Clay Horning
BOULDER, Colo. — It’s only Week 5 and Texas is next week and already, the season is too long for Oklahoma. Already, it’s all about the end rather than the next game. Already, thoughts flutter toward the Bowl Championship Series rather than the pecking order in the Big 12 South.
Perhaps not entirely.
Not on the Sooner sideline today at Folsom Field.
Not in the narrow and focused mind of Bob Stoops.
But it’s out there.
Indeed, for Sooner fans, the biggest game in the country may not even be today’s tussle in the mountains. Instead, it might be USC at Washington. LSU at Tulane is an afterthought, but get the Tigers in the heat of the SEC and the Sooner Nation’s second favorite team will be LSU’s Opponent in a dead heat with USC’s Opponent.
The good news is the Trojans and Tigers will entertain a few losable games. More good news, as long as one of those losable games is lost, OU appears to face none of them.
Not even next week.
Certainly not this week.
And still, the questioners do what they can to play along.
Uh, Bob, what about the altitude?
“We’re not going to be there 24 hours,” Stoops said. “I never hear of anybody going up to play the Broncos having trouble with that. I don’t believe in that whatsoever.”
I’m with Stoops.
That question’s like a laugh track. So predictable.
Uh, Bob, I know you hear this every year but you’ve got Texas next week …
“We know that. You’re not talking to a bunch of guys that don’t realize that,” Stoops said. “We’ve had that question every year and look at our track record before and after that game.”
No need.
It’s really, really good.
All right, how about Sam Bradford.
Uh, Bob, Tulsa was a road game but Colorado will be his first really hostile environment. How is he going to handle that?
“I think that he has been just what you want him to be,” Stoops said. “He hasn’t made an issue of it. He looks at it like this is what we’ve practiced and, we get out between the lines, this is all that matters.”
Maybe the questions aren’t so bad, but they just seem so … forced.
Because what else is there?
A week ago the Sooners faced their first real defensive test. If they failed early, they passed with flying colors late. Consider it their first taste of adversity, which lasted about a quarter.
Their quarterback has gone from being a huge question mark to a fringe Heisman Trophy Candidate.
Curtis Lofton and Ryan Reynolds, as anonymous as any two starting linebackers have been at OU in some time, have been playing like Rocky Calmus and Torrance Marshall.
Stoops keeps calling Malcolm Kelly maybe the best receiver in the nation and if he isn’t, well, there’s nobody better. But one guy can make a pretty good case and his name is Juaquin Iglesias, averaging almost seven catches a game and more than 100 yards a game.
Allen Patrick is picking up 9 yards every time he touches the ball.
Bradford leads the conference in passing efficiency and is second in the nation.
The Sooners lead the conference in sacks and are last (or first: only two in four games) in sacks allowed.
OU’s cup runneth over. It even runneth over for the right reasons.
Because this is a Sooner team near void of preseason All-Americans, even preseason All-Big 12 first-team choices. That’s likely an oversight, yet still an accurate reflection of a team that plays its very best together.
Trying very hard to generate an enlightening answer, somebody posed this query Stoops’ way: What’s it like in the locker room? You’ve played four very good games, so what kind of vibe has that translated into when the players are together?
“I think what’s been good about this team, and I trust that it will continue to happen,” Stoops said, “is they’ve been very — and I’ve said this now a couple times, and I say it in a positive and complimentary way — they’ve been very robotic in how they’ve gone about their business in the way they’ve practiced, they way they’ve prepared.
So they’re not feeling all high and mighty. They just put their head down and go back to work. The biggest challenge is internal. Pass that and what’s external will take care of itself.
That’s probably why today, next Saturday, the Saturday after that and the Saturday after that offer the Sooner Nation little to worry about.
Still, it’s too bad for this team. The way things are going, the end seems too far away. Oh, well. Likely, it’s one of those good problems to have.
Vigilance is no small challenge.
But it’s nice when it’s all you’ve got.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
