September 24, 2026
Where I grew up in Oklahoma there were five seasons. There were Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and College Football season. Although Oklahoma tried to support a professional football team back in the 1980’s with the Oklahoma Outlaws, which was part of some off league that I don’t remember much about, pro football has never seemed to be able to find a home in Oklahoma. Such has never really seemed to matter though because college football reins superior in my home state. I’ll say home state, because concerning college football I simply can’t bring myself to say the Sooner State. Okay, this is where everything gets a little hazy. I’ve lived in Texas over ten years longer than I had lived in Oklahoma, but I still get the same verbal scorn from some people when they discover that I hail from the northland. “I hate Oklahoma!” I’ve heard more than a few proud Texans screech out to me. Some go out of their way to express their feelings with such outspoken opinions as, “I really hate Oklahoma! Oh my gosh do I hate Oklahoma!” Oh yes, I’ve heard that. Such a view generally leads me to the follow up question, “How can you hate an entire state? Was there a recent war that went on that I don’t know about?”
When I ask these passionate souls what their beef is, they claim that they are proud Texas Longhorn fans, and the University of Oklahoma is their sworn enemy. “Oh?” I continue. “When did you graduate from the University of Texas?” Of course, most of these people don’t have a single college credit to their name from anywhere. Worse yet, they just assume that because I hail from the Sooner State, I must be an OU Sooner fan. First of all, the fact that anyone can hate an entire state of 4,123,288 people and 69,699 square miles of land simply based on a college football team of 100 kids, a third of which come from Texas, is not only ridiculous but also pretty darn stupid. The fact that people just assume that I’m an OU Sooner fan is a bit weird as well.
People tend to forget that there are three Universities in Oklahoma that play division one college football. I didn’t grow up in a family rich enough to be a Tulsa University fan, but I did grow up in a house full of Oklahoma State fans. I’ll make that claim because me, my brother, and my dad were fans (not to mention we were all students at one time). My mom, on the other hand, would have let out a grand college cheer of joy if football (of any kind) was banned from the planet.
With a closet full of Oklahoma State shirts and a college diploma hanging on my wall, I’ve always considered myself a proud fan of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, regardless how bad they play or how little I’ve used my college education. Wherever I go on vacation I tend to run into OSU fans, and such was the case in Chicago a few weeks ago. The guy I met up in the lofty observation deck of the Willis Tower was a proud OSU alumnus and season ticket holder. Like a true fan he made the claim that the mighty Cowboys were going to be a better team this year. After going 1-11 last season all I could answer was, “They couldn’t get much worse.” Having said this, I feared that I had cursed my beloved team into going 0-12 this year just to prove me wrong.
Growing up as a minority in Oklahoma could be tough at times. I faced a lot of discrimination as a teen and even beyond college. Of course this had nothing to do with race. I say I was a minority because I was an Oklahoma State Cowboy fan. In any given group of a hundred Oklahomans, we proud members of the Cowboy Nation usually only numbered a mere two or three in the crowd while everyone else would be an avid OU Sooner fan. Because the two schools have similar enrollment numbers the majority of OU Sooner fans have never stepped foot on the university’s campus. There’s the old joke that asks the question, “What does an OSU Cowboy fan and an OU Sooner fan have in common? Neither of them went to school at OU.” I’ve even been on the OU campus once or twice, but in all my years of living in Oklahoma and North Texas I doubt if I’ve met more than ten people who actually hold a degree from the University of Oklahoma. One of them was my aunt.
I may have never used the college degree that I earned from OSU, but going there did make me a stronger person. Indeed, after years of abuse from OU fans every time I wore the proud orange of the OSU Cowboys I feel as though I’m tough enough to take on anything! Once I moved to North Texas though, I felt as if I was in a safe zone so to speak. Although I do occasionally encounter the radical Texas Longhorn as well as a few OU fans here and there, most of the people I know could care less about the game of football unless it’s played on a video game. If the subject of the actual sport of football is ever mentioned it’s usually concerning the Dallas Cowboys!
For me though, college football is still king, and for years I’ve anticipated the start of college football season like a little kid looking forward to Christmas! Every year there are just so many cool things to think about and questions to ponder over regarding college football. Questions such as, how wrong are the preseason rankings going to be this season? What cool scandals are going to pop up this year? How many commercials is former Alabama coach Nick Saban going to show up in? How crazy are the Oregon Ducks uniforms going to be this year? Indeed, lots of questions!
A new season always brings hope to the true fans regardless how bad their team tends to be. I say this because the last two seasons that OSU has played have certainly been ones best forgotten. Throughout most of my post college days the Oklahoma State Cowboys have charged into the season strong and mighty, and for the most part, kept me proud enough not to scrape the OSU alumni sticker off my pickup truck. However, two years ago my beloved Cowboys had a season that would make even the most casual fan want to hide in shame! Yes, it was nothing short of a nightmare! Well, at least I felt that way until the next season when my Cowboys played even worse! The team was so awful that the OSU fans turned on their legendary coach Mike Gundy and gave the longtime coach and former OSU quarterback a strong boot out of Cowboy land!
So this season the OSU Cowboys have a new coach which brought showers and rainbows of delightful optimism to the Cowboy Nation! All summer long the battle cry from the OSU faithful has been, “Things are going to be better this year!” Which I again answered with “Things couldn’t get much worse!” Well, I felt that way until my team laid an egg during their season opener against Tulsa University. My mighty Cowboys were supposed to easily win that game, but instead they easily blew it! My battle cry suddenly fell into, “Oh boy, here we go again.” However, the next week the mighty Cowboys actually showed up and put the beat down on the highly ranked Oregon Ducks, despite the Duck’s crazy uniforms. The following week my Cowboys destroyed some small school that I didn’t realize even had a football team. So, that gives my college team two wins for the year. I guess all the OSU faithful were right. With that second win my Cowboys are already better than they were last season. Go Pokes!
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