"I'm a Sooner born and a Sooner bred, and when I die I'll be Sooner dead."

There's no doubt that when it comes to college football, attending games are appointments through large portions of the country, and when it comes to pigskin-rich lands like Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas (to name a few), state economies revolve around team activity during home games. The Sooners football team has been playing for over a century, and it seems only fitting that they are one of the more recognizable college football franchises in America (all deference and respect to Happy Valley, Tallahassee and Lincoln.)

Everything about the franchise screams tradition, with a university that has put out such football players like Adrian Peterson, Greg Pruitt and Billy Sims through the years. And while they have their hits, they do have their misses, and I'm looking straight at Brian Bosworth for the big one. Nevertheless they've managed to win seven national championships through the years, produced nine Heisman Trophy winners (for best college football player), and almost 150 All-American players. A & E, who have been producing boxed sets for the World Series and team specific collections the last several years, has made this their first college football set, featuring a collection of five games that are regarded as key Sooner wins in club history. The five games selected for this set were all picked during the era when Barry Switzer was head coach (four of the games are from the 1986 and 1987 seasons alone). Switzer managed to meet and exceed the standards of success at the school that were previously set by Bud Wilkinson. From 1973 to 1988 when Switzer was coach (before moving on to coaching the Dallas Cowboys), he compiled a 157-29-4 record, which breaks out to winning 83.7% of his games. During conference play, he elevated the team further, winning 89.7% of games in his division, all of which are school records. He shares the school record of three national championships won with Wilkinson, with Switzer winning the titles in the 1974, 1975 and 1985 seasons. If you could point to a juggernaut during a decade long span, Oklahoma would be it.

Which is was makes the selection of these games a little bit surprising, as only two games that were picked for this set were in between the aforementioned period. The first disc has the 1976 Orange Bowl, where the Sooners defended their National Championship by beating the Michigan Wolverines 14-6 with a mix of running their traditional "wishbone" offense and stifling defense by Lee Roy and Dewey Selmon. The 1986 Orange Bowl is the site of the school's sixth (and Switzer's third) championship, as they defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions 25-10. The Sooners came back down to Miami the next year and throttled Arkansas 42-8. And things wrap up with the traditional "Red River Rivalry" game versus Texas, and the second "Game of the Century" with Nebraska (the first was over a decade prior), both of which were Sooner wins.

There's no real frills in terms of video presentation, as the games are straight from the original broadcasts. What struck me about the games is that the last 4 are comfortable strolls back in time for me. Don Criqui and Dick Enberg were among those who were Orange Bowl regulars who handled play-by-play, and the last two games feature Brent Musberger, who might as well have told me I "was looking live at" a battle between two college football powerhouses. It was also nice to see that on those old broadcasts, the technology was pretty minimal, so the announcers had to do the legwork and find the stories to make you want to watch. For instance, a sideline reporter was able to interview a starting Sooner linebacker who was injured in a bowl game, but who came back to the sideline to cheer his team on. I can't think of the news reporters getting that type of accessibility now, but then again, most of them are wearing tube tops or (in Green Bay, anyway) J.Crew winter jackets.

The other thing on this set is packaging. The case is about the width of two standard DVDs on your shelf in a sturdy-ish cardboard packaging, which when opened, has a nice shot of Memorial Stadium, where the Sooners play. All in all, it's clear that A & E knows what they're doing when it comes to these college football sets, and what type of fan they're appealing to.

The games are replicated on disc in full frame from their original broadcasts. Both in the disc loadup menus and on the back of the box is the disclaimer that because there are "technical imperfects that are inherent to the original recordings." With that said, the video quality is a little better than if you've still got tapes of those games lying around, so that might be worth the upgrade alone.

Dolby stereo is the rule of thumb for these discs. It's almost hard to think that sporting events that aren't in high definition and 5.1 sound nowadays, but this is no qualms or concerns audio, given the age of it.

An interesting inclusion, as 34 minutes of "The Barry Switzer Show" featuring the coach is the only extra to speak of. For those unfamiliar with the "football coach's show," format, it's generally the coach and a local sportscaster who get together and the reporter asks softball questions about the game and his players, and occasionally has some interviews with members of the team. And yes, the Switzer show has a bit of game footage in it as well, which the reporter also asks too. At one point, the Sooners' 1985 linebacking corps is interviewed, and to see a modest and almost shy Bosworth being interviewed is, well, different, that's for sure.

A & E normally does just enough on these sports sets from a content perspective to make them worth buying. The fact that they've dug up some games that maybe a handful of Sooner fans might still have lying around, and presented them on DVD, makes the package impossible to resist for said fans. A & E has tapped into yet another potentially valuable disc-buying demographic, and while I'm not a fan of the Sooners personally, it's only a matter of time before they make a release for my favorite college. How fun must it be to work in THAT video library these days?