Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops doesn't like all kinds of things.
He's not much for comparisons. Doesn't like anybody watching his practices. Prefers not to answer the same question twice, especially if it's about injuries. And, true to his Day 1 word, doesn't like excuses.
So even as admitting to being "snakebit" is kind of like admitting luck runs in cycles and you haven't been getting any lately, it's still not his style.
For Stoops, even the metaphysical counts like an excuse.
"I don't go there," he said. "We've had some difficult circumstances but we deal with them and we keep playing. To me, that's all you can do. We try to look at the positives and the things we can change."
Call it head-down mode.
Nothing wrong with that.
Because it all remains true.
The Sooners really are about one play away in three different games from being unbeaten. They really have their best defense since '03 and '04, back when the they used to collect individual awards like Notre Dame collects underachieving seasons and coaches who just don't work out.
Not only close to being unbeaten, OU's close enough to being pretty darn good, period. Just a little scoreboard production to go with all that defense, you know?
And yet things have to turn around right now.
The Sooners could take the one-more-play-a-game route. Or that offensive line, lack of continuity and all, might finally settle in and, all of a sudden, Landry Jones his facing second-and-5 instead of second-and-13, which always leads to third-and 13.
Whatever, victory is required today not because OU needs it, though it desperately does. It's required because the season is in the balance.
The Sooners can still go 9-3, win a bowl game for the first time since 2005 -- which just happens to be the last time they had to save their season in mid-stream -- even send everybody home happy despite a season without Jermaine Gresham, frequently without Sam Bradford and often without other key players.
Or they can go 7-5 or worse, getting past Kansas State and Texas A--M, but losing today and at least once more against the likes of Nebraska, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, maybe going to a bowl game and maybe not.
Basically, in all ways but the development of experience and depth, the Sooners can cash in their first lost season of the Stoops' era.
"We have to stay positive," said Brody Eldridge, the poster boy for OU's personnel issues along the offensive line, where he's started at three difference positions. "I'm not worried about the guys. We just need to keep working hard and move on from there."
Maybe, if only it were enough.
Because OU played hard as the dickens against Texas and Miami, too. But it kept trading touchdowns for field goals and that's no recipe for success.
Playing hard is required, but it's no tonic, merely an ingredient.
The Sooners must play hard, but accomplish more.
They have to make that play.
Or Stoops has to take a chance and it has to work. It may have to produce points.
Kansas falling on its face is a last option, because any victory, even an ugly one, buys OU some time.
Yet, as a reflection of their coach's fire and determination, don't count on any help from the Jayhawks today.
Count on OU making its own luck for a chance.
That, or another narrow loss that takes the season down with it.
Clay Horning 366-3526 cfhorning@normantranscript.com
