So Bob Stoops walked back to the lectern on another Tuesday to face the media and darn if he didn’t repeat himself.

Signs of improvement abound.

Defensively, the Sooners played well.

Offensively, when they weren’t turning the ball over, they played well.

The secondary was beat once.

Had a great practice Monday.

Things look good with Iowa State coming to town.

Nothing wrong with any of that and pretty much all of it’s on the mark. The problem is, two losses into any season, it’s cold comfort for the Sooners and their nation. Because once, beating OU was like trying to beat a shell game.

Focus on this, the Sooners beat you with that. It didn’t matter. No choice was the right choice. But now, given a big enough atmosphere and similar or better talent on the other side of the ball, it’s OU picking the shell. Emphasize this, terrific, but something else suffers.

Internally, the way Stoops sees it, and maybe the way it is, OU is really close, the problems are correctable, a great football team might be around the corner. Externally, the way everybody else sees it, the Longhorns whipped the Sooners 28-10, and that’s not very close at all.

The lesson?

Who knows about this week, next week and the week after that, but man, could Jason White play, could Derrick Strait deliver, could Antonio Perkins come through, could Mark Bradley, Mark Clayton and Brandon Jones create a highlight, could Tommie Harris, Rocky Calmus and Teddy Lehman wreak havoc.

Because the line between excellence and adequate is so unbelievably fine, and those guys were hardly ever just all right.

Think about it.

There’s more than one reason every Sooner loss is judged so harshly and one of them is Stoops’ “No excuses” mantra and another is the coach’s unflinching assertion that every season might as well be a championship season.