I was under the impression that Boone Pickens Stadium's east/west orientation was something of an anomaly. As it turns out, there are actually 16 FBS stadiums that run east/west, 26 that run northwest/southeast, and five that run southwest/northeast. Even among the remainder that I'd qualify as running "north/south", very few are truly perpendicular to the equator. The average sideline width is about 15.2 yards. The average distance per conference goes: Big 10 (13.25 yards), Big 12 (14.3), Pac-12 (14.4), WAC (14.6), ACC (15.2), American (15.5), MWC (15.6), CUSA (15.8), SEC (16.4), MAC (16.4) and Sun Belt (17.3).

Greetings, OP.com'ers.We've been working on a lot of things behind the scenes here at OrangePower.com, with one of the biggest being the production of more original content.We aren't quite ready to show you what we've been cooking up quite yet, but since the college football season officially kicks off today, we thought we'd give you a taste of things to come.So, without further ado...We've often said as Cowboy fans that the proximity of the Boone Pickens Stadium walls to the sidelines give Oklahoma State an undeniable edge in Stillwater, and even though we like to say they're amongst the narrowest in the country, a thread created by Mr. Orange-Power a few days ago made me curious to see how OSU actually stacks up.The stadium's sidelines haven't gone unnoticed by opponents, either, including former Texas A&M coach Jackie Sherrill who summed the situation up nicely --So, after many hours spent with a ruler, Google Maps and a magnifying glass, I feel fairly confident in affirming that indeed, Boone Pickens Stadium actually does have the tightest sidelines of any stadium in the FBS.I'll explain a little more about the process in a moment, but first, bask in the glory:OK. So now that you've taken that in, let me do a bit of explaining.I'm sure naysayers will cite my partiality toward Oklahoma State as skewing my measurements, but in the spirit of being entirely honest, I had actually fully expected the sidelines at both Colorado and Iowa to be as close -- if not closer -- than those at OSU.So how did I cull the data?I based my measurements on the distance from the sideline at the 50-yard line to the nearest wall, using satellite images from Google Maps whenever possible.As Google Maps users likely know though, the system often changes the view from a direct overhead view to a closer-to-the-horizon view the closer you zoom in, skewing distances to the point of inaccuracy. In these instances, I based my measurements off of seating charts, stadium maps and in some cases, blueprints -- assuming they were drawn to scale.And, in the very worst case scenarios, I used photographs taken at field-level and used the widths of known objects (like equipment rolling equipment cases and benches) to piece together a reasonably accurate distance.So a few things I took away from doing this:Also, for people wanting to look at a full-size version, click here So anyway. Hope that settles some debate, or at least gives people something to talk about as we count down the hours before the Oklahoma State/Mississippi State matchup on Saturday.Orange Power,Michael