B ob Stoops was at it again. And it took about 10 seconds.

Before Question One had been asked at Friday afternoon’s press conference in advance of tonight’s Big 12 championship game, Stoops did something he most famously did one night in Miami, holding the national championship trophy aloft.

That night, with Jack Arute holding the microphone, Stoops explained that even though so few gave Oklahoma any kind of a chance against Florida State — indeed, the Sooners were 13-point underdogs — “We” have a history of playing well in the Orange Bowl.

Stoops embraced the tradition of the program the first time he set foot on campus. But this was a little different. More than embracing it, he was making it his own.

So, six years later, outside Arrowhead Stadium, here was Stoops.

“We think through all the great and long Big 8 years, so many times Nebraska and Oklahoma at the end of the year decided the championship,” he said. “So, it’s exciting to be in this position again.”

Again?

The last time OU played Nebraska with the Big 8 championship on the line, Stoops was a wet-behind-the-ears young assistant.

But it doesn’t matter.

A long way from the terse and curt press offerings that have been his habit ever since throwing last season’s Holiday Bowl MVP and sidekick off the team, this is the Stoops the Sooner Nation finds so endearing.

When talking like this, rather than sound like an interloper, he’s smooth to the point of infallibility. Like, if he wasn’t on the Sooner sideline way back when, he must have channeled his way there anyway, invisibly whispering into Galen Hall’s ear, “option left” or “option right.”

So it’s with that little historical observation the opportunity in front of Stoops, the players he coaches and the nation that swears its allegiance to them will be explained.

Because the storybook needs an ending.

Let the Fiesta Bowl — or, yegads, the Cotton — be an epilogue.

Tonight, with the hardware on the line, is the season’s final chapter.