STILLWATER — It was fitting. It was right. It was just.It was exactly the kind of game this team has been cut out to win; not from Day 1, maybe, but this particular Saturday, the final day of the regular season, at Boone Pickens Stadium against Bedlam rival Oklahoma State.

The score, 27-21, is just a few numbers.

They represent more.

Oklahoma wasn’t dominant, but solid.

The Sooners weren’t flashy — OK, Allen Patrick was kind of flashy— but workmanlike. They were not great, but quite good.

All of it translates into a couple of things.

Don’t expect OU to run away from Nebraska and into the Kansas City night with any kind of no-sweat, piece-of-cake conference championship. But given who they are and what they are and, oh yes, what they’ve become, just getting there is some kind of achievement.

Maybe it means three things.

The Sooners will beat the Huskers. But they’ll have to earn every bit of it. They’re just that kind of team.

Six years ago, OU was great before anybody really knew it. It was some kind of defensive Mona Lisa, that 13-2 Orange Bowl decision, but it was a great team with great players, just a little young for everybody to really grasp.

In ’03 and ’04, OU was a bulldozer. Jason White won the Heisman, Teddy Lehman won the Bednarik, Derrick Strait won the Thorpe, Tommie Harris won the Lombardi, Adrian Peterson ran for 1,925 yards and played bridesmaid to Matt Leinart in New York the night White should have made it two Heismans.

This team is not those teams. It’s not even one of Bob Stoops’ best teams. Just, ever since the All-American kid and J.D. Quinn got themselves thrown off the team, the most endearing.

“They’ve proven to be a really good team together. It’s not one individual,” Stoops said. “This team is strong in a lot of ways. It’s just a good team together.”

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It went down about right.

Paul Thompson has been more than anybody could have expected. The Sooners weren’t 9-2 coming in on enough talent, but also chemistry, effort and good practice habits without him. But with the game on the line, and all the possibilities Texas A&M; delivered with the biggest win for the Sooner Nation that didn’t involve the Sooners since Missouri beat Nebraska in 1978, Stoops returned to his roots.

Defense.

He said he thought they’d pop one.

Patrick had already popped two. Maybe so.

But he was going to run the clock and hold onto the ball, too. And if that didn’t work, and it didn’t, he was going to ride his defense. So he did.

Already it had delivered a season-defining goal line stand and now it had to keep the Cowboys out of the end zone with 1:28 to play and 63 yards to go.

It might have ended things on fourth-and-2 at the 45, or fourth-and-3, on the other side of the 50, at the 42. Instead, it ended things on third-and-10 from the 25 when Zac Robinson, not Bobby Reid, threw long, past D’Juan Woods in the back of the end zone.

In the air, it appeared to be uncatchable. But not just because it was going long. Woods, and everybody else, was covered like a blanket.

The Cowboys outgained the Sooners 362 yards to 315. They collected one more first down. OU was better on third down, but OSU was 3 of 4 on fourth and had the ball 12 more plays than its rival.

OU won.

Not easily. But still.

It wasn’t the first time.

“We played a pretty good football team today,” OSU coach Mike Gundy said. “You have to give them some credit. Those guys have good players, and they know how to coach, too. They’re a good football team.”

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It was supposed to begin where last year left off.

It didn’t. Instead, it began where last year began, only last year, at least, Paul Thompson had spent the spring playing quarterback and Peterson was healthy, at the beginning and again at the end.

Stoops said outsiders may have never understood. After scandal hit, it was dealt with swiftly. The next day it was over and done. On the practice field, in the locker room, the issue was a non-issue.

But then came Oregon and then the Cotton Bowl and then came injury. The Sooners were sputtering at 3-2. Then Reggie Smith went back to safety, OU began stopping the run and quit getting beat deep. The Sooners beat Iowa State and then Colorado. And then Missouri and A&M; and Texas Tech. It wasn’t Red October, but it was something.

And then the Aggies beat the Longhorns.

And the Sooners beat the Cowboys.

It’s been adverse.

It’s been wild.

OU has persevered.

Kansas City awaits. So does Nebraska.

The long and winding road has led this team back to the title game. But the Sooners still had to take it and keep their feet and win and win and win, and win and win and win and win. Seven straight victories has made for a two-game postseason.

They have come all the way back.

“We’ve just got a lot of character,” said C.J. Ah You, the senior defensive end, who recorded OU’s only sack. “The stuff we went through made us stronger.”

Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com