FORT WORTH, Tex. — Oklahoma, the most dominant NCAA women’s gymnastics team this season and perhaps one of the best in the sport’s history, did not advance out of the national semifinals after a stunning series of errors Thursday night.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Football: 5 things to watch on defense against TCU
We’re altering issues up a bit this week. As an alternative of 5 gamers, we’re 5 issues to observe on protection.
Why?
The Sooners’ protection towards Kasnas State was a non-factor, to place it kindly. They allowed practically 300 speeding yards towards Kansas State’s offense and have been fully helpless towards choice performs.
If the Sooners need to come out of Fort Value with a win, the protection must play higher than they did in week 4. The Sooners’ entrance seven was dominated by KSU’s offensive line, plain and easy.
Will Jaren Kanak get defensive snaps?
Sep 17, 2022; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Oklahoma Sooners linebacker Jaren Kanak (7) chases Nebraska Cornhuskers quarterback Casey Thompson (11) in the course of the first half at Memorial Stadium. Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports activities
After enjoying each defensive snap after Dashaun White’s ejection towards Nebraska, it was stunning to not see Jaren Kanak in any respect towards Kansas State. It’s not just like the gamers forward of him on the depth chart have been having good video games.
Kanak was on particular groups towards Kansas State, in order that’s one thing. If the protection will get off to a different poor begin, Brent Venables may herald his freshman linebacker.
Can the D-Line bounce again?
Oklahoma’s Jalen Redmond (31) bats a move from Kansas State’s Adrian Martinez (9) throughout a school soccer sport between the College of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Kansas State Wildcats at Gaylord Household – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022. Kansas State gained 41-34. Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman
The defensive position seemed out of types towards Kansas State. They have been gradual to get set on the road of scrimmage and so they didn’t disrupt the Wildcats’ speeding assault, save for a play right here and there.
Deuce Vaugn seemingly had a mess of operating lanes to select from.
After enjoying so effectively to start out the season, the OU move rush didn’t report a sack towards Kansas State. Control that this week after TCU QB Max Duggan was sacked 5 instances by SMU.
Can the tackling get higher?
Sept. 10, 2022; Norman; Oklahoma Sooners linebacker Danny Stutsman (28) and Oklahoma Sooners linebacker David Ugwoegbu (2) rejoice in the course of the first half towards the Kent State Golden Flashes at Gaylord Household-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports activities
The tackling seemed barely worse towards Nebraska than it did towards Kent State. It was downright dreadful towards Ok-State.
There was a whole lot of flopping on the bottom grabbing air and a whole lot of hitting with out precise tackling. For the Oklahoma Sooners to have a rebound efficiency this week towards the Horned Frogs, the tackling has to enhance.
Will the offense assist the protection?
NORMAN, OK – SEPTEMBER 3: Offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby works with quarterback Dillon Gabriel #8 of the Oklahoma Sooners earlier than a sport towards the UTEP Miners at Gaylord Household Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 3, 2022 in Norman, Oklahoma. (Photograph by Brian Bahr/Getty Photos)
Jeff Lebby didn’t name sport in week 4.
When the protection is getting dominated within the run sport, you want to management the clock. The Sooners didn’t. Dropping the time of possession battle by ten minutes, which has been a theme to this point this season. That isn’t going to work.
The protection seemed drained within the fourth quarter. Whereas it will be straightforward responsible that on conditioning, I don’t suppose that’s the issue. Even one of the best conditioned athletes would have a tough time with as many performs because the Wildcats ran final week.
Oklahoma can play quick and nonetheless take time without work the clock. Simply don’t substitute between performs.
Can the protection get some turnovers?
Sept. 10, 2022; Norman; Oklahoma Sooners defensive again Billy Bowman (5) reacts after recovering a fumble in the course of the second half towards the Kent State Golden Flashes at Gaylord Household-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports activities
The Sooners and Horned Frogs each take superb care of the soccer. Neither workforce has thrown an interception this 12 months and each groups have a constructive turnover differential.
