Sooners keep finding a way

Clay Horning
The Norman Transcript

December 03, 2006 02:30 am

— KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Well, that’s about right.
A week ago, the Sooners swallowed the playbook and held on. One week later, at Arrowhead Stadium, playing an old rival for one more conference championship, and it was Paul Thompson throwing out of the end zone, on target most of the time. And when he wasn’t, well, who better than Malcolm Kelly to make one more circus catch to keep things going?
21-7. Wow!
Even from the press box, a polite golf clap may be in order.
No national championship, of course. But even on a day Southern Cal lost, leaving many to wonder where a one-loss Oklahoma might find itself in the BCS pecking order, what happened Saturday night against Nebraska at the Big 12 championship game has to be enough.
It has to be because there may be nothing left.
Maybe, come Jan. 1 in Glendale, Ariz., OU will find one more way to win. And then, at some point, it’s got to be like wringing blood from a turnip.
One would think.
But one could be wrong.
Because the Sooners keep finding a way.
So here they were at Arrowhead and Husker punter Dan Titchener had not simply dropped another one inside the 20 or inside the 10 or inside the 5.
He dropped it at the 1.
The Sooners took a chance and threw incomplete.
Next, looking for a little breathing room, Chris Brown went backward, just not quite into the end zone.
Nebraska was playing the run so tough, and had been the whole game, taking another shot up the middle was a surer route to a safety than taking another shot in the air.
So Thompson tried again and hit Jermaine Gresham for 35 yards … then Juaguin Iglesias for 22 … then Kelly for 9 … then Adron Tennell — Adron Tennell! — for 15 … then Kelly for 11 with his first highlight catch of the drive … then, finally, a few plays later, Kelly for 3 as the sophomore from Longview, Texas, put on a clinic getting his left foot down to the end zone turf before his right foot landed out of bounds.
In the week leading up to the game, Bob Stoops said he wanted the Sooners to be balanced. He probably wanted to stop the run and the pass, pressure the quarterback, win the battle at the line of scrimmage and make big plays on special teams, too.
That’s great and OU must have accomplished some of it, but looking at it that way is like taking a Salvador Dali painting off the museum wall and connecting the dots.
Because the only way Stoops might ever have accurately announced just how the Sooners would bring home their fourth conference championship in eight seasons is if he would have said, “Facing third-and-10 at our own 1, Paul Thompson’s going to complete 6-of-7 passes and take us 99 yards down the field. That’s how. And then we’re going to make every huge defensive play every time it looks like Zac Taylor and Nebraska’s about to answer.”
How could he, or anybody, ever count on that?
There’s no way.
But that’s the thing about these Sooners.
Nobody in the stadium might see it coming, but there’s always a way.
Against Colorado, it was defense, pure and simple. Against Missouri, it was big game-changing plays. OU seemed to make every one. Against Texas A&M, the first time Stoops ate the playbook, the Sooners held on by their fingernails. Against Texas Tech, they rallied like Jason White was back for his eighth season. Baylor was easy. Then came Bedlam where Allen Patrick and Brown looked like Elvis Peacock and Horace Ivory.
Now this.
A 99-yard drive in the cold Kansas City night and one big defensive play after another.
Protecting a two-touchdown edge, Demarrio Pleasant stopped the Huskers by leveling Hunter Teafatiller and creating a fourth-down incompletion. Then it was Nic Harris turning a certain Husker touchdown into an interception, coming out of nowhere with a swan dive and catch. Then it was Reggie Smith with the pick.
It’s always something.
A great team?
Maybe, but not the way you might think.
Greatness hasn’t produced eight straight wins with New Year’s Day on the way. Instead, greatness has been achieved with big plays one day, defense the next, a big running play the next and so on and so on and so on.
It’s always something.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com