Week 11 Story: The Fumble that Saved the Season
Lincoln Riley's team was off to an amazing start: 8-0. The team was well on its way to its 7th Big 12 championship game in a row, as long as it could hold on for the last few games of the season. The next game was a chance for the team to prove itself on a big stage: OU versus 10th-ranked OSU, another high-stakes Bedlam showdown. Lincoln had the team on a strict schedule: practice, practice, and practice some more. It was a winning formula, and he knew it would pay off again.
But then, unexpected circumstances made a huge change: OSU's football stadium caught fire in the middle of the night due to faulty wiring in the electrical system. The stadium would be unusable for about a month while engineers and construction worked together to fix the electronics and burn damage. There was no way around it: Bedlam would not happen this year.
Lincoln Riley was frustrated. A top-10 win would prove again that OU deserved a spot in the Big 12 championship game, and, later on, the prestigious College Football Playoffs. He sat down in his office and started making some calls.
A few hours later, Lincoln had a solution: the team would travel to the East Coast to play Coastal Carolina in an unexpected out-of-conference game. Coastal Carolina was a small, relatively unheard of team that had been doing well this season, with a 7-1 record in a regional conference. Lincoln thought this could help OU continue to prove its excellence, and he got the team back to work, practicing and watching film on the new team.
As Lincoln reclined in his comfy leather chair, his eyes fixed on one of the plasma TVs playing Coastal Carolina footage. He watched as a highly-coveted running back charged the Coastal Carolina defense only to have the ball stripped from his grasp, scooped up, and carried back into the endzone for a defensive touchdown. Lincoln sat up straight, gripping the armrests. He knew what he had to do.
Lincoln called a team meeting. He explained to the players that his ego and drive to showcase his team got the better of him, but he realized now that playing Coastal Carolina was an unnecessary risk for OU. A win would not do much good, but a loss to an unranked, out-of-conference, weaker team would be devastating to OU's national standing. It simply was not worth it, and Lincoln had cancelled the game.
After a week of rest, OU continued its powerful performance, finishing the season 12-0 and clinching a #1 seed berth into the College Football Playoffs. The National Championship was within OU's grasp once again.
Author's Note: This story is a retelling of "The Pennywise Monkey" (full bibliography below). In the original tale, a monkey holding many peas to eat drops just one onto the ground. In a foolish move, the monkey scatters the rest of the peas and focuses on finding that one lost pea. A king watching nearby realizes because of the monkey that it is not worth it to attack a small kingdom when he already rules an amazing kingdom. I thought this concept could be applied to the "dynasty" of OU football. OU could schedule football games against weak opponents, but it would stand to lose much more than it could gain. I put Lincoln Riley in the place of the king and an unnamed football player in place of the monkey from the original story.
Bibliography: "The Pennywise Monkey" from More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt
Hi! I really enjoyed reading your story! I find it so interesting that you were able to take a story based on animals and translate it into football. That really shows your creativity and shows that you are a good storyteller. I love how different you made this story while still including the main lesson. You made the story modern, fun, interesting, and directly related to our school. I wonder if you could have had the team go through with the game and lose and be a lesson to other coaches. This would have been another interesting way to tell the same tale. What if they had lost miserably and become a lesson to the football world and to themselves. I love the way you wrote this and I think there are even more possibilities!
ReplyDeleteHey! I loved reading your story! I love OU football, so it’s always fun to read a story that includes our team. I think in real life, Lincoln Riley would catch a lot of flack for cancelling a game with a small opponent like that, but I see how it was the smart thing to do in this instance because it only risked injury and embarrassment for the team. I like how you were able to include some football action in your narrative as well as Lincoln’s internal conflict over holding the game!
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ReplyDeleteCool story, I think that you created a story that can be related to many OU students. It's great to bring the sport elements into your own story and that make it more exciting. I like that you carry with it a lesson. I think that we all have that ambition, but we all must learn to slow down sometimes and not harm out reputation. Take it slow is what I would usualy say
Very cool twist to the original story, Robert. I think the story was trying to speak on the levels of exactly how you wrote this story. There's truly no point in going off and beating up or defeating something everyone knows is much more powerful than. In return, there would be no point for OU to travel across country to beat Coastal Carolina by 40 points. As you said in the story, if we win, people say they expected it. If we lose, then it ends our season and highlights Coastal Carolina's.
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