TULSA WORLD HOMEPAGE | Wednesday, February 10, 2010 | WIRELESS
CONTACT US | SUBSCRIBER SERVICES | SIGN IN SIGN OUT | MY PROFILE PAGE | MY ACCOUNT

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on RSS
Sports Extra!
Follow us on ...
OU | OSU | TU | ORU | HIGH SCHOOLS | COLLEGE FOOTBALL | COLLEGE BASKETBALL | NFL | FANTASY | OUTDOORS | GOLF | PROS | ALL




SPORTS EXTRA BLOGS
    Sports Editor
Mike Strain
Sports Columnist
Dave Sittler
The Picker
Entertaining & Infuriating

LOCAL PROS

ALL SPORTS

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

OUTDOORS

FIND A STORY

EMAIL ALERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA

RSS FEEDS

CONTACT US
BUY PHOTOS & PAGES

TULSA WORLD

ADVERTISE ON SPORTS EXTRA



Newspaper View Newspaper View      Print this story Print      Email this story Email     
Share      Bookmark Bookmark

Return to glory

Fans embrace OU’s Damian Mackey (right) and Kory Klein after OU’s 49-point win over Texas on Oct. 7, 2000, in Dallas. TULSA WORLD FILE

 
By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer
Published: 7/17/2008  2:25 AM
Last Modified: 7/17/2008  3:37 AM

Ready to vote? Click here to go to the U Decide vote page.


Oklahoma's 63-14 thrashing of Texas in 2000 helped springboard the Sooners to a national championship



NORMAN — From her 20-yard-line perch in the Cotton Bowl's second deck, Rene Ballard stood during the entire Oklahoma-Texas football game on Oct. 7, 2000.

It was freezing cold and spitting rain on everyone's trash bags-turned-ponchos. She was also was four months pregnant, and she said she was starving.

It had the makings of a miserable Saturday afternoon.

Instead, because of the gift the Sooners gave her and thousands of fellow OU fans in the old Dallas stadium — plus many more tuned in from their warmer, drier living rooms — it was simply memorable.

"I was on an adrenaline rush the whole game," recalled Ballard, a Norman physician. "I was too excited to care how cold or hungry I was. Everyone in our section was behaving like giddy little school kids. I mean, we were in la-la land.

"At first my heart was beating so fast. Then it just got so odd as it went on. Like, 'Is this really happening? Are we really doing this?' "

It was real. That 14-0 first-quarter lead. That 42-7 halftime bulge. That 63-14 final score, the most lopsided OU victory over its rival in 92 years.

"I was shocked," said Robert Finley, a Norman commercial Realtor who watched from above the famed south end zone tunnel. "Sitting in the stands, I remember thinking, 'Finally, after eight years of hell . . . We're back.' "

Before kickoff on that morning, some Sooner fans were still afraid to peek out from under the covers, where they had hidden since mediocrity set in with a 6-6 1994 season. They had suffered under Howard Schnellenberger and John Blake, and had just two wins over the Longhorns in the previous 11 years. Bob Stoops' arrival, his 7-5 record in 1999 and 4-0 start to 2000, cheered everybody up.

But the 49-point undressing of the No. 11 Longhorns changed everything.

As Stoops would say later: "We kind of, in that game, hit our stride and kept going."

"I had the feeling, 'Wow, we're a lot better than I thought we were,' " said Jay Giezentanner, a juvenile justice specialist from Norman who enjoyed the blowout at midfield, right behind the OU band. " 'It's not going to be the Independence Bowl (site of OU's '99 season finale) this year.' "

Nope, it would be the Orange Bowl, where three months after their Burnt Orange crush, the Sooners would upset Florida State for the national championship. That night would never have happened without the previous "Red October," when OU knocked off No. 1 Nebraska and No. 3 Kansas State over a two-week period. And "Red October" would not have been possible without what the Sooners did to Texas.

"I kept sneaking into the kitchen during my son's birthday party to watch, and calling my brother," said Kent Miller, an Oklahoma transplant who works for Apple Inc. in Cupertino, Calif. "We decided the Sooners could not score enough points to make us happy. If they had scored another touchdown, we would have wanted them to go for two."

Texas sections cleared out early. Sooner sections, on the other hand, remained full long after the final gun.

"That was one of the few times I can remember staying in the stadium after the game," Finley said. "There were fans running all over the place and players running all over the place, high-fiving each other. That's the first time I can remember players wearing the (Golden) Hat, or doing the team picture in the middle of the field. That was the first year someone grabbed the flag from the Ruf/Neks and went out to the middle of the field and planted that thing like Neil Armstrong on the moon."

Back home in Norman, Greg Johnson waited for his aunt. She was returning from the game en route to her ranch in the northwest Oklahoma.

"We just sat there together on the couch and relived plays," said Johnson, a mental health professional who grew up watching the Sooners. "This is my aunt who was in her mid-60s, and we were talking like best buddies. It was an incredible feeling."

Miller went back to celebrating his son's birthday, and chatting with his brother. It was a special day for them, and for their mother, a Sooner fan who had been diagnosed with cancer the previous summer and was receiving chemotherapy and hospice care.

"The day of that Texas game, she was not feeling sick," Miller said. "She was the happiest person in the whole state, guaranteed."

As for Ballard, she settled into the car, finally realized she was as cold as she was famished, rode back to her hotel and "crashed."

But not before one last thought.

"I don't think we'll ever have that kind of moment again," she said. "All that frustration over time, and then all of a sudden everything falls right into place. It was the most unique feeling, that game."

Who's the best quarterback? Best coach? U DECIDE



All summer we'll be asking questions about college football, and we have one request: You decide. It's simple. Go to our Web site www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra, check out the candidates and then vote for who you think is best. You can vote daily on any question — one vote per e-mail address per day. We'll add questions to our site every week, and you can vote at any time. On Aug. 24 in our college football preview section, we'll unveil the winners.

