COLUMBIA, Mo. — Now that’s more like it. Really.Oklahoma didn’t run away and hide and the Sooners never exactly stepped on Missouri’s throat and there’s no question they got their share of breaks, even though, as long as we’re being honest about it, so did the Tigers.

But there were lots of things that could have happened Saturday afternoon at Faurot Field that might have allowed the watching-at-home Sooner Nation to turn off their televisions long before Marcus Walker made it academic with a fourth-quarter interception, the game already in the bag.

So there’s that. But also this.

Maybe for the first time all season, the Sooners did everything they had to do to win, first downs, total offense and third-down efficiency aside.

OU made plays. Lots of them. Most important, they made one every time they needed one.

And say what you want about a Bob Stoops era that’s been marked by great quarterbacks, terrific defense and a swagger that takes everybody back to the middle 70s, more than anything its been about teams comprised of players who came through when it mattered.

Like Torrance Marshall at A&M, Josh Heupel against Nebraska, Nate Hybl at the Rose Bowl, Antonio Perkins against UCLA, Jason White at A&M and Clint Ingram at the Holiday Bowl.

Big game-saving, game-changing, sometimes even season-saving plays. The new glory days of Sooner football have been built on them and Saturday, against Missouri, in the nation’s only game among ranked teams, the Sooners made one after another.

The score was 26-10.

The story was the plays.

If it wasn’t always comfortable, it was never in jeopardy.

Had OU required more, it would have done more.

It was that kind of day.

“We’re just getting better all the time,” Sooner coach Bob Stoops said.

It was an interception — and a fumble recovery — even on the same play, a combination of the efforts of Rufus Alexander (tip), Zach Lattimer (pick/fumble) and C.J. Ah You (recovery) that led to OU’s first lead, and another, Walker’s, that sealed it … and still another, from Lendy Holmes, that wrapped it up pretty. But there was so much in between.