John Shinn
Early in his career, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops earned a gambler’s reputation. It seemed like every time there was a critical call to make, he was willing to roll the dice.
Over the years, that reputation faded. The reasons varied, but as the reputation grew, opportunities dwindled.
But clearly, the gambling spirit never died.
Saturday night’s 17-16 victory over Texas A&M; will be remembered for a lot of things. Some will remember Allen Patrick’s 173-yard rushing performance. Others will focus on OU’s defense holding a very potent Aggie team to just one touchdown.
But those memories will be in the minority.
Most are going to remember which coach was willing to take chances. Clearly, Stoops was.
“It’s just part of the game,” he said. “We’re going to do what we have to do to win the game. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”
Facing a fourth-and-inches from the Sooner 29 with 89 seconds left, Stoops was willing to put the game in the hands of his offensive line and go for a game-sealing first down.
The risks were enormous. Failure meant setting up Texas A&M; for a game-winning field goal. The Aggies had already connected on two fourth-quarter attempts.
Both times they had the ball in goal-to-go situations, but Aggie coach Dennis Franchione took the easy points. He wasn’t willing to risk getting nothing at all.
“It’s a tough call either way,” Franchione said. “Whatever decision you make you’ve got to make at the right time and we weren’t able to do that.”
Punting and putting the game in the hands of a Sooner defense which had dominated the game wasn’t a bad option either.
“There’s a gamble in anything you decide to do,” Stoops said.
He’d already seen one gamble fail earlier in the game. The Sooners attempted an on-side kick up 14-3 early in the second quarter. They caught Texas A&M; by surprise and at least three Sooners had a shot at recovering the kick.
But none did and Texas A&M; marched down the field for a touchdown and OU’s double-digit lead was gone and never returned.
“I felt in both those cases if we execute early, it’s not a knockout blow that early in the game, but it’s going to hurt them,” Stoops said. “I don’t regret either one of the decisions. Sometimes you have to be able to go for it.”
He got to spend nearly five minutes going over the odds. There were two timeouts, including one that voided out what would have been a first down. There was also replay review before the game-deciding play was run.
In the end, Stoops chose the reward outweighed the risk.
Quarterback Paul Thompson gained the necessary ground behind center Jon Cooper, left guard Duke Robinson and right guard Brandon Walker.
“Coach said he wanted to go for it and he wanted to go for it again,” Thompson said. “That did it. That’s what we wanted. Whenever we ran the play on third down, I knew we had fourth down in our pocket. We didn’t want to give the ball back and allow them to score.”
Turns out it didn’t matter. Texas A&M; had too many men on the field and the result of the first down was a 15-yard penalty.
Perhaps it was an anticlimactic ending to a game where momentum spun around like a roulette wheel. No one knew where it was going to stop. But Stoops wasn’t afraid to bet on his team.
John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com