WEDNESDAY'S QUESTION


What is the most memorable game in TU history?

TODAY'S QUESTION


What is the most memorable game in OU history?

Notre Dame 7, OU 0


Nov. 16, 1957

Many who made up the Owen Field record crowd of 62,000 were too stunned to even twitch at the final gun. Their Sooners had just seen a 47-game winning streak, not to mention a 123-game scoring run.

Nebraska 35, OU 31


Nov. 25, 1971

The standard bearer, at least until the USC-Texas 2006 Rose Bowl came along, for college football's version of heavyweight fights. Like Ali-Frazier eight months before, the Sooners and Huskers staged a beginning-to-end showcase of savage strength and dynamic agility. Johnny Rodgers' 72-yard punt return started it, Jeff Kinney's 1-yard plunge ended it, and everything in between was Jack Mildren (two touchdowns passing and running), Greg Pruitt, Jon Harrison (four catches, 115 yards, two touchdowns), Jerry Tagge, Rich Glover (22 tackles), Kinney and Rodgers.

OU 29, Ohio State 28


Sept. 24, 1977

If not the single biggest play in OU history—you'll get an argument from Roy Williams fans who recall a certain dive into Texas quarterback Chris Simms—Uwe von Schamann's last-second 41-yard field goal at Ohio State will stand as the Sooners' single biggest kick until time itself ends. There was also plenty of drama over the preceding three hours. Von Schamann himself led 88,119 fans in a chant of "Block that kick!" before breaking their hearts.

OU 63, Texas 14


Oct. 7, 2000

The dreamiest day inside the dreamiest season OU fans will ever know. The first of five Big 12 titles, a national championship, and the Stoops Era would follow.

Boise State 43, OU 42


Jan. 1, 2007

The dreamiest night Boise State fans, or fans of any underdog in any sport, will ever know. The Broncos spent pregame warmups looking runt-like compared to the Sooners drilling on the other half of the Fiesta Bowl field. But what they lacked in size they made up for with cunning, and when Ian Johnson ran in a statue-of-liberty 2-point overtime conversion, Stoops' troops had been hoodwinked. The rest of the country will remember that play, or Boise's hook-and-lateral, or Boise's fourth-down halfback pass right before Boise's 2-pointer. OU fans would rather recall a 25-point second-half charge from a 28-10 deficit.

COMING SUNDAY


Who is the best running back in state history?

Let us know what you think



You can vote every day on any of the questions we’ve asked this summer.

They’re at www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra. We’ll have election results in our college football preview section Aug. 24.

Here are questions we’ve asked so far:

Who is the best quarterback in OU history?

Josh Heupel
Jamelle Holieway
Jimmy Harris
Jack Mildren
Jason White

Who is the best quarterback in OSU history?

Josh Fields
Mike Gundy
Rusty Hilger
Zac Robinson
Dick Soergel

Who is the best quarterback in TU history?

Paul Smith
T.J. Rubley
Jerry Rhome
Glenn Dobbs
Jeb Blount

Should there be a college football playoff? Vote to keep the current system or on one of the World’s three playoff proposals.

Keep the current system: Rankings determine the top two teams after the regular season. They meet for the national title.

Plus-one format proposal: Teams are ranked after the bowl games, and No. 1 faces No. 2 for the national title.

Four-team bracket proposal: The top four teams are seeded after the regular season. It’s a two-round playoff for the national title.

Eight-team bracket proposal: The top eight teams are seeded after the regular season, and the playoffs begin.

What is the best venue for the OUTexas game?

Cotton Bowl: The tradition continues at State Fair Park.

Dallas Cowboys new stadium: Could be the best football stadium in the world.

Norman and Austin: The series would be played on campus.

Who is the best coach in TU history?

Elmer Henderson
Henry Frnka
Buddy Brothers
John Cooper
Steve Kragthorpe

Who is the best coach in OSU history?

Jimmy Johnson
Pat Jones
Jim Lookabaugh
Les Miles

Who is the best coach in OU history?

Bud Wilkinson
Bob Stoops
Barry Switzer

Who do we love to hate?

Frank Broyles
Peter Gardere
Nebraska Cornhuskers
Bill Yeoman
Darrell Royal



Guerin Emig 581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer

Newspaper View Newspaper View      Print this story Print      Email this story Email     
Share      Bookmark Bookmark


COMMENTS 
      Add your comment Show: Most Recent Comment First

2 comments have been made for this team so far. Tell us what you think below!
Report Comment Reporting Comments

If you see a comment that violates our terms and conditions, please help us by clicking the "Report this Comment" link next to a comment. That will alert the web staff to review the comment. Thank you.  -- Web Editor Jason Collington
 

 
Report Comment
tulsaOUfan, Tulsa (7/17/2008 9:30:40 AM)
Excellent game!!!

BOOMER SOONER!!!
Report Comment
MarkNVegas, Las Vegas (7/17/2008 11:22:38 AM)
My buddy and I paid 700 for 4 tickets to that game. Our other friends flaked on us. We got stuck in really bad traffic on the way there. Didn't have time to sell the other 2 tickets. When we walked into the stadium, the first thing that happened was Rocky intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown. 28-Nothing and we never looked back. What a great day!
 

 
Add Your Comment 
In order to post a comment on this article, you must sign in to Tulsaworld.com. If you do not have a site account, you can create an account for free.

 
Post Your Comment
 



Home | About Tulsa World | Advertise With Us | Privacy | Usage Agreement | FAQ and Help | Contact Us | Today's Headlines
Copyright © 2010, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.