What I Love

What I Love, Vol. 3: The 1985 Oklahoma Sooners

By Bill C.@SBN_BillC Mar 26, 2011, 10:37am EDT

Seems counter-intuitive for a Mizzou fan to heap praise on an OU team, but hear me out.

I turned seven early in the 1985 season. I already knew enough about football to know that I loved it (I also loved Danny White and Tony Dorsett, for what that's worth), but I was not yet at an age to quite know why I loved it. In 1985, that changed. I loved Payton, The Fridge, and the other '85 Bears as much as every single other seven-year old on the planet ... but I enjoyed Jamelle Holieway, Spencer Tillman, Lydell Carr, Keith Jackson, etc., just as much. (Living an hour west of Oklahoma City, I heard about OU even more than the Bears.)

This team had everything a seven-year old football fan could possibly want. Talent. Speed. A flashy, super-entertaining offense. An absolute boatload of personality. More talent. More speed. The most incredible athlete the planet has ever produced at the tight end position. Even though I was never as much of a fan of OU as my classmates by any means ... I sure did love this team.

(It probably helps that I was still young enough to avoid becoming too cynical about the, uh, downside of those mid-1980s OU teams, eh?)

Regardless of whether I should or not, I still sort of love that team. For one thing, the wishbone was the ideal offense for me growing up (to the point where it's all I ran for about the first ten years of those NCAA Football Sega/Playstation games ... oh, how I miss you, Bill Walsh College Football). It just made sense to me. Pitch to this fast guy, keep it, pitch to this other fast guy, bomb it to your amazing tight end. Plus, there were so many memorable moments from that season -- Troy Aikman's injury, the crazy OU-Nebraska game, the even crazier OU-OSU game, the dominant Orange Bowl -- and ... again, I was seven. You love everything from when you're seven, whether it makes sense to or not. This was the team that made me completely fall in love with college football, and for that I still appreciate them ... even when rooting against Oklahoma now.

And no, I did not have a Boz haircut. But so, so many of my classmates did.

Oklahoma 63, Minnesota 0