Eighth place can't work for Sooners

Oklahoma should see itself as an interloper in its new conference

You know the story about Steve Perry?

Why he left Journey? Or why he let himself leave Journey, stealing decades of great music from ever being made because he left Journey?

He said, after so much success, he still felt like the new guy.

“I was the new kid on the block with them,” he told GQ in 2008, "I was the new kid in town."

Perry, of course, was not a part of Journey’s beginning, coming on in 1977 after Neal Schon and Gregg Rollie formed the band upon leaving Santana in ’73.

Thankfully, Neal Peart never felt that way after replacing John Rusty as Rush’s Drummer, nor Brian Johnson after replacing Bon Scott as AC/DC’s vocalist, nor Kevin Cronin after replacing Terry Luttrell in REO Speedwagon, without whom “Ridin’ the Storm Out” would have remained a studio dud.

Imagine those bands without those guys. 

Horrendous.

Yet, given that tiny sliver of suppressed Sooner fandom that’s never quite died in me despite covering them the last 27 years, here’s hoping Oklahoma forever sees itself as “the new guy” in the Southeastern Conference.

As an outsider, crashing the party, not belonging but for the inexorable hand of fate making it go.

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