Upon further review: Norman

Rotten timing for Norman to travel to Midwest City. The Tigers were feeling good, on a roll and confidence had reached a new high. Then they lose 63-7 to the Bombers.

Now, in reality, the loss doesn’t mean beans. Because if Norman beats Lawton Eisenhower this week in the regular-season finale, it will be headed to the playoffs for the first time since 2006. And before the game with Midwest City kicked off Friday, everyone already knew about the winner-take-all game for the last playoff spot in District 6A-2 between the Tigers and Eagles. An upset of Midwest City would have assured things for Norman, but very few people outside of the Norman locker room really expected that upset to occur.

Given that, Friday’s game was meaningless in terms of altering the stakes vs. Lawton Ike. And things would have been fine had Norman gone in and dropped a game by a reasonable score. But falling by 56 points and having 63-unasnwered points scored on you does tend to rattle confidence. That’s the last thing NHS needs right now. No, actually the last thing the Tigers need are injuries to key players  —  and that’s what they got in Midwest City as well.