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Bedlam 2001-2002

Football:

We ain't goin' to the Rose Bowl. But they ain't either!

• Upset-minded
  • Saturday's win over No. 4 OU was the Cowboys' first over a ranked foe since they beat No. 25 Mississippi State 42-23 in 1998. Since then, OSU had lost 11 straight to teams in the Top 25.
  • It was also the Pokes' first toppling of a Top 10 team since beating No. 9 South Carolina in the 1984 Gator Bowl.
  • OSU's last win over a top-five team: 1976 on the same Owen Field, a 31-24 win over the No. 5 Sooners.

Pokes Prove They Can Win The Big Ones

It was a night to remember. It was the most stunning Bedlam football game of them all The sweetest of Cowboy victories. It saved an OSU season. It ruined OU's. Gone is the sting of yet another losing Cowboy season. OSU didn't finish 4-7; OSU finished with college football's upset of the year. This was the Cowboy bowl game. They can spend the holidays watching someone besides the Sooners play in the Rose Bowl.

Hard to jibe a 4-7 record with a good football team. But this isn't hard to jibe. On Saturday, in the old stadium where the Sooners were unbeaten in the Bob Stoops era, the better team won. OSU had the best player on the field, flanker Rashaun Woods. OSU had the better quarterback, freshman Josh Fields. A week after OU's Nate Hybl outplayed Texas Tech gunslinger Kliff Kingsbury, Fields lapped Hybl and gives the Cowboys a building block for 2002. And, gulp, OSU had the better defense. Roy Williams and Derrick Strait didn't make the big plays down the stretch; LaWaylon Brown and Khreem Smith did.

Now the trick becomes to bottle Bedlam. Play like this all the time. Against Southern Miss and Iowa State and Texas A&M. Games that make teams 7-4 or 4-7. Play like this, and that killer 2002 schedule - UCLA, Nebraska, Texas A&M and OU at Stillwater; Texas and Kansas State on the road - looks a little less severe. The Cowboys won Saturday because they played harder than they have all year. They tackled sure. They dove for balls. They toughened. in the trenches.

Don't look now, but we've got an old-fashioned rivalry on our hands. This wasn't a shutout of Howard Scbnellenberger or a romp of John Blake. This was golden-boy Bob Stoops standing on the Sooner sideline. The Cowboys have won four of the last seven against OU, including three of four at Owen Field. Throw in the 12-7 OU squeaker last year, and Bedlam is alive and well.

Stoops: 'We Just Got Outplayed'

When Bob Stoops was introduced as Oklahoma's football coach in December of 1998, he promised a "no excuses" approach. Following Saturday's stunning 16-13 setback to Oklahoma State, Stoops kept his promise. "No excuses," Stoops said a half-dozen times during his post-game Interview sessions. "Give Oklahoma State credit. They made the plays when they had to make them. Came up with some big plays on their last drive, diving over us and making some catches. We never could come up with any of the those, so, that's why we play the game."

After suffering his first loss at home in 18 games on Owen Field, Stoops demanded the same no-excuses approach from his players. "The bottom line is we just got outplayed today. Looking back on it, I can't say we didn't get prepared or that we were overlooking anybody." The outcome ended OU's quest to successfully defend its national title and prevented the Sooners from representing the South Division in Saturday's Big 12 Championship game. The Cowboys held OU to 220 total yards - all through the air. "Offensively, we never really got anything going," Stoops said. "Defensively, I thought they played excellent."

On the flip side, OSU gained 334 yards, including 258 in passing. Rashaun Woods had eight catches for 129 yards and caught the game winning touchdown with 1:36 remaining. John Lewis had four receptions for 58 yards and T.D. Bryant had three catches for 44 yards, including a 31-yarder on third-and-7 that set up the winning score. Meanwhile, the OU offense struggled in short-yardage situations. The Sooners failed to find the end zone on a first-and-goal from the 4. They had to settle for a 22-yard field goal. "We were just horrible in short yardage," Stoops said. "They were beating us up front. If you kick enough field goals after a while they catch up to you. They (the Cowboys) mixed things up. There wasn't any magical defense. They just executed well."

Things seemed to go against OU from the opening coin toss. With a hearty wind blowing out of the northwest, the Sooners won the toss and elected to take the wind to start the game. But no matter what direction the Cowboys were headed, the OSU kickers excelled. Scott Elder averaged 46.1 yards per punt and Luke Phillips went 3-for-3 on field goals, including two career-long 52-yarders. "Their punter kicked the ball into the wind well," Stoops said. "The wind sure didn't bother them any. I told our players there isn't any excuses out there. We got outplayed. I got outcoached. They (the OU players) got outplayed. That's the way it goes."

