This is an old test.An Oklahoma State fan calls into a radio show and asks the question.
Who is Oklahoma’s biggest rival? Duh, the answer is Texas. The caller, a Poke — not that there’s anything wrong with that! — then asks which game is most damaging for the Sooners to lose? Duh, Oklahoma State. So, the caller asks, which is the bigger rivalry?
And it goes round and round.
That little exercise typifies the Sooner season.
Texas remains OU’s biggest and greatest rival. There’s a lot more hate when it comes to Texas.
Guaranteed, when the Cowboys play the Longhorns, the Sooner Nation roots for the Pokes.
But which game is more important to the program?
The one they’re playing today.
A lot of it remains the fact that OSU has been a mediocre program over time and the Sooners’ next quality loss to the Pokes will still be their first.
But it’s still an aside. OU still must win.
For two straight seasons, OSU could have been the first team to derail OU’s national-title hopes. And yet, this year is still more important.
Heck, OSU victories the last two seasons don’t even keep OU out of the conference championship game.
It’s like this: Sooners win and it’s a good season. Sooners lose and it’s a bad season.
The great season is gone. But as poorly as OU played early, even getting to 7-4 looked impossible. And here the Sooners are, in position to go to San Diego or San Antonio in their rebuilding season. Because if Shreveport felt like Pasadena in 1999, this time around it would feel like, well, for crying out loud … Shreveport.
Nobody wants to lose to a team that made Baylor look like USC, even if OU made Baylor look like Texas Tech.
Nobody wants to lose to a team that’s gone through quarterbacks the way Joe Dickinson used to go through quarterbacks.
Nobody wants to lose to one of the very worst major conference squads in the nation this season.
It’s sad but true, and I don’t know if it’s because OSU had a pretty good offensive coordinator until Mike Gundy fired Mike Gundy, or if it’s because Sheriff Gundy ran off all the talent, but the Pokes have just been horrible.
And who wants to lose to that?
Really, if the Sooners lose today, they might never come out of the shower. The stench of the season, a season they temporarily righted, will not go away.
Self-image is at risk.
Walking out of the Rose Bowl, OU couldn’t have been further away. But the improvement has been tremendous, if not tremendously consistent. So a new set of assumptions was put in place: OU will go 8-3 or 7-4 and look out next year.
Only 8-3’s off the table and 6-5 turns a mid-season four-game winning streak into a mirage of fool’s gold.
So there’s no more on the line than how the Sooner Nation looks at its favorite team, which is pretty much how it looks at itself.
And what’s more important than that?
If you ask me, OU wins going away.
It would be the first time.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
Horning: No substitute for victory
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