So, before Gregg Easterbrook gets another chance to hold Oklahoma to a double standard over Saturday night's 79-10 victory over the University of North Texas, let's hit the highlights of Tuesday Morning Quarterback's past several years of inconsistent blather about high scoring games.

• In 2003, TMQ blasted OU for "running up the score" on Texas A&M when the final was 77-0, a sore spot he returned to in 2004. He cited as "evidence" the fact that Oklahoma (gasp!) threw the ball in the 4th quarter. The previous week, A&M had been passing for 92-yeard touchdowns in the second half over Baylor while up by more than 50 points, but TMQ didn't manage to criticize that, or see a 77-0 whipping as a comeuppance from the "football gods." This, by the way, was also where Easterbrook proved that he can't count to six, a theme he's repeated every year since then.

• In 2005, Easterbrook decreed that no team can be accused of running up the score in the first half. This, of course, was less than a year after Easterbrook insisted Oklahoma had done exactly that action he now said a team could "never be accused" of doing.

• In 2006, TMQ idiotically declared that teams must be penalized for winning games by more than 50 points. What I said then still applies:

  In his praise for this "sportsmanship," TMQ again neglects the basic facts: if people believe that 50 points is an insurmountable margin of victory, why not change the rules so that gaining a 50-point lead means the game automatically ends? It would be like the fabled 10-run-lead rule in many little league baseball games: if one team goes up by 10 runs, that's the end. You can reasonably argue for that, I think.

  But no, Easterbrook insists that even if you're up by 50 points by doing no more than snapping the ball and running up the middle, the game must continue. You have to put an offense on the field and make sure they don't, even accidentally, gain any points - no letting your second-string or even fourth-string players pass the ball or run because they might score, no running out of bounds to stop the clock - and you have to put a defense on the field that might get hurt while your opponents try anything they can to narrow the margin. You have to play if you're up by 51 points, but you can't win that way or you get punished.

  What idiotic reasoning. If you think 50 points is the absolute margin, then end the game if one team goes up by that much. Save everybody the time, trouble, and risk of injury. Don't make teams play and then punish them for not taking a dive on those plays.

  He's backed off this slightly in later columns, but somehow continues to insist that teams ahead by large margins must play but must not score. Easterbrook would rather a winning team plainly insult its opponents by taking dives on plays. Did your young third-string running back just break through the line of scrimmage and take off down the field? Oh, sorry, he has to take a knee 10 yards later so the defense doesn't get "humiliated." As if that's not fourteen times more humiliating than letting the guy through the line.

• Let's not forget that just this week, Easterbrook wrote:

  Cupcake note: Arkansas, Navy and Oklahoma all scheduled North Texas this season, expecting easy wins. Tuesday Morning Quarterback will be rooting for the Mean Green, as North Texas is now coached by Todd Dodge, former coach of Southlake Carroll High School, which in this decade has dominated Texas 5A high school football. Dodge is the real-world Eric Taylor, the SuperCoach of the "Friday Night Lights" TV series.

  Easterbrook, who's probably never been closer to Texas than watching the Dallas Cowboys on TV, is absolutely smitten with Friday Night Lights, shilling for the show several times last season in his column. In tonight's game, UNT came out no-huddle in its second series from scrimmage, very early in the 1st quarter. It was supposed to look aggressive, but it only looked panicked. If they were going for something new, it might have been "most plays in the first quarter"—with the wide-open throw-the-ball-all-the-time offense, UNT helped stretch the first quarter to almost an hour and a half.

• Here is the official game book of OU vs. UNT on 1 Sept 2007.

  • Note that OU kept the first-team offense in for the first half of the game, and "no team can be accused of running up the score in the first half," which ended with the score OU 49, UNT 0.

  • Note that UNT started the second half with possession, but that OU intercepted a UNT pass on 3rd and 4.

  • Note that OU scored two plays later, both of which were runs.

  • Note that after this, on its next series, OU kept the first-team offense in for three plays, one of which was a pass that was not enough for a first down.

  • Note that for the rest of the game, second-string quarterback Joey Halzle was allowed only five pass attempts, four of which were completions, the longest for 16 yards, for a total of 40 yards and no points. Surely even Easterbrook would not argue that a backup Division I-A quarterback who gets rare playing time in an actual game should not be allowed to throw the ball!

  • Note that despite 40 yards passing from Halzle, and only 56 yards passing in the entire second half form OU, the team scored three rushing touchdowns, one defensive touchdown, and a safety.

And yet I'll bet you dollars to donuts that, come Tuesday, Easterbrook will have bent his own rules, invented "facts" that aren't true, or otherwise failed to do basic research and slam OU for "running up the score" when he really is just insulted, for some incomprehensible reason, that a team up by 49 points neither forfeits the game nor takes a dive. He'll insist again that such teams should be forced to play but not allowed to score or win, ignoring the unworkable solution of ending a game early because he knows the TV networks have sold ads in all four quarters and won't stand for it.

No matter how ass-backwards he has to get, he'll invent something completely impractical if not incredibly insulting (like taking a knee in the third quarter) and insist that OU should have done that or it's "unsportsmanlike," from the man who has proven for five seasons that he's incapable of counting home games for either OU or Texas. By his own rules, OU did everything but take a dive or put hobbles on the second-string quarterback's ankles, but he'll still find the Sooners to blame for winning—especially over his Cinderella Friday Night Lights mancrush fantasy coach.

Just you watch.