COLUMN

OMAHA, NE — The last thing anyone in Crimson and Cream wants to hear is those three little words that can break hearts by the millions.

“Team of Destiny.”

Anyone foolish enough to buy into that line of thinking is simply testing the cosmic powers of the universe and probably deserves to taste bitter tears.

There is, of course, no such thing as a Team of Destiny. There are Teams of Superior Talent, Teams of Superior Work Ethic, Teams of Superior Coaching, and teams of Superior Luck. 

This Oklahoma baseball team may be all of those things, or none.

But what OU has more of in 2026 than perhaps every other team — hey, maybe even more than North Carolina — is chemistry.

These Sooners are a Team of Chemistry.

And in this new age of the Transfer Portal and NIL and NCAA Revenue Sharing, in an era where online gambling can find players as easily as players can find lawyers, finding real chemistry can be nigh impossible.

“You're exactly right,” OU coach Skip Johnson said Wednesday night after the Sooners wiped the College World Series grass with the Georgia Bulldogs in an 11-4 beatdown. 

“That's what's really unique and really special about it, is they made that decision as a team to pick each other up,” Johnson said. “I mean, when I talked to the team before I came into the press conference, I said, ‘Every guy matters in this dugout or in this locker room right now.’ ”

Johnson has more junior college transfers than any other CWS participant in this year’s field. He’s got a handful of experienced upper classmen, but he’s also been forced to ride out the arms of three freshman starting pitchers in the postseason. That's unheard of.

Against the best teams college baseball has to offer, Cord Rager, Xander Mercurius and now Nick Wesloski have been remarkably mature, stunningly poised — and they have good stuff, too.

It’s a mix-and-match type of roster certainly not uncommon in 2026. But Johnson and his coaching staff of Reggie Willits, Todd Butler, Russell Raley and director of player development Britt Bonneau have added a teaspoon of this and a dash of that — you know, the hard-to-find ingredients that don’t cost much but take any recipe to another level — and cooked up something special.

These Sooners have now beaten the ACC’s regular-season and postseason champion, the Big 12’s regular-season and postseason champion, and the SEC’s regular-season and postseason champions during this incredible run — twice each. 

Wednesday’s demolition of No. 3 seed Georgia comes just over two weeks after OU pulled away from No. 2 seed Georgia Tech in Atlanta and just over one week after they obliterated No. 15 Kansas in Lawrence. The Sooners also dumped No. 7 seed Alabama 9-0 in Omaha.

Realistically, this OU team is much more of an underdog — in this tournament and moving into the finale — than the Sooners were the last time Johnson had them in this position, back in 2022. That team lost twice to Ole Miss, but was coming off a Big 12 Tournament championship and was a strong 2-seed going into the postseason, even though they too had to travel (to Florida and Virginia Tech) to get to Omaha.

This year’s OU squad finished the regular season so poorly they almost dropped to a 3-seed going into the tournament (squaring up in the super regional round against the No. 2 Yellow Jackets shows they were No. 31 overall in the selection committee’s eyes — only two spots away from dropping off the line of 2-seeds.

The Rebels in 2022 won the two big ones, 10-3 and 4-2, although both games certainly felt winnable (the Sooners got a critical bad call in one game — a rule that has since been changed).

Johnson told me in the postgame press conference that he doesn’t feel the need to go back and examine what the team did wrong or right four years ago.

That would be “living in the past,” and this year’s roster has shown that it excels at being “in the moment.”

After all, if “Yesterday is Dead,” then looking at what happened here four years ago must feel like carbon dating a brontosaurus fossil. Johnson has these Sooners focused on “one pitch at a time.”

But there is one thing Johnson would like to see different than 2022: OU fans showing up to the stadium en masse.

Last time, Ole Miss fans outnumbered OU fans perhaps 6-to-1, although some guessed it might have been way more than that.

“Have the whole state that are Sooners to come up here,” Johnson said. “ … Believe me, last time I was here, I think it felt like there's 30,000 blue towels being waved. I don't know who gave out the light blue towels to the Ole Miss Rebels, but it sure didn't seem fair.

“But it didn't matter. We didn't hit in the first game, and we pitched pretty good in the second game, and just didn't come out on top.”

The OU crowds had been pretty good in 2022 during bracket play. But whether it was a lack of tickets or Father’s Day commitments or something else entirely (a sense of entitlement due to their favorite team feeling like a "team of destiny," perhaps?), Sooner Nation was overwhelmed by the traveling Rebels.

Maybe if so many big-time OU celebrities show up this weekend like they have all week in Omaha, Sooner fans will follow their glow. From royalty like Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops to sitting head coaches like Brent Venables and Porter Moser and Jennie Baranczyk, to the star basketball players and even the Sooner quarterback — all the big names came out to support the baseball Sooners this week. There have been photo ops and autographs and hangouts a-plenty for OU fans in town for baseball. Can the fan base keep up that vibe when it matters most?

Three more days of that — Saturday, Sunday, and possibly Monday — might even attract a more crimson towel-waving crowd.

“Trish, Toby Keith's (widow), was here,” Johnson said. “I hadn't seen her in a long time. And it brings tears to my eyes.

“ … I mean, John Mateer, our quarterback — I mean, that's what being an OU Sooner is about. It's about being a family. And the more those people can get up here and get it going, the better it is.” 

Although OU is also having quite a week in the transfer portal, Johnson acknowledged that his focus is on the here and now, and specifically on the players making this year’s team so special. 

Great things happen when no one cares who gets the credit. Switzer used to say that in the 1970s and ‘80s. Now it’s Skip Johnson who says it in 2026 — and it might be more true now than it was 50 years ago.

“I’m really thankful for getting to coach these guys,” Johnson said. “I really am. I can't say it enough. And I'm really proud of ‘em. I am.”