In my season preview for the Thunder, I cautioned about the overwhelmingness of great expectations. After the dream scenario played out with a championship parade through Downtown OKC in 2025, very little could happen that would impress the team’s fanbase.
I watched this, from the outside, in 2001.
Despite a decade of utter disappointment that I personally relished, Sooner fans were spoiled by the Bob Stoops/Josh Heupel undefeated run to the 2000 season’s football National Championship. The next year, the team only won 11 games. They only won the Rose Bowl for the first time ever. My Sooner fan friends were totally disappointed by something that would have been considered a fantasy during the John Blake era of my college years. The two losses, a sign of regression by juxtaposition, far outshadowed the successes.