Bill Snyder proved a couple of things. In the division of the Big 12 Conference nobody appears to want to win, he's coaching a team that wants to win. And the program he took from dust to dominance is on the way back indeed.

Back in Manhattan, Kan., Wildcat fans are decrying the 21 points they believe their team spotted the Sooners.

But for that, they're thinking, Kansas State wins.

Yet for all of that, they have to like the trajectory of their program. Coming into the game, the Wildcats' leading the North Division was the shocker. On the way out, the shocker will be their not winning it.

That's one half of the story told Saturday night at Owen Field. The other half is Oklahoma, the eventual 42-30 victor, the team of the fast start, slow middle and sudden finish.

The team that did so much of what it's done wrong all season. The kinds of things that have contributed to a trio losses by the grand sum of five points. The kinds of things that have had the Sooner Nation pulling out its collective hair.

Like 91 yards in penalties.

Like the kind of inconsistency that allows for 21 points over the game's first 101?2 minutes, yet only seven more until the fourth minute of the fourth quarter.

But occasionally, things done wrong are precisely the point. Sometimes, it's not about the good stuff, but overcoming the bad.

"Answering back," OU coach Bob Stoops said. "They stole the momentum and the offense answered back."

It took a while.

Still, it was emphatic.

Just maybe, it included the greatest answer in the history of Sooner football, when 50 of OU's penalty yards broke out on the same drive, the big comeback coming when Stephen Good held on to what appeared to be a 35-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Broyles. So, after Broyles was called for a dead ball taunt, OU found itself first-and-45 from its own 37.

DeMarco Murray ran for 2 and caught for 18, leaving the rest to Broyles after catching the ball in the right flat, still about 20 yards from the first down marker. But he made three Wildcats miss and the Sooners had finally overcome themselves.

Perhaps not only in the moment, but period.

Six plays later they were in the end zone and the lead went from five points to 12.

Of course, Wildcat return man and stud receiver Brandon Banks brought the kick back 98 yards, so OU had to do it all over again. But again, the Sooners did it the hard way, going 68 yards in 11 plays.

"It was just a great competitive game," Broyles said, and he was exactly right.

That 28-point favorite's tag OU carried into the game was a mirage the moment the line was posted. A nation of bettors wants to believe in OU the same way its fans do, and one big second half in Lawrence, Kan., was enough to make believers out of so many.

Yet it was no more than a building block, just like OU's fast start Saturday night, of which Broyles was all over as well, snaring his ninth and 10th touchdown grabs of the season before the first quarter was done.

Imagine what this team might do on a night the offense doesn't go flat for half the game; on a night the defense plays more like it has all season long and not like it did much of last season; on a night Landry Jones does just what he did against the Wildcats, throwing for 294 yards and four touchdowns without a pick.

It's heady stuff, what the Sooners might be capable of, even if it's all they can do to reach the Cotton Bowl or earn a return trip to San Diego, where they last went bowling and won.

Whatever that's supposed to look like, they're closer after finally winning a close one; maybe not when it was over, but it was real close at 28-23 in the third quarter and 30-25 in the fourth.

They're so much closer after turning back all the self-imposed adversity they'd failed to rise above three times this season. And they're so much closer after taking a real shot from a rising program nobody should want to meet the rest of the season.

A great game.

Maybe even for all involved.

Clay Horning 366-3526 cfhorning@normantranscript.com