Goofy scholarship mismanagement costing OU football team

Consider Ratterree just more collateral damage from the Sooners' kicking odyssey.

Bob Stoops has granted scholarships to four kickers, with a fifth promised to yet another kicker.

I can hear the jokes now. How many scholarships does it take to screw in a field goal?

But it's true. Jimmy Stevens, Patrick O'Hara, Tress Way and Bryce Easley have scholarships, and Michael Hunnicutt has been promised one next year. None of the five are seniors.

So when the Sooners are running short of defensive tackles, or there's no scholarship available for a feel-good-story, hard-working kid like Ratterree, you know why.

Throwing good money after bad.

Stoops, who is more frustrated than anyone with OU's field goal fiascos the last three seasons, has reached the point where he's handing out kicking scholarships to everyone this side of Charlie Brown.

That kind of thinking is what got America in all this credit card debt.

Two scholarships to kickers (Stevens and O'Hara) who keep the position in chaos, two scholarships to guys (Hunnicutt and Easley) who can't beat out the first two and one scholarship to Way, who actually is a very good punter and a passable kickoff man. Guilt by association.

Hey, I know that scholarship distribution is a tough call for a head coach even with a dependable kicker, much less a coach who has to make casting calls.

And the easiest solution — revoking scholarships and starting from scratch — is not humane or even recommended, no matter how tempting.