I'm sure by now all of you out there have read the Grantland article by Brian Phillips.
It is with a great amount of conflict I link to that piece of trash, as I don't want anyone to actually visit that website. Unfortunately, the entire premise of my article is based off that crap. If you haven't read it, what you need to know is that Phillips wrote that the OSU fanbase is the most miserable in all of sports, that we are cursed.
That part doesn't bother me so much, perhaps we are cursed, and when one looks at the numbers they suggest that. No Big 12 titles. No national titles (ever). Only 8 conference championships (and none recently). All this, while our neighbors to the south rake in conference championships, national championships, and buy Heismans like most of their fans buy lottery tickets.
So, before I get on with deciding if we are cursed, first I'm going to take on Mr. Phillips.
Do I care that he claims we are tortured? No, looking at the data that's fair. What bothers me is his reasons. He invented a word, "squinky", which supposedly describes and entire century of futility. What a joke. No, he can't come up with any better reason for the Cowboys inability to win big games than an unknown dark force he calls "squinky". I'm restraining myself, because usually I'd release a string of vulgarities at Mr. Phillips, and while he deserves it, I think that would detract from my point.
It is simply ridiculous to blame every bad break, every broken coverage, and every injury on a dark force. Why, throughout history, have OU and Nebraska (and more recently Texas), been so damn hard to beat?Simple, they had better facilities, they had better fan bases, and they attracted better recruits.
When 3 star talent faces 5 star talent the 5 star wins about 80 percent of the time. Hmm, funny, seeing as how we've lost to OU about 80 percent of the time. Notice, however, that I said "had better", as in the past tense. We can compete with facilities, we can compete with recruits, and finally, we can compete on the field.
However, this does not address a key point of his article - that we are cursed. Click the jump and we'll decide if we actually are...
What is the definition of a curse? According to Webster's, a curse is: A prayer or invocation for harm or injury to come upon one, and evil or misfortune that comes as if in response to imperfection or as retribution (there are others, but none that actually apply).
So, judging by that, unless some gooner medicine man back in the early 1900's had some shaman power that has lasted an entire century, it is unlikely that we are actually cursed. Now, as I said earlier, we have simply not had the ability to consistently compete on the football field (all other sports, that's different).
But, as I've said, instead of doing work, and making a humorous yet reasonable article, Phillips chose to create one of the stupidest words ever known, and attach it to the Cowboys. Thanks! Not like we haven't had enough things for moblihoma fans to make fun of us for and now we have "squinky". More importantly he's not even being original. Everyone at that suckhole of a website copies from the style of their overlord, Simmons. His article is an amalgamation of the many, many, terrible articles that Simmons has written over the years about how hard it is to be a Red Sox fan, which include making up words to describe poor play on the field.
However, if there ever was any form of "curse", I believe it's been broken. I listed facts earlier, facts that said we haven't won conference championships, national championships. But now I have some more facts for you. (I wanted to do a fact or fiction, in honor of OSUsenior, but ran out of time).
Fact:
Oklahoma State has gone to 5 straight bowl games (and will probably make it 6 this year), and have gone to 8 in the past 9 years. In the 90 years before that, OSU had only gone to 12 bowls total.
Fact:
This graduation senior class does not know what a losing season feels like.
Actually the last two senior classes before it don't know what it's like to have a losing season). Over the past 5 seasons, the Cowboys have gone 43 and 22. Except for a 4 year span in the 40's and 80's, there has never been a better time in our history. When one you look at the last ten years (which takes us back to the Les Miles era), we have a .66 winning percentage. Historically we have a .50 winning percentage. Last year, we actually tied for a championship.
While I know asshole OU fans want to laugh at that, it's a big deal for us. Can we win the whole thing this year? Maybe, maybe not, but we are finally competing for one with some regularity.
The final fact I'll leave you with is this, Oklahoma State came from 17 points behind on the road to a top 10 (though overrated) team, and won. How many times has that happened?
Go Pokes