OU offense too often ineffective

Name one college football team that's won a national title without an offense. You can't. Oklahoma's quest to become the first ended Saturday on Owen Field. A 16-13 loss to unranked, but unwavering, Oklahoma State delivered a cold dose of reality to the No. 4-ranked Sooners: It's darn-near impossible to win it all with half a team. In case you haven't noticed, the defending national champs can only defend. All season long, OU has been entangled in a gut wrenching web of living by the defense and dying by the offense.

Live by the sword, die by the bored. The Sooners' offense attacked Bedlam with boredom. Their offense once again was mediocre, and mediocrity doesn't win national titles. It's not a healthy situation when your best chance of scoring is when your defense is on the field. For the past month, OU coach Bob Stoops said he chuckled at criticism of his offense. He wasn't chuckling Saturday after his team managed 22O yards against a defense that had given up nearly half-a-thousand yards per game (477.7) in its previous six outings.

The Sooners' offensive woes have been by committee. Everyone has contributed - the quarterbacks, the offensive line, the receivers and, yes, the coaches. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, defense wins championships. And when your defense is as good as OU's, there's no need to take chances on offense. Play it conservative and score enough points to win.

The Sooners couldn't score enough against OSU and probably wouldn't have been able to score enough points at Texas Stadium, either. Saturday's loss simply expedited the inevitable for OU. The biggest upset in Bedlam history led to bedlam on Sixth Street in Austin and Elm Street in Stillwater. Both places already knew how to party. Even if the Sooners (27-point favorites) had survived OSU, who's to say they would have survived Colorado, a schizophrenic team that has underachieved for years. When OU trailed by three with 1:36 left and was at Its own 7-yard line Saturday, there wasn't a soul among the 75,573 who truly believed the Sooners were going to move the ball into field goal range. No one on the OU sideline believed It, and certainly no one on the Cowboys' sideline believed it. Those on the Sooners' offense were struggling. You could see it in their body language. You could hear it in it their stunned silence.

After last week's 31-10 victory over Texas Tech, Stoops threw out some per-game averages (380 yards and 34 points) to prove his team's offense was potent. Some other numbers to ponder:

• Baylor, which has lost 29 straight conference games, gained 517 yards against OSU. OU had zero rushing yards against the Cowboys on Saturday. (Remember, this year's OSU team became the only defense in Division 1-A history to surrender a 33-yard, two-point conversion.)
• San Jose State, which was 1-5 at the time, gained 746 yards against Tulsa. Thanks to a second-half surge, the Sooners managed 541 yards against the Golden Hurricane, arguably the worst team in Division 1-A.
• CU gained 582 yards in its 62-36 drought of BCS No. 1 Nebraska on Friday, which included 380 yards rushing. OU gained 339 total yards in its 20-10 loss to Nebraska.

All defense and no offense made the Sooners a lame-duck champion. That is not how conference championships are won. That is not how national championships are won.

OU just proved it.

Basketball:
	79	When you're playing the fourth-best team in the country and you're staggering like we've been staggering, then it's extra special.	72

Sooners, Cowboys Stage Another One For The Ages

From tip to court-storming they brought the Orange Thunder, that improbably loud wave of searing noise, emotion and energy that will loosen your earwax and make you acutely aware you are in Gallagher-Iba, smack dab in the middle of college basketball at its very best. When Oklahoma — hated, fourth-ranked Oklahoma — was finally toppled, 79-72 in overtime, the Oklahoma State students came flooding down the bleachers, the pep band broke into double time and Eddie Sutton looked up and thought back.

Forty-four years before he was the young player, not the old coach, and it was second-ranked Kansas, with Wilt Chamberlain, that went down in overtime, not OU. But everything else was the same. The thrill, the noise, the undergrads dancing on the Gallagher-Iba floor in lost emotion. Sutton's smile, Sutton's satisfaction, the hop in Sutton's step was the same. It was 1958 all over again. "You know what the chancellor did after that win?" Sutton asked. "He cancelled classes the next day. You won't see that any more. But tonight was a big thrill for me even though I've coached a long time. This was special. This was really special."

Things don't always change quickly in Oklahoma and for that reason it's a state that takes more than its share of cracks from around the country. But sometimes change isn't so welcome either and there is something wholly wonderful about a game like the one OU and OSU staged Wednesday night in this historic arena. It was the 200th time these two schools had matched up and it meant as much as the first. It didn't matter OU was ranked so high, or State was reeling so hard. It was of no concern the Cowboys were without their star (Maurice Baker) and the Sooners had an immovable, unstoppable post player in Aaron McGhee.

