So how good a story is this year’s Super Bowl?
It’s always a good story in football’s biggest game. But this year’s edition may be lacking the huge storyline.
Yes, you have the New Orleans Saints, fighting back five years after their city was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina to get to their first Super Bowl. They’ll face the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning, son of former Saints’ favorite son Archie.
Decent story. But some of the excitement level died when Brett Favre and the Vikings were unable to get to the big game. Not to mention it took running back Adrian Peterson of OU fame out of the equation.
These two teams were the league’s best most of the season, before each had some setbacks in the final month, some self-inflicted by resting starters before the playoffs began.
And this game may have been more interesting with the Vikings there, as they had the better of the Saints much of the day in the NFC Championship, only to see turnovers — including a rash of fumbles by Peterson — cost them.
It looks like the Colts are even better than the four-point favorites they’ve been established as. One thing is for sure, we’ve got two weeks to hear all the hype from every possible angle. Maybe that good story will be found after all.

It lives. Especially as far as NFL playoff picks so far. If I think you’re going to win, you’re not. Period. Here are your examples just through two rounds of the playoffs.
My Super Bowl pick of Philadelphia vs. New England was wiped out almost immediately.
Cincinnati over the Jets? Nope.
Green Bay … well you get the idea.
So this past weekend I managed to pick one game correctly, the seemingly easiest of the four, the Colts over the Ravens. I thought Dallas would blast Minnesota and that the Cardinals were way too hot for a Saints team that hasn’t looked good for more than a month.
Wrong again. And again.
The best pick of the weekend came from my son, who made a steadfast guarantee the Jets would take care of the Chargers in what I thought would be a whopping upset.
So this weekend, just so you can make your plans, I’m going with the home teams, the Colts and the Saints.

To say last night’s Bedlam basketball game set college basketball back about 20 years isn’t fair. The Brent Prices and Bryant Reeves’ of 20 years ago deserve better than that.
OK, OK, that’s a little too harsh.
While it certainly wasn’t always pretty to watch, one thing Oklahoma had to feel good about from last night was that it won a game with its defense and toughness. And the Sooners did it on a night they were far from their best.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way,” OU coach Jeff Capel said after the game.
If you figure Kansas and Texas and probably Kansas State are safe for NCAA Tournament bids, you have a whole bunch of other Big 12 teams fighting for perhaps three or four more spots in the big dance. Out of all those teams, OU has the most freshmen in its mix. Improvement and building on wins, however ugly they may be, could give them the most upside of any of those teams in the next two months.

Every time Oklahoma and Oklahoma State tee it up in any sort of competition, it’s a big deal — a really big deal.
But tonight’s first edition of Bedlam men’s basketball takes on even an added emphasis from usual for the Sooners. Reeling from a blowout loss at Baylor Saturday, Jeff Capel’s Sooners are in need of something good to happen.
The Sooners are talented, but young, and the youth has shown through especially on the defensive end, where things have been rocky at times. They aren’t likely to get much sympathy from an OSU squad led by one of the nation’s top offensive players in swingman James Anderson.
OU figures to keep getting better but there will be growing pains. They will have a win or two that make you say “wow, how did they do that?” and a loss or two, perhaps like Saturday’s, that make you cringe.
An NCAA Tournament bid would be tough to achieve now. At 9-6 now, the Sooners need 11 more wins to get to 20, which in a conference like the Big 12, especially as strong as it is this year, ought to get you a tourney bid. So a 10-6 record and a win in the conference tournament would do the trick.
That means 10 wins in 15 games, starting tonight. It’s a tall order.

So the question is flying around ahead of tonight’s BCS national championship game between Texas and Alabama.
Who’s the greatest Texas quarterback on all time? And is it assured that Colt McCoy gets the nod if he wins tonight?
McCoy’s record is impressive. He’s the all-time NCAA leader in wins for a starting quarterback. He’s never lost a bowl game. If he wins tonight he will have a national title win to add to his BCS win in the Fiesta Bowl last year.
No doubt he’s been quite a signal-caller in Austin. But Vince Young changed the game with his running ability from the position. You watch the variations of the Wildcat offense around high school, college and pro football and it looks an awful like the things Young was doing from the quarterback spot in college.
And he has a national championship too. He didn’t start as long as McCoy did but what he did while he was in there is second to none at the school from where I’m sitting.