Assuming the Sooners proceed to maintain the ball, the protection might win the sport by forcing a fumble or grabbing an interception.
All of it begins with the move rush having extra success. If the D-Line can get to the QB, issues will fall into place from there.
The response to a foul loss must be good. Brent Venables and his coaches have gone on about how they’re constructing a brand new tradition and the way effectively the gamers have responded to it.
Time to indicate it.
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Story initially appeared on Sooners Wire
Oklahoma
America’s tallest building gets approval from Oklahoma City officials
New York City will no longer be home to the tallest building in North America if a plan freshly approved by Oklahoma City officials stays on course.
However, some residents near the site of the proposed Legends Tower have expressed concerns over the 1,907-foot structure — a number representing the year Oklahoma officially became a state.
Three months after announcing plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the country, the Oklahoma City Planning Commission approved zoning for a building that will stand 131 feet taller than lower Manhattan’s One World Trade Center. Once completed, Legends Tower will be a football field bigger than 1,550-foot Central Park Tower, North America’s second-tallest building.
According to the AO architecture firm behind the design, Legends Tower will be part of a mixed-use project called The Boardwalk at Bricktown, featuring nearly 2,000 apartment units, a Hyatt hotel, a sports arena, and 110,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment.
But while the planning commission gave its blessing on the height of the estimated $1.6 billion project, officials held off on approving bright signage that isn’t sitting well will locals, according to The Oklahoman.
“We’re not Las Vegas,” Oklahoma City resident Cynthia Ciancarelli told officials. “We’re not Manhattan.”
Ciancarelli and other Oklahomans worry proposed ad space on the building could cause sensory issues as well as appearing “a bit tacky.”
She also expressed concern that Oklahoma City is already a “one-stop shop for disasters,” including earthquakes, tornadoes and terror attacks.
More than 160 people were killed when a domestic terrorist detonated a truck full of explosives outside a federal building in 1995 — but tornadoes are a far more regular occurrence. The National Weather Service reports the Oklahoma City area has been hit by more than one twister on the same day at least 30 times.
But a well-designed skyscraper could structurally survive in the area known as “Tornado Alley,” the architecture firm said. At a planning meeting last week, the team offered reassurance that engineers will build a concrete core surrounding the skyscraper’s elevator shaft, and that the windows will be capable of withstanding a tornado without damage.
Experts told The Oklahoman that once completed, Legends Tower and The Boardwalk at Bricktown could be a boon to continuing growth in Oklahoma City, which the U.S. Census Bureau says is the sixth-fastest growing city in the nation.
Construction is set to begin later this year on parts of the project, with Legends Tower coming later.
If all goes according to the city’s plans, Legends Tower will become the sixth-tallest building in the world, behind China’s Ping An International Finance Centre.
Oklahoma
Bill Clinton And ATTN: Debut Video On Anniversary Of Oklahoma City Bombing To Warn Of Toxic Political Discourse
Former President Bill Clinton is debuting a new video today in which he reflects on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, warning of the threat that toxic political discourse has on democracy.
The video is part of an “Explainer-in-Chief” series that Clinton is doing with ATTN:, the Candle Media division that publishes content fusing entertainment and topical issues.
The bombing, which killed 168 people, took place 29 years ago today. “For every president there are certain days in your presidency you will never forget,” Clinton says in the video. “April 19, 1995, the day of the largest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history is one of those days for me.”
“In the aftermath of the Oklahoma city bombing, I knew that we had a responsibility to do everything we could to ensure that something like this would never happen again,” Clinton says. “But perhaps an even greater responsibility was to urge people all across America to reassess how they talked about and thought about people who disagreed with them. Timothy McVeigh was himself motivated by that extreme rhetoric.” McVeigh was arrested, convicted and executed for perpetrating the attack.
Clinton said that he “thought it was my duty to help prevent that hatred from spreading to the average citizen.”
“I had to do two things that almost seem contradictory. I had to defend the right of people to speak freely, and assault the content and the predictable consequences of that kind of speech today. I think the challenge is the same. If you just regularly dehumanize people, so that they are no longer people, but ugly cartoons, bad things are going to happen.”
