Oklahoma football: Co-champs*

On the Bob Stoops’ television show this week, sitting on the table with host Dean Blevins and a variety of OU coaches was the Big 12 football championship trophy. The Sooners are not subtle about celebrating their title.

Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops

After the 24-17 victory over TCU last Saturday, OU broke out caps and T-shirts proclaiming their title, and the entire team posed for photos with the scoreboard in the background, just as the Sooners had after all those conference championship game victories in Kansas City or Houston or San Antonio.

OU and Kansas State tied for the Big 12 title, and KSU’s 24-19 victory in Norman back in September is a tiebreaker for the Fiesta Bowl berth, but not for conference championship consideration.

However, the whole thing has a certain funny feel to it, because of what Stoops said a year ago. When OU went to OSU for the regular-season finale in 2011, OSU led the Big 12 by a game over the Sooners. An OU victory would have created a tie for the conference championship, and OU would have earned the Fiesta Bowl berth.

Here’s what Stoops said the week of Bedlam 2011: “There will be one (champion). That’s just how I see it. Again, I don’t know any other way to look at it. If you’re all going to play each other, it pretty well sets up that way.”