If you’re an Oklahoma fan, and right about now you’re wondering if the Sooners might somehow find their way back into the national-title chase, because, really, you never know, everybody might lose a game, it could happen … stop, and stop right now.
Start worrying if the Sooners can handle Tulsa.
Harsh? Sure.
Negative? Duh.
Warranted? Oh, yeah.
Put it this way.
I know what happened at Owen Field Saturday was nothing like the forgettable John Blake seasons. I remember them well. They were off the curve. We may never see anything like them again in college football. And yet, watching the proceedings against the Horned Frogs, taking it all in and giving it a moment of thought, it’s just as clear OU has never looked this bad since.
The Sooners didn’t quit.
Quitting would imply they might have won if they hadn’t.
They just weren’t very good. And it may be because they aren’t very good.
Defensively, the second half was sharp.
OU’s first drive of the third quarter was impressive.
And that was it.
All she wrote.
The rest was fizzle.
Fizzle and poor play.
There were turnovers. There were fumbles. The defense didn’t lose this game. Not even close. And still, there were times Tye Gunn looked like Jason White used to look on third down.
One of the fumbles was Paul Thompson’s, inside the TCU 10. It probably cost the Sooners a touchdown. Another one was Rhett Bomar’s, deep inside OU territory. It directly led to a Horned Frog touchdown.
So maybe without those two snafus OU wins 17-10.
Why not?
Don’t be tempted by such foolishness. It’s just a ridiculously Soonercentric way of admitting the Horned Frogs were the only ones making anything happen.
Bob Stoops was asked by that tall goofy guy with Fox Sports Net Southwest if the Sooners, after two straight losses, the Orange Bowl and this, have lost their mystique. The coach looked like he might go off on the guy before giving an angry but oh, so accurate answer.
“You think we won all these other years just because (we were) Oklahoma,” he said. “No. We won because we made plays.”
Only Saturday, the Sooners didn’t make any plays.
Or, if they did, they never led to anything.
Things never got rolling.
Even while OU played its best defense and scored all its points after the half, the end was all anybody needed to watch.
With 5:43 to play, Chijioke Onyenegecha’s blanket coverage turned into a pop-up interception for Clint Ingram. It set the Sooners up, trailing by a touchdown, at the TCU 47.
First down, Adrian Peterson ran 5 yards. Second down, the line allowed the Horned Frogs through to drop Peterson for a loss of 3. Third down, Thompson threw incomplete to Jejuan Rankins. Fourth down, Thompson threw above and behind Lendy Holmes. Even though, Holmes could have caught it.
Given a chance, the Sooners, almost to a man, gave it back.
The fans already leaving, OU got one more shot with 2:05 to play.
Having to march 80 yards, the Sooners began the drive with a false start, followed it up with a toss to Kejuan Jones for 4 yards and a toss to Jo John Finley, who curled before reaching the first-down marker, for 6.
Only TCU’s illegal substitution kept the chains moving.
From there, Thompson threw incomplete, incomplete again and complete to Travis Wilson for a loss of 2 before being sacked and fumbling the ball away on fourth down, the game already out of his hands.
OU did not sniff making it interesting.
“I’m really disappointed across the board,” Stoops said.
As well he should be.
Now he has to go fix things. The thing about that is it assumes things are fixable. And isn’t that the question?
Were the Sooners bad Saturday?
Or are they just plain bad?
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
