Published: November 23, 2007 01:06 pm      

Sooners still have plenty to play for

NORMAN, Okla. — Motivation is a big thing in college football. There has to be something that drives players through all the exhaustion that comes with playing a college football game.

At Oklahoma, the rabbit the Sooners chase is championships. More often than not, since Bob Stoops arrived in time for the 1999 season, the national championship has remained in sight well into the season.

So, what do the Sooners do now that winning one this season is no longer possible?

“We’re picking ourselves back up,” defensive end Alonzo Dotson said. “We’re going to get back up and rise to the challenge, whatever challenge it is.”

The immediate challenge ahead is Bedlam. The 10th-ranked Sooners (9-2, 5-2 Big 12) face Oklahoma State (6-5, 4-3) at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Owen Field.

A victory makes OU the Big 12 South representative in the conference title game a week from Saturday in San Antonio. A loss means no championships, period.

That’s the motivation this week.

Taking Sooner coach Bob Stoops at his word, that seems to be enough, despite a stinging 34-27 defeat at Texas Tech the Sooner Nation continues to mourn.

“There isn’t anybody hanging their head. We had a very spirited and good practice (Monday),” Stoops said. “We’ve got some huge goals out there for us that are major goals and where things begin in our program.”

OU begins every season with the stated goal of winning the Big 12 title. After that, everything is looked upon as gravy. Winning it last season was looked upon as one of the greatest accomplishments of Stoops’ tenure.

But the Sooners were eliminated from the national championship race by early October last year. That was a team that continued to get better throughout the regular season.

Losing games in November has the effect of a taking a hard punch to the gut. It can take a while to recover.

The main reason OU emerged with last season’s Big 12 championship was Texas took one of those shots with a November loss to Kansas State losing its quarterback along the way.

Texas never emerged from the canvas, losing to Texas A&M as well. The second loss cleared OU’s path to win the South.

The Sooners are dealing with key injuries on both sides of the ball, including the questionable status of quarterback Sam Bradford.

All the scenarios are lining up for the Sooners to return Texas the favor: key players out, national-title hopes have slipped away and OU’s best football appears to have come long ago.

There’s no doubt more than a game was lost at Texas Tech, but there’s still plenty to be gained.

“We’ve just got to win, that’s all I can tell you. We have to win,” running back Chris Brown said. “We’ve put ourselves in a situation where we’re in a must-win situation, and we’ve got to get prepared for that.”



John Shinn writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript.



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