Sooners made their statement when and where it counted

November 30, 2008 01:36 am

— STILLWATER — Give it up, Mack Brown.
You too, Mike Leach.
All arguments aside, the football fortunes seem destined to pour cold water all over your own national title arguments.
Oklahoma State even argued with you, but on every occasion, Oklahoma argued back. Six straight times the Sooners answered an offensive punch with a counterpunch and in the end, the 61-41 Sooners victory should say all there needs to be said to settle that pesky fifth tiebreaker that will allow the voters and computers connected to the Bowl Championship Series to determine the Big 12 South Division representative — and very likely, one of two spots in the national championship game.
Consider the statements made from the Oklahoma offense and quarterback Sam Bradford. For starters, nine consecutive third-down conversions. Give him style points for trying to convert the 10th on his own, an 8-yard carry on a third-and-goal that ended with a 1 1/2 axel out of bounds while taking a nasty hit by OSU defender Ricky Price.
No matter though. Bradford started a streak of back-to-back fourth-down conversions by recovering his own mishandled snap from center and scoring on a 1-yard keeper, making it 37-26 with time waning in the third quarter.
“Reminded me of a youth league play I once made,” Bradford said.
Six of Oklahoma’s scores raise another argument. In 71 drives inside the red zone, the Sooners have registered 61 touchdowns. They’ve exceeded 60 points in four consecutive games.
“The great teams score when they need to,” Bradford said. “Tonight I think we met that challenge. We had to. They just kept answering us, so we had to answer them.”
There were 12 consecutive scoring drives in this contest. A three-and-out by the OU defense with 5:44 to go ended the run.
Bradford recovered from a 4-of-11 start passing and a seven-point first quarter, including only the second time this season he hasn’t led the team to a score on its first drive, and finished the night 30-of-44 passing for 370 yards. His four touchdown passes, two to Jermaine Gresham, moved him past Jason White as the career TD pass leader at OU with 82.
That’s in four less seasons than the former OU Heisman Trophy winner’s six campaigns. Need a statement for that contest?
But meanwhile, a memo to Leach, the Texas Tech coach whose team saw his team get pasted for 65 points last week: Graduation rates, as you requested on Saturday as a means for a tiebreaker, won’t factor. Memo to Mack Brown and Texas: You’d have a better chance arguing in favor of disqualifying a 9-3 North champ Missouri for losing in Kansas City a week in advance, in a wintry mess against Kansas.
But yet, Missouri is probably owed a BCS break after getting shafted last year when the Orange Bowl selected North runner-up Kansas rather than the Big 12 championship-losing Tigers. Or, Mack, you could wait and see if being a division runner-up has its, um, benefits again. Should OU lose to the Tigers next week...oh, we wouldn’t want to go there.
Even the “45-35” flyovers reminding a Boone Pickens Stadium crowd and a national television audience of the Red River Rivalry outcome shouldn’t matter. It is, you know, a three-way tie.
“If that stuff matters in the air rather than the statement we made on the field, then maybe we should back off and change a few things,” Bradford said.
The verdict will be announced this afternoon.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.