Instant Analysis: Texas Tech-Oklahoma

The talk about the demise of Big Game Bob can die. The fury about an impending BCS train wreck can live.

In a mean, nasty, and evidently angry performance that unleashed a lot of pent-up frustration on the college football world, the Oklahoma Sooners—owners of six division titles and four conference crowns this decade—made a very loud statement to their doubters, while making the BCS race a whole lot more complicated.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders—who have surpassed all expectations in a terrific 2008—were unlucky enough to find themselves standing in the way of the juiced-up juggernaut that nuked them in Norman.

No guesswork was needed in forming this particular piece of game analysis. Oklahoma started throwing punches from the start, and landed knockout blows at every turn. Coming hard and heavy at a terrified bunch of Techsters from all directions on both sides of the ball, the Sooners swamped Mike Leach’s lads with equal portions of precision and punishment. Textbook execution and maniacal intensity found a perfect match in the form of an awesome Oklahoma outfit that maxed out in the Big 12 South’s latest ballyhooed battle. If this was a heavyweight fight, it would have been called early in the second round. If this was an Olympic softball game, it would have been called due to run differential after four innings.

The picture is as clear as it was painful for the Red Raiders: Oklahoma annihilation defined the entirety of this encounter, as Tech’s greatest strengths were smashed, its supreme superstars smothered, its lauded linemen lit up by the Crimson and Cream. Oklahoma’s energy was so consistently high, so frighteningly fierce, that coach Bob Stoops—once again a winner in what could reasonably be called a “big game”—was seen throwing forearms and elbows in celebrating home-run plays with his players… in the third quarter, with his team already leading by more than 35 points.

Catharsis is the word that clearly marked this conquest for a program that—due to its Fiesta Bowl losses in the last two seasons, plus the setbacks in two straight BCS title tilts earlier in the decade—has had to endure more unfair criticism than any other school not named Ohio State. Always successful and at the top of their conference, the Sooners have displayed a level of consistency that only Ohio State and USC have been able to match since the 2000 campaign. Yet, the only thing a lot of people have associated with Oklahoma football in recent years has been Bob Stoops’s inability to win more championships and postseason contests. OU’s awesome track record this decade has not deserved such withering commentary, but the Sooners have learned that no good deed goes unpunished. Saturday night, Oklahoma dealt that punishment to the boys from Lubbock, and never relented until the final minutes of garbage time.

What to make, then, of the BCS race and the other ways in which this OU onslaught affects the college football world? More will be said on these matters in the days to come, but for now, the simple story is that Texas and Oklahoma—in more ways than one—will be closely compared by college football’s most influential figures. If Oklahoma can get past rival Oklahoma State in next week’s Bedlam ballgame, both the BCS standings and the Heisman Trophy race—now a competition between OU’s Sam Bradford and UT quarterback Colt McCoy—will involve battles between the Red River rivals.

The Sooners still have to still the waters next week in Stillwater, but by trouncing Texas Tech and leaving Alabama as the only unbeaten team from a BCS conference, Oklahoma has already ensured that the BCS derby will involve a certain degree of controversy. As for Texas Tech, the Red Raiders—after this decisive loss—must have Oklahoma lose in order to win the Big 12 South and play Missouri for the conference title on Dec. 6. Mike Leach, Graham Harrell, and everyone else in Lubbock can only hope that OU used all its energy and anger on one knockout night in Norman. With bigger prizes at stake next week, however, one shouldn’t expect Bob Stoops to let go of the big-game mojo he just regained tonight.