Sooners announce full schedule

CAMPUS CORNER — As we suspected, the wait for the rest of OU’s 2012 football schedule was a short one.

No surprises, based on Tuesday’s information: At UTEP on Sept. 1 and hosting Florida A&M in the Sept. 8 home opener. Notre Dame was already set for Oct. 27.

“We have a philosophy of playing a challenging schedule on a yearly basis that puts our team in the best possible situation to make a run at a championship,” OU coach Bob Stoops said. “I know that Joe Castiglione puts our program’s best interests at the forefront when scheduling our opponents and it shows with the quality of teams on our schedule. We look forward to another challenging year and hope our fans reflect the excitement we have for this year’s schedule.”

Did UTEP and Florida A&M really merit that sort of statement? Or something more like “Joe did the best he could with a bad situation …”

Here’s the schedule, in full:

Sept. 1 — At UTEP

Sept. 8 — Florida A&M

Sept. 15 — BYE

Sept. 22 — Kansas State

Sept. 29 — BYE

Oct. 6 — at Texas Tech

Oct. 13 — Texas (Dallas)

Oct. 20 — Kansas

Oct. 27 — Notre Dame

Nov. 3 — at Iowa State

Nov. 10 — Baylor

Nov. 17 — at West Virginia

Nov. 24 — Oklahoma State

Dec. 1 — at TCU

That is one strange-looking schedules, with one legitimate game and two weeks off in September and then a terribly challenging three-game finish. I know fans are clamoring to have, say, the Kansas game moved up, to allow for some wiggle room in the latter weeks. As it is, OU would play nine games in nine weeks to finish the season.

= Trav