Stoops could learn a lesson from West Virginia's folksy Bill Stewart

PHOENIX — The University of Oklahoma football fans in the long security line at Sky Harbor Airport took to playing a game. The headline game.

What should have been The Oklahoman headline proclaiming West Virginia's 48-28 trouncing of the Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl on Wednesday night?

The two best nominees:

BrokeBob Mountain.

BobSledding in the Desert.

Yes, even among the Soonerville friendlies, the Fiesta angle is this. How did Big Game Bob become Big Lame Bob?

The Sooners laid yet another BCS dinosaur egg, and folksy Bill Stewart was the big beneficiary.

West Virginia barely waited for the sun to rise Thursday before making the down-home Stewart its permanent head coach.

I didn't make it over to the Scottsdale Resort for the announcement; I had a plane to catch. But I know what Stewart did without even checking.

He didn't stop smiling and he thanked everyone from John Denver to the Mountaineer mascot and he started hugging, as ESPN's Pat Forde wrote, cactuses because he had hugged everyone else. Cub and Boy Scout honor.

Yep, Stewart owes Stoops a big solid for helping make this most unlikely story turn true. And maybe the debt is paid. Maybe Stewart showed Stoops how to find his old self.

I don't know why OU suddenly can't win a big bowl game. Why the Sooners have lost four straight January games. Why the Sooners made national champions of LSU and then Southern Cal, and now have taken to making obscure corners of the country, Boise State and West Virginia, feel very, very good about their gridiron heroes.

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