Checking in Before Kickoff in Cincinnati

Dean Blevins checks in before the Sooners kick off against Cincinnati Saturday.

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 11:57 am

By: News On 6

Checking in Before Kickoff in Cincinnati

Originally Published: Sep 25, 2010 12:4 PM CDT

Dean Blevins
Oklahoma Sports Sports Director - Oklahoma City

-Wonder if the band-that-never-stopped kept the team up the way it did me? We’re staying at the team hotel here in downtown Cincinnati, a few miles from where the Sooners and Bearcats play at Paul Brown Stadium.

A revved up band facing the hotel no more than twenty paces from the lobby was playing blaring loud and proud when we arrived at 6 P.M. EST. They were still playing at midnight and they were still strumming and beating and singing deep into the night and early into the morning. And music was blaring from the same stage before sun up this morning. I hope the team got more sleep than I did. It reminds me of the stories where home fans would call the hotel rooms of players and coaches of the visiting teams in the middle of the night.

-Will the heart attack symptoms suffered by Michigan Coach Mark Dantonio effect how long Bob Stoops coaches? A picture of the huge new home Stoops and his wife Carol are building floated around this week on the internet, reminding one that there is indeed a good chance the coach might just end his coaching career in Norman.

But the Stoops family tree has suffered more than its share of heart attacks at an early age. Stoops has repeatedly stated he’s not going to coach into his sixties—which is old in today’s stressful world of win-at-all-costs and the pressures that go with living up to the tons of money some of them make.

I brought up Dantonio’s heart attack during a commercial break during the taping of his TV show last Sunday. Stoops was stunned by the news and told me “Dino” was a close friend of his—showed me his phone where he’d actually called to check in with him early Sunday morning (he was calling to talk football and had left a funny message about another head coach).

-College players are kids at heart. They may able to lift tall building and be able to outrun cheetahs, but they are still 18-22 year-olds. I imagine they’ll be pumped when they see the white jersey’s hanging from their lockers today when they arrive. It’s the first time the whites will have been pulled out, and I’d bet most of them are like I was—prefer the whites over the home crimson.

-My guess is the Sooners will either blow these guys out by 15-25 or be in a close one that could go either way. I tend to expect the latter because OU has played sub-par ball in two of three games and the fact that this is the first road trip.

-Rarely does a betting line move more than a point or two. But the line for this one has shifted by as much as four points. In most places it opened with OU favored by 17 1/2. Last night, several odds makers had it at OU 13 1/2. The only time I’ve seen this type of change is when a team has suspended several players or a star QB gets hurt. But neither has happened with the Sooners.

Enjoy the game and we’ll check in with you after the game.