I still like Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, despite his decided hackery on certain political issues, but I'm starting to change my mind now that his hackery is extending to an anti-Oklahoma bias.

Easterbrook continues the East Coast sports establishment's tradition of pretending that Oklahoma's college football teams are some kind of accident - they can't be as good as other teams with the same record, and the players can't be all that good, either. Here's Easterbook:

Since running backs coach Bobby Turner, the mysterious mad genius of NFL coaching, arrived at Denver a decade ago and installed his system, the Broncos have the second-most rushing yards in the league, and have done so with a succession of who-dat gentlemen toting the rock. (Griffin was a fourth-round draft choice, Terrell Davis a sixth-rounder, and so on.) As TMQ has previously detailed, Turner mandates that running backs make just one cut per carry -- choose a hole and accelerate, no "look ma, I'm dancing!" For ego reasons, tailbacks across the NFL are dancing, stutter-stepping and going down one second later. At Denver, the stutter-step is forbidden and the result is great rushing performances.

League insiders and sports commentators denigrate the Broncos' rushing success by saying, "Oh, that's just the result of their system." So why don't all NFL teams use the Denver system? And why isn't Turner better known?

Or, perhaps, Turner and the Broncos are better at recognizing talent than the rest of the league? Quentin Griffin is not exactly a "who-dat" player: he ran for the only touchdown in the 2000 Orange Bowl, helping OU to beat the vaunted Florida State defense 13-2 (it would have been a shutout, but OU's punter kicked a bad punt snap out of the end zone behind him for a meaningless safety in the 4th quarter instead of letting FSU recover deep in OU's red zone for a quick touchdown). OU's "system" doesn't let just any running back excel, as the intervening years have shown, though we do have some fine runners.

Oh, and in the Detroit-Chicago game, that one big play? Detroit blocked a Chicago field goal and safety Bracey Walker returned it 92 yards for a touchdown - the first time Detroit has won on the road in a couple of years, and the first time Chicago has ever had a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown. It took HBO's Inside the NFL show and the Detroit News to tell me that the key block on the return, the one that kept it from ending around the 45-yard line, was from rookie linebacker Teddy Lehman.

Lehman also played on the 2000 national championship team as a true freshman, and last year won both the Butkus and Bednarik awards as the nation's leading defensive player. He was drafted in the second round, though, because Oklahoma's good football teams are some kind of accident. Although Lehman's block on the return was exactly the kind of play Easterbrook purports to love about football, he somehow failed to mention it in his "Best Blocks" section of the column. Oh, that's right, Lehman is a "who-dat" guy who just lucked into a key block. How silly of me.

What a hack.

Update: Oh, geez, I hadn't even seen this part of Easterbrook's column when I posted:

Oh Ye Mortals, Trifle Not with the Football Gods

Last season, Oklahoma was the top-rated team in college much of the year, then ran up the score against Texas A&M, winning 77-0 -- TMQ called the final result 77-00 -- in a game in which the Sooners kept passing even after they had an unassailable lead. The football gods showed their anger. From the 77-00 win on, everything went downhill for Oklahoma for the remainder of the season. The Sooners dropped their final two games in the Big 12 championship and the BCS championship. So did Oklahoma learn its lesson? On Saturday, the team ran up the score against Houston in a 63-13 win, continuing to pass in the second half, including five passes in the fourth quarter even though they were ahead 56-7 when the quarter began. Coach, were you worried about losing your 49-point fourth-quarter lead? There's a term for passing when you're ahead by 49 points in the fourth quarter, and the term is bad sportsmanship.

In contrast, as Western Illinois beat Cheyney 98-7, the Leathernecks threw only one pass in the second half. In position to break the century barrier at game's end, Western Illinois knelt on the ball. Presumably the football gods will punish Oklahoma and reward Western Illinois. Cheyney coach Lee Brown's postgame speech: "Well boys, you held them under 100."

Note: The Sooners have a classic football-factory schedule -- more home games than road games. Football-factory schools can buy their way into such arrangements, and it makes for winning records and happy alums at the home stadium, followed by collapse in bowls games played on the road.

First, the hack does not seem to notice that OU has an eleven-game schedule. There can't be an equal number of home and away games when the total is an odd number, as the scientifically-minded Easterbrook has failed to notice. Apparently OU has to play more games on the road than at home or it's a "classic football factory." You won't see Easterbrook holding any other teams to this standard.

Eight of Oklahoma's eleven games each year are determined by the Big XII conference schedule, and this year, Oklahoma plays five of eight conference games on the road. Texas is never a home game for Oklahoma, and this year the Sooner also have to travel to Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Texas A&M - all teams that have beaten OU in the Stoops era. (Since the OU-Texas game is always played in Dallas, one team is listed as the "home team" even though it's in neither team's home stadium. If OU is the "home team" this year, the conference would say that OU has four home games out of eight conference games, but we know the truth.)

OU gets three or four non-conference games per year, and they'll be either regional teams or those that will come to Norman to play, or those that agree to home-and-home series. Two years ago, OU opened on the road at Tulsa. Last year, the team traveled to Alabama in the second week, and hosted both Fresno State and UCLA, not exactly nobody-teams. OU went to Notre Dame in 1999, but so far, the Fighting Irish have refused to complete the home-and-home series by visiting Norman.

Second, I debunked Easterbrook's "running up the score" crap a year ago. Since then, Oklahoma has had to face a second problem - quarterback Jason White was accused of not deserving the Heisman Trophy because he didn't play enough, precisely because Coach Bob Stoops had taken him out early in too many games to avoid "running up the score."

Nonetheless, Easterbrook continues to impose requirements on Oklahoma that he would not insist upon for any other football team, NCAA or NFL. He wants Oklahoma, and only Oklahoma, to not throw a single pass if ahead in the fourth quarter, even though Oklahoma's backup quarterback was in the game. In Easterbrook's world, only Oklahoma is prohibited from letting its backups get real game experience - they're only allowed to hand off the football.

Worst of all is the hypocrisy: Easterbrook doesn't give a damn if other teams do the same things for which he rakes OU over the coals. Last week, #1-ranked USC beat Colorado State 49-0, and was still passing for touchdowns with 1:45 to go in the 3rd quarter. In week 2, #8-ranked Texas (an OU opponent every year) masscared North Texas by 65-0, and was still throwing for passes in the third quarter.

Since Easterbrook points out that OU lost the Sugar Bowl, you think he might be concerned that LSU is a "football factory," but he's not. The defending national co-champion Tigers nearly lost their first non-conference game in overtime to incredibly-unranked Oregon State. The next week, LSU played even-more-unranked Arkansas State and trounced them 53-3, still kicking field goals in the fourth quarter while up 50-0. Does Easterbrook complain about their creampuff schedule, or running up the score? No, because they're not north of Texas and south of Kansas.

Let's try to keep a running tally this season of how many rules Easterbrook wants Oklahoma to follow that he doesn't impose on any other team. Maybe he's been breathing too many SUV fumes.

What a hack.