Robin and Marian became a celebrated concert piece. “The Adventures of Robin Hood” was nominated for best picture; “You Can’t Take It With You” won. 

But you most definitely can take “The Adventures of Robin Hood” with you. I have since seeing it as a kid. 

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.