Brahaney: Loss at Colorado was devastating...twice
Published: 7/20/2008 1:55 AM
Last Modified: 7/20/2008 1:55 AM
Being the beat writer for OU football affords a few perks. One of the best is getting to interact with the legends of college football, and the Sooners have plenty of those.
Since I was assigned to Oklahoma from Oklahoma State in 2004, OU has had a former player inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame virtually every year.
In '04, it was Tony Casillas. In '05, it was Joe Washington. In '07, it was Tom Brahaney. And this year, it was Troy Aikman (discuss that last point among yourselves; Aikman was a Sooner first).
During interviews with Casillas, Washington and Brahaney, all were humbled by their induction. On Thursday, when I told Brahaney it was an honor for me to interview the greats of the game like him, all he could say was, "Well, thank you."
We discussed several interesting points that didn't make it into Saturday's print edition about his enshrinement in the hall in South Bend, Ind. Maybe the most compelling was revisiting OU's upset defeat at Colorado that cost them a shot at the national championship. Not last year, but 25 years earlier.
"It was eerily similar, wasn't it?" Brahaney said. "Oh heck, I don't know what to say. I made mistakes, everybody did. We just didn't play our best game. Whether we weren't focused enough, I'm not sure what happened."
Sounds a lot like 2007, eh?
OU in '72 opened the season by beating Utah State 49-0, Oregon 68-3 and Clemson 52-3.
Last year OU started by beating North Texas 79-10, Miami 51-13 and Utah State 54-3.
OU back then scoured Texas 27-0 in Game 4. Last year, the Sooners in their fourth game spanked Tulsa 62-21.
Oklahoma went to Boulder ranked No. 2 in '72. Last season, OU was No. 3.
Had the Sooners beaten the Buffs in '72, they would have been undefeated and might have split a national championship with No. 1 USC. Had OU prevailed in '07, the Sooners would have been ranked No. 1 before that Sam Bradford-less loss to Texas Tech. Who knows what might have happened during the semi-annual Carnival of West Texas Weirdness?
Funny things, it seems, happen in Boulder, too.
"That was just a devastating loss," Brahaney said. "We lost to Colorado and ended up No. 2 again. Shoot, if we could have just beaten them somehow or another, we'd have maybe had a tie with Southern Cal. They had that great team in '72, but we had an awful good team, too."
Brahaney said he felt much the same after last year's baffling blunder in Boulder, which CU won on a game-ending field goal.
"It was similar, I thought," Brahaney said. "I thought we were going to win all the way to the end of it. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I kept thinking we were just going to go down there and kick a field goal.
I thought, 'Well, we're still going to win the game. We'll get down there and run the clock down a little bit.' Then we got (tied) and I thought, 'We can still win.' Then they kicked the field goal."
– John E. Hoover
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
