Here’s what I can’t get over.There’s this onside kick and everybody goes after it and it’s not really clear who has it and the officials come rushing in and there’s this brief moment of unpiling the players and one of the officials, all emphatic and everything, swings an arm around to signal it’s Oregon’s ball.
Only Allen Patrick had the ball.
Find a long enough replay and you’ll see a couple of Sooners pointing toward Patrick, who other replays show to have clearly pounced on the ball after it squirted out of the scrum and then stand up without a care in the world even before the referees converged on the pile.
He had no care in the world because he had the ball. He knew the Sooners had dodged the bullet because he had the ball. And a moment later, there’s this official signaling it’s Oregon’s ball.
How can that be?
Whatever he saw, it wasn’t a Duck with the ball.
So write it down.
The officials cost the Sooners the game. They did not unduly influence the game. They did not miss a call or two. They did not make mistakes.
They flat won the game for Oregon.
I don’t believe the fix was in.
I believe they were that incompetent.
On the other hand, this is the first time I’ve ever seen the fix theory carry weight in any sport other than boxing. Because if you knew everything you know now, having seen everything you’ve seen now, before any of it ever happened — impossible, I know, but stay with me — what’s more plausible, incompetence or corruption?
Corruption.
In the aftermath, I still can’t buy it. But what happened may be more unbelievable.
So bully for OU president David Boren.
No, he was never going to get the Pac-10 and Big 12 to agree on the game being ruled a no-contest. And yes, getting the Pac-10 to suspend officials the rest of the season may have been too optimistic a plea. And who knows, he may actually get the Left Coast conference to change its rule about only allowing conference officials to officiate non-conference home games. And you bet, Kevin Weiberg, Big 12 commissioner, has no patience for being blindsided by one of his university presidents because that’s what athletic directors are for.
But Boren’s refusal to play the game politically correct serves two fine purposes.
One, which will never pay any official dividends, yet is valuable nonetheless, he’s venting for the entire Sooner Nation and this time around the entire Sooner Nation deserves a venter of high repute and who better than a former governor and three-term U.S. senator not to mention the dadgum president of the university?
Two, when a guy of such repute makes these kinds of headlines, the news kind of lingers with Middle Tennessee and an off-week coming up and the longer it lingers the better the chance the Sooners have of people paying attention. Even though getting the guys who run the BCS computers to change their input from Sooner loss to Sooner win is never going to happen, Boren stands a real chance at getting to the pollsters.
In the new AP Top 25, the Sooners are No. 17 and Oregon is No. 13. Well, that’s just stupid because OU won the game and the referees lost it. But the season is not over and don’t think there might not be some movement based solely on the sympathy Boren’s righteous indignation may stir.
And if Weiberg doesn’t like the president of one of his universities refusing to go through channels, tough. He’s working for Boren and 11 other presidents, so he can just get over it.
Of course, Boren has this going for him, too.
He’s right.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
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