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Better to temper season optimism in August

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August is usually the best part of the college football season.

New recruits bring hope of being future stars. Coaches are upbeat. Two-a-day practices are about to start. Sports writers are predicting great victories.

Everyone is undefeated.

Even the thought of cool fall evenings at the stadium provides a brief respite from the reality of those 100-degree temps outside.

But six years ago this week, some of that “good feel” was seriously deflated when Oklahoma’s 2006 season was turned on its head before it even started.

That was when Coach Bob Stoops dismissed starting QB Rhett Bomar for Big Red Imports-gate.

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The irony of Paterno’s comment about Switzer

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POOR JUDGMENT CLOUDED THE ‘RIGHT WAY’ JOE PA LEGACY

Joe Paterno once famously said he couldn’t retire and leave college football in the hands of the “Jackie Sherrills and Barry Switzers.”

Paterno’s remark rubbed Sooner fans raw.

But the remark, for which Paterno would later apologize (at least to Switzer), captured how Paterno viewed himself and Penn State:

They were different from the rest of college football, the exceptions to the rule.

Certainly different from Switzer’s Oklahoma and Sherrill’s Texas A&M football programs, in Paterno’s mind anyway.

Unlike other major programs, Paterno’s teams won “The Right Way.” There were no reports of unscrupulous boosters and pay-to-play schemes out of Happy Valley. No off-the-field incidents involving sexual assault in the athletic dorm or a starting QB peddling cocaine.

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