OU football: Bob Stoops prefers Thanksgiving weekend game

OU still awaits its 2011 Big 12 football schedule. It seems likely that the Thanksgiving weekend games are the holdup, but if so, it’s not the Sooners dragging their feet. Bob Stoops said he wants to play Thanksgiving weekend.

Stoops the other day said that with Bedlam moved from Thanksgiving weekend to December, he’d prefer to have a game Thanksgiving weekend and an open date earlier in the season.

I still say OU-Missouri would be an excellent Thanksgiving Saturday game, and I also think it’s important that the Big 12 schedule a decent game or two for that Saturday. Texas-Texas A&M is Thanksgiving night, and Texas Tech-Baylor is set for Thanksgiving Saturday, but if, as everyone expects, OU and OSU join A&M as the league’s marquee teams, you can’t have the Bedlam rivals both sitting out one of the big football days of the season. That’s not good marketing.

Of course, the holdup could be that if the Sooners are going to play on Thanksgiving Saturday, they want OSU to play Thanksgiving weekend, too, and not have an open date before Bedlam. I don’t know that. Just guessing.

Texas Tech released its schedule Wednesday. I think Tech officials figured out they weren’t involved in any of the haggling over the schedule; the Red Raiders have been set, so why wait?

It’s become perilously close to danger time on this conference schedule. I mean, we’re 10 days from May, and most schools in the Big 12 don’t have a schedule yet. That’s absurd. Academicians, fund-raisers, social calendars, business people, even run-of-the-mill fans, all kinds of people around Big 12 campuses and cities need to know when the games are going to be played.