About revenge?

By John Shinn

Coaches don’t like to talk about revenge.

It’s unseemly. Bringing it into the spotlight can diminish the contest. Everything should be about the future. Talking about the past is waste of time.

But when the spotlight is gone and reporters are absent, there isn’t a motivational factor that pushes a team’s buttons more than revenge. Reminding a team about a loss that’s haunted it has been used time and again with glowing success.

Oklahoma is a perfect example. Only twice in the last decade has it lost to the same team consecutively.

Sooner players and coaches haven’t used the word this week when discussing tonight’s game against No. 24 TCU (4-0), but they’ve talked about almost everything else.

Every one of the second-ranked Sooners’ players who were around in 2005 retain vivid memories of the Horned Frogs’ last visit to Owen Field. TCU walked away with a 17-10 victory.

“The memory of that game that stands out the most is obviously losing the season opener at home, and I know I don’t want to feel that way again,” cornerback Lendy Holmes said.

OU coach Bob Stoops said he and his staff have brought up that 2005 game over the last two weeks. Tapes have been shown and memories have been expressed.

“We want them to understand that this is how well they played and this is how they beat us,” Stoops said. “And they need to understand that we need to perform a whole lot better to have a chance to win.”

It’s not exactly saying you need to go out and tear a team’s heart out because that’s exactly what’s owed, but the reminder is there. The 2005 TCU loss hurt several players’ pride. In retrospect, they feel they were unprepared. There was a sense that everything the Sooners had done over the previous five seasons was let down by the performance.

A win tonight will do a little to make that go away. Simply playing will. By Sunday, what happened five years ago won’t be the fresh game in everyone’s minds. What happened Saturday will.

That’s what OU’s players are thinking. Revenge is about getting the last laugh.

It’s proven to be a pretty good source of motivation over the years. Here are some of the memorable “revenge” games since the Stoops’ era began.

n Texas A&M; 2003: The Sooners’ perfect season hopes were derailed the previous season with a 30-26 loss to the Aggies in College Station. Both teams brought back most of the same players, but there was a remarkably different result at Owen Field. The 77-0 victory was the classic example of how big a motivating factor revenge can be.

n OSU 2003: Back-to-back Bedlam losses cost the Sooners potential shots at national championships. With both teams ranked in the top 10 for the first time in nearly 20 years, the Sooners exorcised their demons with a convincing 52-9 victory. The win ended just about all the talk of then-OSU coach Les Miles having Bob Stoops’ number. It also started OU’s current Bedlam winning streak that has since reached five.

n Texas 2000: Bob Stoops’ Red River Rivalry coming out party almost came a year earlier, but the Sooners let an early lead evaporate into a 38-28 loss. Things changed a little the following year. OU jumped out to an early lead and, instead of faltering, pummeled the Longhorns 63-14.

n Texas A&M; 1999: The Sooners had been outscored 113-23 by the Aggies over the previous three seasons, but something changed when they walked into Owen Field that afternoon. OU flipped the scales, winning 51-6 and turned the scales in the series with Texas A&M.; Over the last five meetings in Norman, the Sooners have won them by an average score of 47-6.

n Miami 2007: The teams hadn’t played in 20 years, but this one was more about the Sooner Nation, still sore after three losses in 1985-87 that cost the Sooners two more national championships. Revenge was exacted by OU’s 51-13 victory. Miami will have revenge on its mind when the teams meet next season at Dolphin Stadium.

John Shinn

366-3536

jshinn@normantranscript.com