Herbstreit: Sooners should watch OU-Oregon tape

ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit has a suggestion for his Ohio buddy, Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops: Show the 2006 OU-Oregon tape to his team on Friday night, the night before his Sooners face Washington in a 6:45 p.m. game on ESPN. The Sooners lost 34-33 on several questionable calls by Pac 10 officials.

Herbstreit: “If I’m Bob Stoops, I pull out that videotape from the Oregon game a couple of years ago where they got hosed on the onside kick, where Oklahoma clearly recovered the ball. Usually, when a guy in a white jersey comes out of the pile and hands the ball to the ref, usually that means he recovered it. But if I’m Bob Stoop, I’d show him that tape and say, ‘We’re not going to let this game be close enough to let the officials have an effect on this game. Let’s go take this team seriously, and let’s go take care of business.’

Herbstreit, who will call the Ohio State at USC game on Saturday night for ABC, says the Sooners need to avoid letdowns against lesser opponents, which have plagued them in recent years.

“I think for Oklahoma. You go back and look at the last two or three years. You can handpick one game where they’re the superior team, and for whatever reason, they just didn’t show up. I remember the Colorado game last year. Played great for three quarters, and all of sudden, a couple of fumbles on punt returns, and the next thing you know, they end up losing on a last-second field goal to Colorado. Play TCU when they were in seventh in the country, I think it was back in ’05, and lost a home. The challenge I have for Oklahoma is ‘Play each week like it’s your last game. Don’t just wait for the big games. Keep playing like you’re playing.’

“Oklahoma to me controls their own destiny of whether they are ultimately going to get to a Big 12 or a national championship. If they play consistently, with the talent they have, the sky is the limit. They have enough veterans who have been on some of these teams who have laid an egg that they know that they have to take every team seriously. If they go to Seattle with a point to prove and show that Oregon tape to one and another over the week, or at least Friday night, I think

Oklahoma will go out there and play great, I really do. Sam Bradford I think is emerging as a superstar this year in college football.”

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