Duo Will Cause Havoc

It is no secret that the difference between last season’s Oklahoma team and the one that faces USC in the Orange Bowl tonight is a balanced offense.

Last season, the Sooners were not much of a threat on the ground, relying almost entirely on hobbled quarterback Jason White.

Now, running back Adrian Peterson has become the focal point of the Sooner attack, which has allowed the team to keep opposing defenses off-balance.

“They have to decide whether they’re going to try to stop the run or the pass,” White said. “It’s kind of like, pick your poison.”

USC’s choice will be clear-cut, at least early in the game.

“We feel that if we can kind of shut down Adrian Peterson, we will have the game turn in our favor,” defensive lineman Shaun Cody said. “That is our game plan every game, trying to make a team as one-dimensional as possible.”

But the Trojans understand that stopping Peterson is easier said than done.

“We have to wrap up on him,” defensive tackle Mike Patterson said. “He’s not the type to go down as soon as you hit him.”

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Despite hearing the same questions for the last week, if not longer, Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops had some interesting responses Monday in the final news conference leading up to today’s game.

Asked who was the best coach he’d ever seen -- and why -- Stoops chose longtime Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable. They met while Stoops began ascending the coaching ladder as a graduate assistant to Hayden Fry at Iowa in 1983 and 1984 and as a volunteer at Iowa from 1985 through 1987.

“Nine straight national championships. That’s hard to do anywhere,” Stoops said. “And I’ve read everything I can on John Wooden and had a chance to personally meet him last spring and loved that opportunity. I love watching what [Mike] Krzyzewski does at Duke. It’s amazing, just through the years and how he’s built that program....

“There’s a lot of great college coaches, football coaches, that people know of that I respect as well, but those are some you probably weren’t expecting to hear that have great track records.”

He omitted the name of Barry Switzer, who led Oklahoma to three national titles but presided over a program marked by mayhem and recruiting violations that put the Sooners on probation for three years. Asked if he’d taken anything from Switzer besides the former coach’s warning of, “Don’t expect to win this every time,” Stoops laughed and acknowledged Switzer’s achievements.

“I wish he hadn’t told me that,” Stoops said. “I marvel at his record [157-29-4] and the success they had for such a long period of time, and you don’t win that much that often for that long and not have done things the right way. I know in the end, there are factors that everybody likes to bring up, but through a long period of time, he had incredible success.

“To me, the biggest accomplishment I look at is, they beat Nebraska 12 of 16 years. That’s hard to do when Nebraska was a top-10 program and the way they were playing and how good they were.”