It was the first hour of what would become a wonderful year in Sooner history. The only problem was it was Jan. 1, 2000, the ball had just dropped in Times Square and OU had just been Deuce McCallistered by Ole Miss in Shreveport, La. And while Independence is a wonderful thing, it’s a bad bowl in a bad town and the Sooners had just lost.

“It was brought up, “Look, we’ve been killing (McAllister), so don’t squib it here and give them field position, all they need is a field goal,’” Venables said of some late-game strategy. “So we kicked it and the next thing you know they return it to like the 50 and two or three plays later they kick a game-winning field goal.”

Not long after that, as Venables continued the story, Stoops’ genius was revealed.

“So we’re 7-5 and we’re on the bus and it’s 12:30 or one in the morning and we’re going across the river and everybody’s quiet and there’s fireworks over there and everybody’s feeling miserable and Bob says, ‘You know what guys? You don’t what to win too much too soon. You’ve got to keep people at ease. You don’t want people to get too excited too soon.’ And you know, that’s your boss!

“And it was just so ironic that he said that and then we went 13-0 the next season. So I’ve just always embraced that moment. It’s because of his leadership that you had a perspective on it,” Venables said. “You know, it’s human nature. You could just beat yourself up and be sick to your stomach but that’s not positive. It’s hard to grow in that environment. And that’s what Bob does. He allows you to grow and to use those experiences to your benefit.”

Surely, eight years of just such teachable moments is worth one little victory over North Texas today. Down the road, we’ll see what it’s worth to an entire season, the ninth since the coach from Youngstown left Gainesville for Norman.

And we’ll see if the armor goes back in the closet.

Venables tells a great story.

Still it would be nice to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Clay Horning

366-3526

cfhorning@normantranscript.com