By Clay Horning
Here’s how good Oklahoma looks coming into Bedlam.
Here at The Transcript, where nobody’s killing with their weekly picks against the spread and where everybody’s pretty familiar with their Bedlam football history, the lot of us like the Sooners giving the points.
We are not alone.
Listen and look, and when folks start talking about what’s going to happen today at Oklahoma State’s Boone Pickens Stadium, you hear a lot of, “I see Oklahoma, once again …,” which, of course, is the beginning of a Texas Tech reference.
It’s hardly fair to the Sooners, who under Bob Stoops, traveling every other year to Stillwater, have won by 5, lost by 10, won by 3, and won by 6. It’s hardly fair to a team that aboslutely crushed the Red Raiders 65-21 last week, a level of domination equally convincing and unlikely to ever happen again when No. 5 plays No. 2.
It’s hardly fair to a team that, since its only loss, has won 45-31, 58-35, 62-28, 66-28 and 65-21. Because why should any team have to do THAT every single time?
Isn’t it enough to beat your in-state rival — a program that’s enjoying its best season in a generation; a program craving victory over you so much (with an inferiority complex and fragile self-image so deep) it would rather house 10,000 empty seats than give in to the mere possibility they be filled by enemy loyalists; a program that despite its minimalist history against you, still gives you nothing but tough games on its home field — period?
Well, yeah.
Or it should be.
At this point even the citizens of Nova Scotia understand the Big 12 South’s entry into next week’s conference championship game, should OU, Texas and Texas Tech all finish with 7-1 league records, will be determined by BCS standing. Everybody also knows Texas entered the week with a slim edge, even as the coaches and Harris poll voters, two-thirds of BCS formula, have already placed the Sooners in front of the Longhorns. And a popular point of view says OU will complete the climb with a performace today just like the one last Saturday.
Don’t count on it.
Victory is required, but looking good enough to run away with the NFC East can’t be today’s test.
That doesn’t mean Texas’ neutral-field victory has to be devalued, nor its beating the Pokes by a mere four points in Austin be viewed as a black mark against.
All it means is after processing what’s been there for all to see, week in and week out, the computers arrive at something more near the sensible conclusions of those who think for themselves and have a vote already have, that the Sooners are the best team.
That Texas did itself no favors with the most pedestrian of 49-9 victories one can hardly imagine Thursday against Texas A&M; hardly has to factor in.
That any other day but the day the game was played the Longhorns would have come up with a late interception and not even given Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree the chance to hook up on a miracle shouldn’t factor in.
Just as long as Tech takes care of business against Baylor today, OU will have an opportunity to send it to the judges, human and otherwise, one more time. And there’s no reason why victory won’t be enough.
Have you seen the Pokes this season? Have you watched them be in position to win every game but one? Do you know what Bedlam means?
Since 2000, the Sooners’ average margin at the stadium currently called Boone Pickens has been a pair of safeties.
OU may rip OSU a new one. Most seem to think the Sooners will. But must they?
No.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
