Oklahoma football: Players have no clue on the Notre Dame series

OU players are not caught up in the tradition of the OU-Notre Dame game Saturday. The Sooners themselves don’t know anything about 1999, the last time these historic rivals played, much less 1957, when the Irish famously ended OU’s 47-game winning streak.

Notre Dame players celebrate their 34-30 victory over OU as they leave the field after the game Saturday

“These kids are 18, 19, 21, 22 years old,” Bob Stoops said. Stoops said he can engage his players all he wants on what happened “way back then,” but it won’t do any good. Same, he says, as talking about an opponent from a year ago. “It doesn’t relate.”

Stoops is half right. Certainly what happened the year before has an effect on players. But what happened 55 years ago has no effect on players.

OU newcomer Justin Brown said he had heard that Notre Dame had once busted “some winning streak.” No holes in that theory.

“The only history I’ve got goes way back to ’99,” Stoops said, and he was glad to talk about that game. Notre Dame trailed 30-14 but rallied for a 34-30 victory in Stoops’ first season as the Sooner coach. “I remember getting up 17 points and we didn’t know how to win,” Stoops said. “They hadn’t won. They were beat down. A bunch of kids who for five years had losing records. No one believed in them.

“At one point, we were up 17 points (actually 16) in the first half, and I had a bunch of guys laughing and giggling. I’m like, shoot, these guys have no idea how to win and how to finish the game out. Sure enough, they came back and beat us.”

When he returned to Norman, Stoops said, he told his staff that they had to teach the Sooners how to win, how to not be satisfied.

“Showing ‘em the next day, or Monday, look what we’re doing so well to be up 17 points,” Stoops said. “Look what we didn’t do in the second half. Just because you’re up 17 doesn’t mean you’re going to win.”

Stoops said he likes his players to know the tradition of the program, the great players and the great teams and the great games. He’s even shown some OU-Nebraska highlights before games against the Cornhuskers. But he won’t do that against Notre Dame. For one thing, the Irish are 8-1 all-time vs. OU. Not a lot of highlights.

“Nebraska’s relevant in that at the time, same conference, going for the championship. A larger history there. Lot more games played against each other.”