Last season’s painful Fiesta defeat not on Oklahoma’s minds

Oklahoma wide receiver Malcolm Kelly still hasn’t watched it. Doesn’t have any plans to do so.

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Last year’s Fiesta Bowl was an instant classic by almost all accounts, but it was Kelly’s Sooners on the losing end of the 43-42 final — the game that made mid-major Boise State the nation’s darling.

A return to the scene of the crime doesn’t mean his thoughts must go back.

It was a dream sequence for the Broncos: the improbable hook-and-ladder on fourth-and-18 that pushed the game into overtime; the Statue of Liberty two-point conversion that won it; even the marriage proposal by Broncos running back Ian Johnson that followed.

“As good of a game it was, it was a good game that you got beat in,” Kelly said. “If it’s a great game then everybody wants to watch it over and over and over. And every time they watch it over and over and over, they see you get beat.”

Oklahoma players and coaches admit the team didn’t play well, especially early when Boise State took a 28-10 lead.

In fact, the Sooners would have been lauded for a brilliant comeback — they scored 25 straight points to take a seven-point lead late — had Boise State’s hopes for a miracle not been repeatedly answered.

But there is no solace in that. No matter the details, the result stays the same — a loss by a team not used to losing often.

“You’re never happy with a loss,” assistant coach Josh Heupel said.

“Maybe in 20, 30 years when I’m done with everything, and I’m just laying back, sipping something, maybe I might look at it as a great game,” offensive lineman Duke Robinson said. “But right now, as a player, and as a player from Oklahoma, not really.”

When the players got back to Oklahoma, the game was all the rage. Defensive back Darien Williams watched it a couple of times on film before deciding it was best to move on.

Still, he couldn’t escape the buzz.

“A lot of people talked about it,” Williams said. “It was all over the news, ESPN forever.”

Many assumed the effects would be far-reaching, unsure how the team would deal with such a stinging loss. But the Sooners answered that question early on, racing to a 4-0 start this season and outscoring their opponents 246-47 in the process.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops laughed off the idea that a bowl loss seven months previous would derail a season that hadn’t yet started.

“I loved that everybody wanted to write about that all spring and through the summer,” Stoops said. “It had absolutely no effect on us whatsoever. Go through our first four games and see how it affected us. That is one of those things where it is a different time, different team, different circumstances. I just don’t see how it equates.”

The Sooners finished up their second practice at Phoenix Pinnacle High School on Friday intent on looking ahead.

They say the Boise State game is in the rearview mirror, that it has been for a long time. But Williams said he wouldn’t mind if this game was just as memorable, as long as this time, Oklahoma comes out on top.

“They talk about that one going down in history forever,” Williams said. “… We want to make a different kind of history this year.”