EUGENE, Ore. — The jury’s still out.And it will be as long as anybody can open a game against these Sooners by going 76 yards in four plays, or as long OU can give back a gift-wrapped interception, then blow a trio of tackles to allow a four-play, 76-yard march before thousands of fans had even taken their seat.
And it will stay out just as long as that same defense allows anybody to go up and down the field, almost from start to finish.
Saturday afternoon, Oregon picked up 6.8 yards per snap, quarterback Dennis Dixon threw for 341 yards and there were times Jonathan Stewart, who ran for 146 yards, seemed to be picking up acres at a time …
Well, that was going to be the column.
The next line was going to be something about how, even for all of that, even for giving up 501 total yards and settling for so many field goals despite taking over first and goal so many times, that this team, these Sooners, had heart.
That you could question their ability but not their drive or their character or any of those intangibles that turned a game that had loss written all over it into a win.
Well, the Sooners still have heart and character and all those intangibles and that’s why they’ll probably hammer Middle Tennessee and give Texas all it wants.
So that stuff still stands.
But it’s not the lesson.
The lesson is that heart and drive and character aren’t enough.
Because they didn’t win.
Enough is starting first-and-goal at the 3 and getting seven points instead of three with 6:46 to play and enough is starting first-and-goal at the 7 and getting six points instead of three with 3:12 left to play.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s going for six and not even chancing the three with 3:12 left to play because what good was the three anyway? Give up two touchdowns and you’re still beat.
Or how about not rushing Paul Martinez’s second-quarter at-the -buzzer 48-yard field goal that was only good after inching over the line and kicking off the crossbar.
“A lot of little things add up to something like this away from home,” Sooner coach Bob Stoops said. “There’s a lot of good in it, but not enough.”
There were a million ways the Sooners could have won this game and precious few that could ever have allowed what ended up happening to happen.
But just as OU made all the plays the first 24 minutes of the second half to turn a contest that was looking like they’d be lucky to win into one the stars would have to align for them to lose, the door was left open.
That’s on the offense.
Opening the door and chauffeuring the Ducks right on through?
That’s on the defense.
“You feel like you let the team down,” was defensive coordinator Brent Venables’ first post-loss thought.
“I don’t know what it is,” was Rufus Alexander’s take after making seven tackles, third best behind a pair of safeties, Jason Carter (10 tackles) and Nic Harris (seven tackles, two interceptions), who will never be the guys the Sooners want leading them in stops.
But that’s the way it’s going for OU.
Last season, it took one of the nuttiest calls in the history of college football for the Sooners to lose at Texas Tech, and less than a year later, it took one of the nuttiest finishes, calls or no calls, though OU believes it was jobbed at least once, for the Sooners to lose to the Ducks.
But the two losses are linked by more than the that-could-never-happen-again circumstance of each finish.
Last season, even after finding themselves, the Sooners were a tenuous team. It’s the same thing again.
Defensively they can’t slam the door.
Offensively they can’t finish the job.
At least some of the time and that’s plenty.
“You have to finish it and we didn’t,” Stoops said.
Maybe next time.
They still have heart.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
Calls or no calls, Sooners still didn't finish
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