“It’s good to step up in the fourth quarter,” Bob Stoops said.

And still, the Sooners were lucky.

OU was the beneficiary of four turnovers, Missouri of two and that’s a start but there’s more. One of those turnovers the Tigers got came on Juaquin Iglesias’ kick return a moment after Jeremy Maclin’s 10-yard dash brought Missouri within 23-17.

The very next play, Chase Daniel threw to a wide open Derrick Washington who promptly dropped a certain 46-yard touchdown. The Tigers scored seven snaps later but what if it had been 14 points on consecutive snaps? What then?

Maybe the Sooners don’t recover.

That’s one.

DeMarco Murray managed not to fumble his next return and set the Sooners up at their own 34.

Sam Bradford had another great day, completing 24 of 34 passes for 266 yards and two scores, but in the fourth quarter, trailing by a point because Garrett Hartley can’t kick any more, the redshirt freshman quarterback had to be great and was for all but one play. That was the play, facing first-and-10 at the Missouri 33, he overthrew Manuel Johnson but not Tiger safety Cornelius Brown who dropped the ball like it was on fire.

That’s two.

Two gifts OU may not win without.

Afterward, getting the home team radio glad-hand treatment from color-man and Sooner director of football operations Merv Johnson, Stoops appeared unsure what to do with the old offensive line coach’s congratulations.

“All wins are good,” Stoops said.

But his heart wasn’t in it. It was better than the alternative, not much else.

Eventually, the coach who could never have dreamed he’d be right back in the thick of the national-title picture just two weeks after losing in the mountains came clean.

“We need to do a better job coaching and they need to do a better job listening and executing,” he said.