Alamo Bowl: One Big Thing

SAN ANTONIO — Two teams who had their sights set on a national championship, two teams that enjoyed huge early victories, two teams that suffered a pair of regular season defeats — and two teams that experienced the upheaval of a coaching change.

That’s Oklahoma and Oregon in Wednesday’s Alamo Bowl.

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Are players from both teams properly motivated? Is Wednesday an audition, or a job interview for those down the depth chart? Is the game itself enough?

Both interim coaches said Tuesday that the game itself is indeed enough to bring out the best from both teams.

Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops and Oregon’s Bryan McClendon got to express their message to the players, both in the week-long buildup and going into the final hours before kickoff.

“Just represent each other the right right way,” Stoops said. “You're playing for that logo, that helmet, that program. There's a big history there. So anytime we take the field, we want to we want to represent it the right way — by the way we play, the manner in which we play, the toughness, the energy, how hard we play. Those things don't change.”

“This this part of the year is about finishing,” McClendon said. “This part of year is about finishing and you have a clear opportunity to be able to finish something that you start.”

Oklahoma was a trendy pick to return to the playoff and, for the first time, even win one or two games. After the Sooners rallied back from 21 points down to beat Texas, those goals looked within reach.

But despite the midseason quarterback change from Spencer Rattler to Caleb Williams that sparked the offense and energized the fan base, OU continued to struggle with unexpectedly close games. Ultimately, there were key elements missing — intangible elements, like toughness, like finishing, like overcoming adversity — that resulted in losses at Baylor and Oklahoma State.

Oregon was a preseason pick to win the Pac-12 and compete for a playoff spot, and after the Ducks went to Ohio State and upset the No. 3-ranked Buckeyes in Columbus — arguably the most impressive regular-season win in college football this year — it seemed they would be on their way to an unforgettable season.

But just three weeks later came an inexplicable overtime loss at Stanford. Then, in November, a 38-7 defeat at Utah, followed two weeks later by a 38-10 loss to the Utes in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

“You know, goals are great,” McClendon said. “They're definitely great motivation and definitely a great tool to use to be able to kind of feel different things within your program. And it does hurt at times when you don't get them.

“But you still have have so much to play for. And when the bowl schedule comes out and you see that you're playing the University of Oklahoma, there's not much time to sit up there and be feeling sorry for yourself. And so that has helped tremendously also.”

Now add in the element of interim coaching staffs after each team’s head coach left surprisingly (in what are widely considered, at best, lateral moves), and there are hurt feelings, bitter fans and, worst of all, confused players.

“Even though they've been through — just as Oregon has — a little bit of upheaval in the last few weeks,” Stoops said, “the bottom line is we're getting ready to play and we're going to play we need to play the right way. And then, we're playing a great program in Oregon. Of course that has our attention as well.”

“At the end of the day,” McClendon said, “you just want to make sure that you're a great example. I was having this conversation with my 9-year-old daughter about why it's important to finish what you start. You know, not do it half-heartedly. You want to go in there and you want to do it to the best of your ability — and make sure everybody around you is doing it to the best of their ability. You owe it to each other, to the men that you work with, and the guys that's playing for you and everybody in the program.”