Can USC lose every week? Or maybe a Georgia, or an LSU.

Even a Tulsa.

Indeed, the shenanigans Oregon State pulled Thursday on what was either a horribly unfocused or horribly overrated bunch of Trojans takes me back to Week 2 when I asked Bob Stoops whether or not some opening-day upsets served the Sooners well, lest they come out slightly unpumped or misguided against a dangerous bunch from Cincinnati.

Stoops dismissed the thought.

Just watching Bearcat film, he said, made the Sooners believers.

Maybe so, but USC’s Thursday loss still boggles the mind, as does what happened to OU last year at Colorado, as do the first halves of the last two Fiesta Bowls. On average, perhaps, it only happens once a year to OU, yet one day of lost focus can spoil the best made plans.

It’s all a way of saying don’t worry about today, but you never know.

Just watching what TCU’s done through four games should be enough to have OU on its best and most punishing behavior for today’s 6 p.m. Owen Field kick. The Horned Frogs have won four games and none have been close. If their performances have been suspect, it’s yet to show up on the scoreboard.

That doesn’t make OU a sure bet to be next week’s No. 1 team in the land. Resumé voters might elevate a remaining unbeaten team from the SEC figuring it’s more deserving. Yet it should mean OU will come out sharp and focused and that should be enough to claim victory on the eve of the Big 12 Conference race beginning.

But if the question is answered for today, what about a week from today, two weeks from today and three weeks from today? Baylor isn’t terrible, Texas is next and Kansas follows. And those three games aren’t dissimilar from any other three games.

Every week, it will be the same.

It’s not on the Sooners to be good enough to win because the answer to that question is already known. Instead, it’s on them to actually win and that means every game.

Stoops has tried to calm the storm. Only three games have been played. This “could be” a special team, he’s said.

Yet here we are, OU is No. 2 and No. 1 just lost. There’s an entire conference slate to play and a Big 12 championship game after that, but there’s nothing out there calling for a little luck, or a turnover at the right time, or catching a strong foe on an off day.

That’s not for the Sooners, but everybody else.

Trying to find a big difference between 2003 and 2004 and 2008 — or the possibilities between those seasons and this season — is difficult. The only real one appears to be the laundry list of absolute studs.

Then it was Tommie Harris and Jason White and Dusty Dvoracek and Teddy Lehman. Derrick Strait won the Thorpe award in 2003 on his way out, but Adrian Peterson came in the next season and almost won the Heisman.

This year’s list begins with Sam Bradford and maybe, by year’s end, Jermaine Gresham will be the nation’s best tight end. Auston English is on the other side.

Those teams had several icons. This team has a few stars and a whole bunch of really good players at a whole bunch of positions. And still, those teams and this team, even just three games into the season, have intersected.

For OU, then and now, it is not whether it can, but whether it will.

It can be harsh, facing that kind of standard. On the other hand, the Sooners have earned it, perhaps sooner than they wanted, but now must accept it.

Now, if every remaining contender and unbeaten can simply lose one week at a time. That way, there’s a perpetual reminder or what’s at stake.

OU shouldn’t need it, but running the table is hard.

Even for the nation’s best team.

Clay Horning

366-3526

cfhorning@normantranscript.com