STILLWATER — It was fitting. It was right. It was just.It was exactly the kind of game this team has been cut out to win; not from Day 1, maybe, but this particular Saturday, the final day of the regular season, at Boone Pickens Stadium against Bedlam rival Oklahoma State.

The score, 27-21, is just a few numbers.

They represent more.

Oklahoma wasn’t dominant, but solid.

The Sooners weren’t flashy — OK, Allen Patrick was kind of flashy— but workmanlike. They were not great, but quite good.

All of it translates into a couple of things.

Don’t expect OU to run away from Nebraska and into the Kansas City night with any kind of no-sweat, piece-of-cake conference championship. But given who they are and what they are and, oh yes, what they’ve become, just getting there is some kind of achievement.

Maybe it means three things.

The Sooners will beat the Huskers. But they’ll have to earn every bit of it. They’re just that kind of team.

Six years ago, OU was great before anybody really knew it. It was some kind of defensive Mona Lisa, that 13-2 Orange Bowl decision, but it was a great team with great players, just a little young for everybody to really grasp.

In ’03 and ’04, OU was a bulldozer. Jason White won the Heisman, Teddy Lehman won the Bednarik, Derrick Strait won the Thorpe, Tommie Harris won the Lombardi, Adrian Peterson ran for 1,925 yards and played bridesmaid to Matt Leinart in New York the night White should have made it two Heismans.

This team is not those teams. It’s not even one of Bob Stoops’ best teams. Just, ever since the All-American kid and J.D. Quinn got themselves thrown off the team, the most endearing.

“They’ve proven to be a really good team together. It’s not one individual,” Stoops said. “This team is strong in a lot of ways. It’s just a good team together.”

n n n

It went down about right.