This is what they call bedlam out here among the pumping oil derricks, the flatlands and the cattle ranches. And when bedlam hits Stillwater, when the Orange Thunder rocks the plains, when maroon and orange stare each other down, it's the same as it ever was. And hopefully will forever be. "I've coached a lot of basketball games," said Sutton, who recorded his 698th victory. "But I don't think you'll ever see a game where two teams played any harder than that." This is a rivalry that isn't as hot as Carolina-Duke, isn't as famous as Louisville-Kentucky. Neither game this year was even broadcast nationally, which is too bad for the nation. But you can't play it harder, you can't play it better, you can't make it mean any more. This was college basketball perfection.

OU played the perfect villain for the Stillwater crowd — too big, too fast, too talented for slumping Oklahoma State, minus its best player, to realistically beat. The Cowboys were ranked 16th, playing at home, the best arena in college basketball, and it was the Sooners that were the favorites. OU plays a physical style, but so does OSU. This was a game that featured three near bench-clearing brawls ... in overtime alone. But Oklahoma State is an emotional team, a streaky, surging group in every way. It can rattle off 13 consecutive victories to start the season and slide to 3-5 in its last 8. It can get pushed around by Texas Tech, then fire back from 15 down. "We have some very emotional players," Sutton said.

But emotion can go the right way, especially when 13,611 fans are screaming for you. Every time Oklahoma powered its way into the lead, the Cowboys surged back, riding a helter-skelter perimeter defense, a ton of double teams and its jet-quick point guard Victor Williams. "There is quick, then there is Victor Williams," said Sampson after, shaking his head.

Every time that crowd roared, hitting decibel levels that make a jet engine sound like Church music, the Cowboys' emotion rode right on with it. "When the crowd's emotion gets going like that, you go too," said guard Melvin Sanders, who harassed OU's swift Hollis Price into 2-of-11 shooting. In the end the Cowboys survived into overtime and surged one final time, got one final streak, ended up winning by seven. In a game they absolutely needed and their fans absolutely wanted, they brought it big at the most important times. "You can't describe the feeling," said sophomore Ivan McFarlin of his game-clinching open-court steal, sprint and dunk into a sea of Orange behind the basket. "I was about to cry."

He wasn't the only one. Tears of joy, tears of frustration where shed all over the state. That's bedlam. It might not be known everywhere, but it doesn't make it any less special, any less significant. Out here in this little town on the big plains, in an ancient arena that has seen so many great ones, they staged another. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, same as it ever was.

Wrestling:
	18		Dec. 9, 2001 Oklahoma State welcomed the Oklahoma Sooners in the 143rd Bedlam wrestling matchup by knocking off the No. 1 and No. 2 Sooners. The Cowboys got on the board first with No. 15 Jerrod Sanders upsetting second-ranked Jared Frayer of Oklahoma in the 149-pound weight class. Pat Popolizio defeated top-ranked Josh Lambrecht in the fifth match of the afternoon, 3-2.		15
	17		Feb. 17, 2002 Fourth-ranked Cowboy Wrestling Downs No. 5 Oklahoma, winning the first four matches en route to a 17-8 victory at the Lloyd Noble Center. The Cowboys are 19-3 overall, and 4-0 in the Big 12.		8

Baseball:
	11		May 16, 2002 After five hours and 23 minutes, and in front of a season-high crowd of 10,703 Thursday night at Tulsa's Drillers' Stadium, Oklahoma State won a 14-inning, 11-7 contest over Oklahoma in one of the wildest and most bizarre games one will ever see in baseball. Deadlocked at five after nine innings, the teams went into extra frames and after both teams scored a run in the 13th, OSU scored five times, including a Paul Powell grand slam, to wrap up the win. Denver Kitch hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 14th, however it was too little, too late for the Sooners. Buddy Blair (4-1) took the loss for OU, allowing the five runs to Oklahoma State in the 14th.		7
	2		May 17, 2002 Leftfielder Jason Fransz' two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth broke a 2-2 and propelled Oklahoma to a 5-2 win over Oklahoma State in baseball action Friday night at SBC Bricktown Ballpark.		5
	6		May 18, 2002 Oklahoma rallied from a 5-3 deficit with a five-run fifth inning to defeat Oklahoma State, 8-6, in front of a sellout crowd of 13,066 Saturday night at the SBC Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.		8

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