He adds, “A lot of life is about not so much what your opinion is, but how you express it, and how you relate to other people who just don’t agree with you. Democracy is a hard form of government. We are now the longest continuous democracy in human history, even though we are a very young country. And when you ruin democracy, when people don’t have enough regard for each other to listen, learn and chart a path forward, that is what you get. But it isn’t better.”
The video comes amid ongoing concern over the effects of political division and extreme rhetoric, perhaps reflected in the recent box office success of Civil War at the box office. Clinton has reflected on the Oklahoma City bombing a number of times before, including on his podcast and in a Time essay.
Matthew Segal, the co-founder and co-CEO of ATTN:, said in a statement that they hope that the video “encourages all Americans to look beyond the divisiveness – and instead listen to and treat each other with empathy and kindness.”
The videos are being released on YouTube and Instagram and other social media platforms.
ATTN: and Clinton will release additional videos this year on the politics of dehumanization and the epidemic of loneliness. They will be tied to other moments in Clinton’s presidency, including the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 and the White House Conference on Mental Health in 1999. ATTN: and Clinton previously partnered on “Explainer In Chief” videos last year, on topics that included bipartisan solutions to gun violence and Ukrainian solidarity, among other things.
ATTN: also has produced videos featuring former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the series Well Versed, an animated civics project that launched on Nickelodeon with First Lady Jill Biden and former First Lady Laura Bush headlining a debut event in Philadelphia. Also collaborating on the project were Moonbug and iCivics.
Oklahoma
In stunning collapse, Oklahoma gymnastics fails to advance to NCAA final
“This was character-building for this team,” Oklahoma Coach K.J. Kindler said afterward on the ESPN broadcast. “They fought back hard. It was emotional. I give them all the credit for gutting it out through the whole end of it. It was tough.”
The Sooners’ unraveling began at the start. On vault, the Sooners’ first apparatus of the evening, three Oklahoma gymnasts had major mistakes. Faith Torrez, the first gymnast to compete, fell on her 1½-twisting vault, then Jordan Bowers and Katherine LeVasseur barely stayed on their feet with multiple deep steps backward on the same skill. Teams can only drop one score per apparatus so two of those low marks (9.45 and 9.375) factored into the Sooners’ total.
From then on, Oklahoma’s chances of a comeback were slim and probably would have required major mistakes from other teams. Alabama had a meltdown on beam with four falls, but Utah (197.9375 final score) and Florida (197.875) held steady. The Sooners’ hopes evaporated in the third rotation when LeVasseur and Ava Siegfeldt fell during their beam routines.
“They were trying to put everything into it, but at the same time, the emotions, I think, were taking over a little bit,” Kindler said of her team’s response to the early mistakes on vault.
Oklahoma may have been able to weather its errors on the beam, especially with the other four gymnasts scoring a 9.9375 or higher, if not for the disastrous start on vault.
In that first rotation, Oklahoma tallied a 48.325, more than a point lower than the majority of the team’s showings on that apparatus this season. The Sooners hadn’t scored that low on any apparatus since January 2021, and since 2012 Oklahoma had previously struggled that much on only two occasions.
The hallmark of this Oklahoma team had been its consistency, which makes Thursday’s disappointing showing all the more jarring. Before this competition, Oklahoma hadn’t scored lower than a 197.775 all season. Several hours before the Sooners’ session began, LSU Coach Jay Clark called Oklahoma the “prohibitive favorite” to win the final.
The Sooners have notched 11 of the top 20 scores in the country this season, according to Road to Nationals, the website that maintains all NCAA gymnastics scores. That’s the most scores in the top 20 for any team since 1998, when Road to Nationals began recording data.
The Sooners’ extraordinary dominance made them appear unstoppable. With a successful showing here en route to another national title, this Oklahoma squad may have been considered the greatest NCAA gymnastics team ever. But now, despite their accomplishments before this weekend, the Sooners will be remembered as the juggernaut that finished with a shocking collapse.
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