Pokes Named National Champs!

Celebration time! Cowboys No. 1.

By John Helsley

jhelsley@opubco.com

follow on Twitter @jjhelsley

Finally, some all-out love for the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

And if cyber-love is your thing, or you’ll welcome any love from any corner when it comes to the Cowboys and their place outside of the BCS title talk, here’s a hug: OSU has been declared National Champion!

And it gets better – a second helping of Bedlam beatdown better.

The folks at nbcsports.com, namely columnist Michael Ventre, put together a 16-team “make believe” playoff.

OSU emerged No. 1.

The Cowboys clobbered OU – again – in a first-round re-matchup, routed Arkansas in the quarterfinals, outlasted Alabama and outscored Oregon (yeah, the Ducks upset LSU in the other semi) to claim this most mythical of national titles.

What does it all mean? Nothing, of course, except that none of us are satisfied with this year’s road to the BCS coronation. So we keep grousing and complaining and wishing for something better to determine our national champ.

In an absence of that, we’re left with a pretend world that isn’t at all satisfying.

As Ventre concludes:

How are you feeling about that? Overjoyed? Outraged? Satisfied? Irritated?

Whatever your emotions, you’ll agree that letting it play out on the field is more in keeping with the spirit of competition than letting computer geeks match wits. LSU and Alabama certainly are deserving, but I’d rather seem them get there with brawn than with math.

In football, goons are better than geeks any old day.

***

The Cowboys basketball team returns to the floor Saturday in the All-College Classic, taking on New Mexico in a tipoff scheduled for 9:30 p.m. inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.

OSU is 6-3 and still in search of a true identity in this season.

But Le’Bryan Nash is starting to play better and coach Travis Ford has begun to tighten his rotation and experimentation, just as the Cowboys prepare for a rugged three-week run into Big 12 play.

Here’s an e-mail discussion I did with Anthony Slater at The Daily O’Collegian, OSU’s student newspaper.