Clay Horning
PASADENA, Calif. — Oklahoma’s going to beat Baylor. The Bears visit Norman Oct. 22 and whatever ails the Sooners that morning, afternoon or night, the boys from Waco are sure to be the tonic. After that, well …
Is it really that bad?
Is this team that fragile?
The thing of it is, we just don’t know.
The Sooners lost to TCU and trailed late against Tulsa. Today, OU enters a touchdown underdog to UCLA. The Sooners could win today, you bet they could.
But who’s to know?
Ditto for the rest of the season.
How good is Kansas State?
Bob Stoops has Mack Brown’s number but Mack Brown has Vince Young.
Kansas at Arrowhead Stadium?
Nebraska? A&M;? Tech? Bedlam?
Only Baylor looks easy.
And won’t the Bears be upset when they read this!
Never in the Bob Stoops’ era have things been so up in the air.
OU could still win 10 or 11 games. But 5-6 isn’t beyond the realm. And today might just be the fork in the road.
UCLA began the marquee contest on the Sooners’ non-conference slate. It still is, but it’s importance has grown exponentially since Adrian Peterson finally put OU up for good last Saturday. And not just because it’s the difference between starting 2-1 or 1-2. Or because today marks the last and only available springboard into the conference season.
And that’s just tip of the iceberg stuff.
The Sooners need to win, but that’s not all.
They need to resurrect their confidence, their karma, their mojo and their swagger.
They need to play better. They also need to get well.
Here’s some of what’s happened since the season began.
n A loss
n A near loss.
n A quarterback race nobody has won.
n Two offensive linemen, Akim Millington and Brandon Keith, have quit the team.
n An off-the-field incident for one of the quarterbacks, Rhett Bomar.
n A suspension, for two practices, levied upon Adrian Peterson, for failure to attend class.
n The revelation that, despite the unfinished quarterback race being among two mobile and speedy athletes, there hasn’t been much quarterback-run-game in the game plan just yet and don’t look for much more anytime soon because we’ve got a passing game we need to fix first.
This is a forest-from-the-trees deal, and my oh my the connections we fail to draw before finally stepping back.
Losses happen.
Players quit.
Bomar’s little deal doesn’t seem very serious.
Peterson should play today and, anyway, missing class isn’t, that big a deal. All of us missed a few classes in our day, too.
See how it’s so easily explained away?
On the other hand, just about all of that stuff happened in the space of 10 days.
An accident of coincidence or a sign of system failure?
Amazingly or not, the question didn’t come up this week. It takes a while to roam free of the trees.
So here we are at the Rose Bowl. The Far West capital of college football. Keith Jackson’s even calling the game for crying out loud.
On one side is one of the college game’s greatest historical programs. On the other is a school best known for the Wizard of Westwood on the hardwood and as the runt of a pretty strong intracity rivalry on the gridiron.
And yet those Bruins are still big favorites.
Maybe the offensive line does it for four quarters today. Maybe Bomar, or Paul Thompson in relief, figures it all out. Maybe Peterson is still Peterson while OU’s defense plays it’s third straight strong game. Maybe Clint Ingram picks off another pass and brings it to the house.
You bet it could happen. Everything could change just like that.
And if it doesn’t?
It’s just one more troubled chapter in this soap opera of a season.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
