EUGENE, Ore. — The most important game is always the next one. We know, we know, we know. Yada, yada, yada.
Yet Bob Stoops, the Sooners themselves and the Sooner Nation are kidding themselves if they even consider believing what’s going on today at Autzen Stadium to be just another game they need to win.
It might be just another game they need to win, but only in retrospect. Like, say, if they lose. Or like, say, if they win and then lose to Middle Tennessee or to any Big 12 team they won’t be meeting on a neutral field.
Heck, if it was just another game they needed to win, then all the reasons for playing it are no better than all the reasons to play Nichols State, Montana State or Florida Atlantic.
Oklahoma schedules games like this for more than one reason.
One, it’s the right thing to do.
Two, the Sooners want to be able to look at themselves in the mirror.
Three, they want to project a position of strength, not weakness.
Four, if not as much as before, strength of schedule still matters.
Five, bigger games yield bigger wins and bigger rewards.
Last December, while the Ducks were quacking about being left out of the Bowl Championship Series, Oklahoma was only too happy to draw Oregon as its Holiday Bowl opponent. The Sooners had turned themselves into a completely different team after beginning the season 2-3 and wanted to prove it against somebody worthy.
The Ducks were worthy.
Now, less than 10 months later, it’s a similar, though not identical, deal.
Last time around, the Sooners wanted to prove to the nation just how far they had come. This time around, the opportunity is to prove themselves to … themselves.
Bob Stoops agrees, even if he thought he was answering another question.
“It prepares you for that,” he said. “It gives you confidence. It can benefit you, definitely.”
The question was, yes, OU takes a big risk by taking on this kind of game away from home, but doesn’t winning such a game reap reciprocal rewards of confidence, achievement and experience a team can take with it the rest of the season?
Here was safety Nic Harris describing today’s game earlier in the week.
“It’s a different year, it’s a different stage,” he said. “Different things are at stake.”
OK, what’s at stake?.
“Not much,” he said. “It’s just to go out there and get a win.”
To which he proper response is, Puhhhllleeaaassseee!
Of course OU needs to go out and win the game. And yes, winning alone would be a huge accomplishment. So huge, winning would not be its own reward, but only a part of it.
Because burning questions remain about this team.
While the Sooner Nation is cool with Paul Thompson, it’s a cautious cool. Thompson has been a part of two wins of such magnitude, the only shock would have come if either game had been lost.
And yet that’s better than anybody can possibly feel about the Sooner defense, which is already going through personnel turnover in the defensive backfield, after giving up long drives to Alabama-Birmingham and big plays to Washington.
Really, defense has been good enough at best.
Win today, though, and everything changes, the season begins to open up, all things become possible pending one big date in Dallas and all the excitement of such possibility will begin feeding on itself beginning tomorrow.
So, yeah, it’s just a game. And winning and losing remain the only two options. But they are never created equal.
Losses last week or the week before might have killed the season, or set it back the way it was set back a year ago. But a win today goes the other way. A win today propels. A win today and everybody starts to believe.
And just maybe, if the final score’s 63-14, it will feel a lot like the last time it was 63-14.
It’s not going to happen, but one game, should it go just right, can have that kind of impact.
Just another game?
Should the Sooners win, not even close?
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
Not just another game if Sooners win
Column by Sports Editor Clay Horning
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