History will not record Oklahoma’s 31-24 victory over Nebraska as anything, well, historic.
The Big Red Rivalry has gone from a yearly battle to reach the Orange Bowl, with a conference and national championships very often in the balance, to what can only be called a nostalgia tour.
Gary Thorne and Ed Cunningham, calling the game for ABC, were hamming it up with Barry Switzer and Tom Osborne in their television booth as the game played below. The Lincoln PBS station, the night before, was rerunning the Game of the Century.
As Thorne explained during the broadcast, highlights of the historic series served as bumper video between drills during the Huskers’ week of practice. And Tuesday, during his weekly media luncheon, Bob Stoops spent nearly as much time talking about his committtment to educating the Sooners on the rivalry’s past as he did about preparing for its present.
So it’s always a good story when Oklahoma and Nebraska meet.
But don’t take it too far.
It’s not like absence has made the rivalry grow fonder.
When they took the every-yearness out of it, or maybe when they took Switzer and Osborne out of it, it ceased being everything it used to be.
Just don’t tell the Sooners.
Because Stoops has not only proved himself expert in embracing the football traditions that live on in this town, Saturday, or so it seemed, he proved himself expert at embracing and, indeed, selling his team on a tradition running on fumes at best.
Whatever works.
My personal favorite ode to tradition Stoops ever pulled came at the 2000 Orange Bowl, when after his 25th game as Sooner coach, he made it sound like he’d been around when J.C. Watts beat Florida State, for the rematch with Nebraska and the night JoePa and the Nittany Lions went down and Switzer claimed his third national championship.
Well, this was not that, even if the Sooners stepped into Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium like they were there to slay Goliath.
First play from scrimmage, Rhett Bomar finds Malcolm Kelly for 15 yards.
Third play from scrimmage, Adrian Peterson, back to something resembling full strength, goes 36 for a touchdown.
A lot of folks, your friendly sports editor included, picked Nebraska to win this game, because you never know what you’re going to get from either of these teams and only one of them had a whole stadium trying to root it home.
Yet, somehow, the Sooners — young to the core and playing a game that could well be the difference between going 8-3 and to the Holiday Bowl and going 6-5 and to one of those worthless bowls that takes teams that go 6-5 — came out and played like seasoned veterans.
They would later prove they weren’t, but the start can not be underestimated.
A methodical 12-play drive to start the second quarter and a pick runback from Chijioke Onyenegecha forged a 21-3 halftime lead and OU appeared off to the races.
The second half was not so grand.
There’s no way to close the book on this game without making note that one-time Norman High quarterback Zac Taylor, just like Baylor’s Shawn Bell the week before, had his chance to throw deep to a wide open receiver down the middle and force overtime.
On the other hand, nor can OU’s 12-play, 85-yard fourth-quarter drive be discounted. It included a huge third-down pass from Bomar to Travis Wilson, the toughest 6 yards Garrett Hartley will ever pick up and was capped by a nifty run from Kejuan Jones. And it came at the very time Nebraska was going up and down the field, already having made it a one-possession game with almost the length of the fourth quarter still to play.
So, just as the Sooners once again proved again their inability to slam a door shut, so too did they prove their resiliency by making the plays they needed when they needed them.
Just maybe, as they move to a surprisingly healthy 4-1 mark in conference play, a new ray of light is shining on this young and hardly consistent team.
Far from figuring out how to string together one good quarter after another, something just as important may be taking hold.
Maybe they’re actually learning how to win.
Now that’s a tradition worth embracing.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
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Winning always the best tradition
Sports Editor Clay Horning on OU-Nebraska
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