History in mind

Clay Horning
The Norman Transcript

September 09, 2007 12:29 am

— Bob Stoops said the past didn’t matter.
He said it’s nice the players know, but it’s immaterial. He said, heck, many of them weren’t yet born the last time the Hurricanes and Sooners played. Miami robbed Barry Switzer of his fourth national championship at the 1988 Orange Bowl, but what’s that got to do with Saturday afternoon at Owen Field?
But come the fourth quarter, it was like the last folks Stoops spoke to before walking down the ramp were Keith Jackson, Mark Hutson, Rickey Dixon and Dante Jones. It was like Switzer was in his ear. Anthony Stafford, too.
Because even in a game that appeared to mean so much more to Oklahoma and Miami now than anything left over from the Sooners and Hurricanes then, given the chance to make up for a few generations-old history-changing defeats, the OU coach did what he could.
“I don’t get into that,” Stoops said of the past, a few minutes after Oklahoma present crushed Miami 51-13.
Really?
OU already up 18 points as the fourth quarter began and Stoops green lights a reverse pass from Manuel Johnson to Malcolm Kelly?
Sure about that?
A couple plays later, after Sam Bradford had spent most of the second and third quarters dinking and dunking the pigskin for a few yards here and there, he went deep, finding Kelly in the end zone from 30 yards.
What, it was just there?
Believe it if you want or believe a few long-standing ghosts all the Sooner Magic in the world could never quite chase away finally departed. All because Stoops and some of his true believing charges decided to go all Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis on the ’Canes.
Of course, he called off the dogs?
Wrong.
Bradford wasn’t done, finding Dane Zaslaw for touchdown pass No. 5 of the game and No. 8 of the season with 7:41 remaining. Nor was Joey Halzle, who mopped up not by handing off up the middle but by hitting Adron Tennell with a slant that went 61 yards to cap the scoring.
And tell me, just when has a slant ever been used as some kind of ball-control, let’s-just-get-things-over-with ploy? It’s a short pass with big play designs and the Sooners hit it with 2:48 remaining already up 31 points.
“That makes for a great story,” Stoops said, once again offering his disdain for such subplots, “but that was a long time ago.”
Well, he can just keep saying it. Believe him or not, 20 years ago isn’t very far away to all but the whippersnapper members of the Sooner Nation.
Merv Johnson, still OU’s director of football operations and offensive line coach for so long under Switzer, felt some of the past rinsing clean.
“I think so,” he said. “You lose to them four times in a row, you feel like there’s a hex.”
Actually, it was three straight.
It must have felt like 10.
OU beat Miami in 1973 and 1975. Ranked No. 6 the first time and No. 1 the second, the Sooners barely got away, netting the victories by a combined seven points.
Then came the ’85, ’86 and ’87 seasons.
Loss, loss, loss.
The record crowd of 85,357 was going crazy because Bradford is too good to be true and the defense appears rock solid and man, there’s a lot of weapons, out wide and waiting to carry the ball and because, well, they pretty much go crazy for this program every week around here.
So that’s part of it. And then there’s the part about, all these years later, it being Miami. Thug U’s a thing of the past? Fine. It was still Miami.
“Hopefully, it helped some people,” Stoops said. “I just have a hard time going back that long. So, hopefully, for some of our fans, it helps.”
He wasn’t about to wade into history but he put his toe in the water.
It was the least he could do. Because not long before, maybe half an hour, he wasn’t taking a knee, shutting things down or taking it easy. He was watching, all these years later, the Sooners run it up on the Hurricanes.
What, he couldn’t have stopped it?
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com