He looked into his players' eyes.
Into the eyes of his offense. Paul Thompson's. Allen Patrick's. Those linemen who opened gaping holes early in the game and were going on fumes in the muggy Texas night.
"They were heartbroken," Stoops said. "It hurt ‘em."
Stoops can be a hard man, but he can be an old softy, too. Stoops melted in those players' eyes.
He called off the punt and called on victory, 17-16 over Texas A&M on a throwback night when Kyle Field demanded Sooner blood but was turned away by a man willing to be the goat.
A decade ago, Barry Switzer forsook a fourth-and-1 punt in his own territory and ran Emmitt Smith late in a game at Philadelphia. The Eagles stacked up Smith and rallied for victory. The Eastern press dubbed Switzer "Bozo the Coach."
Switzer's curse was Stoops' charm. Stoops ordered a quarterback sneak, and when officials ruled OU had called timeout just before Thompson bulled for a first down, Stoops took it not as a sign to change his mind, but that his troops indeed could be counted on to make a few inches.
"We gotta make an inch," Stoops said. "If you don't, you don't deserve to win."
So Thompson sneaked for the first down again, and this time, A&M made it moot by having too many men on the field. The Aggies take that 12th man stuff to extremes. But OU had a 12th man, too. Its coach.
Stoops fashioned a gambler reputation in his early OU days with fake punts and fake field goals. But there is more than one way to play poker. Sometimes you hold 'em, sometimes you fold 'em, but sometimes you show 'em.
"It was a tough call," said Patrick, who again did a nifty Steve Owens impersonation, with 32 carries for 173 yards. "We all knew it was going to come down to one little play. He stuck with us."
The Sooners won on a night when Thompson completed 3 of 12 passes for 39 yards. A&M quarterback Stephen McGee wasn't much better, going 8-of-18 for 63 yards. This game seemed more like Class 2A football; a couple of land-locked teams playing tug o' war.
The OU offensive line dominated the first quarter. The Sooners produced two 80-yard touchdown drives in the first quarter, and Patrick ran wild with 101 yards on 14 carries. That put him on pace to break Owens' single-game school record of 55 carries and almost on pace for LaDainian Tomlinson's single-game NCAA record of 406 yards.
On one memorable play, pulling guard Brandon Walker led the way for Patrick and couldn't find anyone to block. Finally, Patrick, tired of waiting and, like an impatient commuter, peeled off and went around Walker in the fast lane to finish off a 15-yard gain to the A&M 1-yard line.
That's how easy it was for the Sooners in the first quarter. But like always at Kyle Field, things turned hairy. The A&M defense stiffened. The Sooners had 165 total yards the first quarter and just 98 the rest of the game.
But OU answered the bell at game's end. Its defense turned back threats on A&M's final two possessions, forcing field goals, though why Aggie coach Dennis Franchione chose to pass on third-and-goal from the OU 2-yard line, then kick a field goal on fourth down, is a mystery.
With 280-pound Jorvorskie Lane, A&M seemed primed for a tie midway through the fourth quarter. Fran out-thought himself.
But before we hand all this victory to Stoops, don't forget that his players put him in position to make the game-winning move.
On OU's final possession, leading by one, Patrick was dumped for a three-yard loss on first down. At that point, a punt seemed imminent, an Aggie field goal seemed likely and the Sooners seemed headed for defeat.
But OU ran a power play left, and Patrick busted for 12 yards to the OU 29.
"It all came down to one big play," said Patrick, who is looking more and more like a worthy fill-in for Adrian Peterson. "We had to keep the ball. The O-line opened a gap, and I just seen green grass and tried to get downfield."
Stoops said he saw Duke Robinson open a lane and Patrick hit a seam. From the first quarter to that play, A&M had held Patrick to 60 yards on 16 carries.
"It's cloudy, it's cloudy, it's cloudy," Stoops said of the way football goes sometimes. "It's tough, it's tough, it's tough. Then you hit a seam."
You hit a seam and you look into players' eyes and you find a way to win in a coliseum sporting 80,000 people screaming for you to fail.
