Oh man...............I can't believe we're almost there! I've been counting down the days ever since my road trip back from phoenix. Although, I have decided this year not to count down everyday like that again. It's been a really, really long year!

Since its only on pay-per view, I will be making the trip down to Norman to see it! Visiting my fam and enjoying the game and the game day atmoshere! I can't hardly stand it!!!

Have a good day!

First off, i've been reading posts and blogs all day today. You guys have some really good stuff on here! I usually post on OU Insider but have become fairly bored with it. This site looks refreshling different and I plan to accustom myself with the layout here and then spark some good debates. Also, this site looks like a good place to do some Sooner bloggin'! Anyways, I grew up on the Southside of OKC, but now live in the Bartlesville area. So if there's any hardcore Sooner fans on here from my area I'd like to organize some trips to Norman this year.

 

Thanks & BOOMER SOONER

First let me say that the other day I was clearing off my desk and came across my ticket from last years Fiesta Bowl and immediately felt a sickness in my stomach.  I wonder if there is a support group for that?  To the real reason I posted:  I am looking for fellow Sooner Fans in the Colorado Springs area.  Specifically, I would like to know if by chance there is a group that gets together on game day.  I am retiring in the area after 22 years in the Army and it would make my time here a lot more pleasant if I had some of my own kind (Non Buff luvers) to hang out with.  If there are others of my kind out there....YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!

I am very upbeat about this upcoming season for our Sooners!!!  Last year I felt that we missed Adrian Peterson last year, but we can make up for it.  I think that we will be able to make a serious run at the National Championship game!!!! Who is Ohio State, LSU, or USC??? They all suck!!! We will destroy them!!!

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I found it tough to rank the best offenses in the conference mainly because the talent at quarterback is so deep. Most of last season’s top offenses will return the majority of their key players.

At first glance, my number one pick may look like a homer pick. However, there is a strong basis for my choice. It should be no surprise that the top three offenses have the top three quarterbacks in the conference. Here is how my rankings of the Big 12 offenses shake out....(read more)

Poll

Who has the best offense in the Big 12?

• Oklahoma
• Missouri
• Texas Tech
• Other

  96 votes | Results

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON CRIMSON OKIE

In 2007 Sam Bradford had one of the best freshman campaigns for a quarterback in college football history. Bradford threw 36 touchdown passes, breaking the old freshman record of 29. He was also amazingly accurate with a 69.5 completion percentage, while throwing for 3,121 yards and only giving up eight interceptions. The Freshman also led the nation with a 176.5 QB rating.

With a new no-huddle offense being implemented in hopes of creating more offensive plays per game, Bradford will be given the opportunity to surpass last years numbers. The addition of a healthy DeMarco Murray in the backfield will give him a dangerous option to throw to out of the back field.

The competition for footballs most highly touted individual award will be stiff. Last years winner, QB Tim Tebow will return for another season in Florida. Missouri QB Chase Daniel, who finished fourth in the the Heisman race last season, is also back.

My top five Heisman candidates are:

1. QB Tim Tebow (Florida) - Being the defending champion could be both a positive and a negative.

2. QB Sam Bradford (Oklahoma) - A year under his belt, and no-huddle offense will help.

3. QB Pat White (West Virginia) - Big play maker will make weekly highlight reels.

4. QB Chase Daniel (Missouri) - Not playing Oklahoma in the regular season will help.

5. RB Chris Wells (Ohio State) - Will be the focus of the Buckeye offense.

Poll

Who will win the Heisman in '08?

• Tim Tebow
• Sam Bradford
• Pat White
• Chase Daniel
• Chris Wells
• DeMarco Murray

  89 votes | Results

                          

 

Here at Crimson and Cream Machine, we have a little saying, "It is never too soon to talk Sooner Football." Sticking to that, Athlon Sports has been releasing their team by team pre-season Top 25 since May 1, with the Number 1 team coinciding with the release of their Pre-Season magazine June 4th.

Today was number 3 and that is where our Sooners check in. Athlon had this to say about the Sooners:

Oklahoma reloads with elite talent once again behind sophomores Sam Bradford and DeMarco Murray. Add in one of the nation's best offensive lines that returns intact and an always stout defense, and the Sooners should be playing in the New Year once again.

The rest of the Top 25 after the "jump"

 

Poll

Who is your number 1 team going into the 2008 season?

• Florida
• Ohio St
• Oklahoma
• USC
• Georgia
• Other

  134 votes | Results

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The first round of the NIT brackets are now posted at the College Baseball Dugout. Take a few minutes and cast your votes. You can vote for two of the four teams in each bracket. The team that advances will be determined based on both votes and luck. For example, if Baylor receives 48% of the votes in its bracket it will have a 48% chance of advancing. If Army receives 2% of the votes in its bracket, the Black Knights still will have a shot at moving on.

 

For more coverage on the NIT tournament:

Baylor Receives #1 Seed in First Annual NIT Tournament!.

College Baseball NIT Field of 32 Set! San Diego State and Washington in! Notre Dame and William and Mary Snubbed!

 

 

 

The much anticipated launch of the new platform has finally arrived. Trei and crew have worked very diligently to get this up and running for us so please take a moment to read the following post and learn how to play with all the new bells and whistles of our great site.  – ccmachine

 

Hey Crimson And Cream Machine Readers,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Crimson And Cream Machine from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Crimson And Cream Machine and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Crimson And Cream Machine now has all the basic information about the Oklahoma Sooners and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Oklahoma Sooners material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

     I said this last year when Nichols Lost the starting job, he aint staying and looks like I was right on, It sucks to lose a guy, but lets all be honest once bradford cemented the job last season and halzle ensured he was the  backup, nichols musta felt a bit wasted at OU he probably wasn't gonna play at least not for a few seasons, he still has a redshirt year left, and with the newest QB recruit for OU looking at least as good as nichols why stay? I wish him the best but I am not surprised

below is the article with the details.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3389366