NORMAN — The Oklahoma football team has a new role model — the North Carolina basketball team.

Well, there are four Sooners who desperately want to match what their hoops counterparts with the Tar Heels pulled off. If they do, OU will add another national championship in 2009 to the school’s rich football tradition.

North Carolina’s four best players, all with first-round draft potential, delayed entering the NBA draft last June for another shot at a national title that eluded the Tar Heels a season ago.

Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, Danny Green and player of the year Tyler Hansbrough refused to accept that making the 2008 Final Four was accomplishment enough. So a year after Kansas eliminated them in the national semifinals, the Tar Heels captured the elusive crown last Monday with a championship game win over Michigan State in Detroit.

“Watching them (Tar Heels) was definitely a motivation,” quarterback Sam Bradford said Saturday after OU’s annual Red/White Game.

Bradford and Hansbrough have traveled similar paths.

The OU junior won the 2008 Heisman Trophy, and Hansbrough won the 2008 Naismith and Wooden Awards, which are considered basketball’s equivalent to the Heisman.

Joining Bradford as part of the OU foursome who will display its first-round talent for the Sooners next season instead of some NFL teams include tight end Jermaine Gresham, defensive tackle Gerald McCoy and o.ensive tackle Trent Williams.

Bradford could have been the No. 1 overall pick when the NFL conducts its draft later this month. But like Hansbrough and the Tar Heels last season, Bradford was motivated to return after the Sooners lost the BCS national championship game last January to Florida.

“I heard them (Tar Heels) talk about how the main reason they came back was because they wanted to win a national championship,” Bradford said. “I think if you asked us four, that’s probably the biggest reason we also came back.” OU sophomore sensation Blake Griffin prevented Hansbrough from winning consecutive Naismith and Wooden awards. But the North Carolina senior got the trophy he waited four seasons to hold when the Tar Heels overpowered the Spartans at Ford Field.

Bradford now has a chance to join former Ohio State running back Archie Griffin as the only two-time Heisman winners. But that isn’t the glory the Oklahoma City native is determined to bring to OU before he leaves.

“We got to the national championship game last season, but we obviously didn’t win it,” Bradford said of the 24-14 loss to the Florida Gators. “But we now know what it’s like, and we want one.We want to become the eighth team at Oklahoma to win one. So it’s important to us to get back to that (title) game.”

Given the disparity in participation between the two sports — five starters in hoops vs. 22 in football — Bradford, Gresham, McCoy and Williams will obviously need a lot more help from their teammates than the Tar Heels required.

Although you couldn’t tell it at yesterday’s scrimmage because injuries sidelined several frontline players, the four Sooner standouts know they’ll have plenty of support in their pursuit of the school’s second title under coach Bob Stoops.

The national media also knows OU is loaded. Several writers have predicted the Sooners will be ranked in the top five when the preseason Top 25 polls are released in August. ESPN.com projects OU at No. 3.

Take away Bradford, Gresham, McCoy and Williams, and OU would still be a Top 25 team because the team’s quality and depth would warrant it. Add those four, however, and the Sooners’ chances of reaching the BCS title game next January in Pasadena, Calif., improve dramatically.

Stoops said it’s impossible to quantify the impact the return of those four players will have on his 11th OU team. Most critics predicted it wouldn’t happen; predicting Bradford and Gresham were locks to take the NFL money and run.

“They are all great players, and they will make a strong impact next season,” Stoops said. “But do you know who else we have coming back?”

Stoops then answered his own question by rattling off the names of running backs DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown; fullback Matt Clapp, fullback/tight end Brody Eldridge, receivers Ryan Broyles, defensive ends Auston English, Jeremy Beal and Frank Alexander, defensive tackle Adrian Taylor and cornerback Dominique Franks.

“I could go on and on with names of guys who have played here forever,” Stoops said. “I like it when I look at all of those guys and not just those four.”

OK, fine. But ask North Carolina what can happen when your team has four pros-in-waiting who stick around college because they’re on a mission.