Clay Horning
esterday morning I called the game Oklahoma played Saturday a bridge to tomorrow.
Well, not exactly, but how often can you get yesterday, tomorrow and a day of the week in the same sentence? Anyway, I called it something like that. So how did OU fare?
Basically, it was everything the Sooners wanted.
A 66-28 victory. Another four touchdown passes from Sam Bradford. A defense that held Texas A&M; to around 200 yards of offense until garbage time. Almost 11 yards per carry from their tailback trio. Another crazy quick start. And another one to begin the second half. The only reason OU failed to score 80 points was it didn’t want to.
Let’s see. What else?
A 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.
Oh, wait, that was A&M;’s Cyrus Gray.
A 67-yard kickoff return.
Oh, wait, that was Gray, too.
A 40-yard kickoff return?
Yes, that was Ryan Broyles.
You see where this is going?
The Sooners have cast away most of the demons that were bothering them going all the way back to the TCU game. They have found their running game, the defense has responded the last two weeks even in the absence of Ryan Reynolds and Auston English.
Heck, Austin Box, playing for Reynolds, after a game he picked off the first pass of his collegiate career, already sounded like a veteran.
“We held A&M; under 300 yards and that’s a team goal we set every week,” he said. “There are some things we need to clean up. We can always play better.”
Once again, OU is a juggernaut with the best quarterback in the nation, a buffet line of receivers to throw to, even a bevy of dangerous tailbacks to hand the ball. The defense hasn’t merely stiffened, but is now scoring points of its own. And it’s getting turnovers the way the very early Stoops era teams did.
Mike Knall even averaged 40 yards a punt Saturday.
But there was Cyrus Gray running away from everybody.
Untouched. It was something.
The law of averages may say such things want eventually cost the Sooners. They don’t play many close games. Even Jordan Shipley’s return at the Cotton Bowl didn’t cost them the game. OU led that game long after Shipley went 96 yards.
But Murphy’s Law says the Sooners surely will get burned. It’s like the game you lead by a run and forget to guard the lines and two pitches later you’re just hoping to get to the 10th.
“We still have a lot of our goals out in front of us,” Bradford said.
How the Sooner quarterback knew hours in advance Texas Tech would beat Oklahoma State is anybody’s guess, but he’s right.
OU’s remaining games, Texas Tech and Bedlam away, offer a chance to bank BCS credit no other team may have. Penn State has fallen and Alabama almost lost Saturday. By the end of the regular season, there’s a very good chance, whoever might be ranked No. 1 aside, the consensus playing-their-best-right-now team could well be the Sooners.
But they have to get there. And once there, wherever there may be, they’ll have to win again. The way things are going, they’ll have to come back from another kickoff return for a touchdown. If it’s a close game, maybe they won’t.
It’s embarrassing a team so good could be so bad at one little thing. But that is this team.
There may be no more dangerous team in the nation. To opponents. And itself.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
