Oklahoma Sooners Football: Recent Turmoil Means Bright Future in Norman

As I sit staring at the keyboard, fingers anxiously poised on home row, I toss several words around in my head in an attempt to describe the Oklahoma Sooners' 2011 season in one, all-encompassing word.

The word "disappointment" comes to mind, but it has worn its welcome and only describes the on-field letdowns.

"Depressing" got some run, but that word is a little dramatic to describe a game played by 20-year olds.

Many have used "disastrous," but the Sooners did still reach 10 wins, and ended on a good note by beating Iowa 31-14 in the Insight Bowl.Texas' 2010 season? Now that was disastrous.

Finally, the perfect word worked its way between my mind...

Tur-moil, noun: a state of great confusion, disturbance or commotion.

There was plenty of confusion in the defensive backfield all year. Players jumping ship mid-season, electing to transfer instead of sticking it out, provided disturbance. Finally, talking heads on TV, fans screaming at radio hosts and, admittedly, sportswriters like me produced deafening commotion.

Like a good John Grisham novel, the 2011 season provided unpredictable twists and turns from beginning to end.

Walk-on running back Dom Whaley took Norman by storm with a four-touchdown performance against Tulsa, quickly forcing two highly-touted youngsters to transfer. The short-sightedness of Jonathan Miller and Jermie Calhoun's decision to leave the program so early in the year was highlighted when Whaley went down for good in Week 8 and Brennan Clay battled injuries all year.

Sophomore tight end and Moore, OK native Austin Haywood left us scratching our heads, too, when he announced his desire to transfer mid-way through the season. With two senior tight ends ahead of him on the depth chart this year, Austin was poised to be the No. 1 guy for the next two seasons.

By the end of the year, the transfer list was growing by the day. Before a trip to the Insight Bowl, WR Justin McCay, WR Sheldon McClain, DT Torrea Peterson, DT Eric Humphrey and S James Haynes, all members of the 2010 recruiting class, joined that list.

Perhaps the biggest loss was freshman running back Brandon Williams, who will be attending Texas A&M next semester—only an hour away from his hometown.

The injury bug infected the team yet again, with key starters like Ben Habern and Ryan Broyles missing long stretches of games, while Travis Lewis and Tony Jefferson battled nagging injuries that caused a drop in production.

Then there was that whole "snapping the nation's longest home winning streak against a terrible Texas Tech team" thing that preceded two highly publicized, crowd-storming-the-field road losses to Baylor and Oklahoma State.

All of this is enough to send the casual OU fan into a downward spiral. After the Texas Tech loss, I joked to some friends before they drove back home from Norman that they should watch out for OU car flags littering the streets.

Despite the most tumultuous season since Stoops sauntered into town in 1999, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is much closer than most people think.

In a surprisingly candid press conference before the Insight Bowl, senior leader Travis Lewis shed some light on this season's strange happenings:

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"The guys that weren't contributing, the guys that were going by the wayside and trying to get a free ride are no longer here. If you're going to be at Oklahoma... you need to do all the little things to make this team succeed. I think along the way, we forgot about the little things we were doing right, like not missing a class [and] being at practice and meetings on time. Not that we forgot about them, but we started taking them for granted. You can't have that on your team. As our head coach, our leader, Coach Stoops felt like he needed to make some changes around here. And I agree with him."

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There you have it.

I called out the attitudes of certain players in an article I wrote after the Baylor loss, but it seems I misplaced the blame.

While the Cali Trio's flashy style isn't what we are used to seeing in Norman, it doesn't appear to be the cause of the complacency we saw on the field.

So while all of the transfers, injuries and heart-breaking losses made for a tough pill to swallow this year, it can only mean good things in the near future.

Stoops is cleaning house of the rotten apples, leaving room for a talented group of battle-tested, chip-on-shoulder fighters ready to prove a record-size group of naysayers wrong next season.