Like It Is

Indians make another installment payment on program

WALLY HALL
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

NORMAN, Okla. -- A pretty good football game broke out here in Oklahoma on Saturday evening.
It was in Tulsa, where the Golden Hurricane hosted Oklahoma State.
That feud had been brewing since new Tulsa Coach Keith Burns said he was looking forward to the game because OSU was a team on the decline and his was one in the incline.
As for the game here, it was hard to tell -- OK, very hard to tell -- but it was two teams on the incline.
No, really.
Oklahoma wants to get back in the national championship hunt and ASU wants to be in the hunt for a winning season more than once every eight years.
Neither are where they want to be.
Which had nothing to do with how ugly the game became.
You had to be Sooner red to the core of your soul to enjoy the error-plagued misadventure that had to pass for a football game as Oklahoma beat Arkansas State 45-7.
If you aren't one of those who thinks OU stands for Oklahoma Utopia, the whole affair was about as exciting as washing bird droppings off an old car.
Or digging Oklahoma dust out of your eyes.
The only thing more predictable than the Arkansas State-Oklahoma game is where the sun will set today.
Or maybe that there would be a mass exodus just before half by Sooners who needed a schooner of boomer from the bar across the street.
Maybe they should have just passed out painkillers to the 74,730 who were in their seats long before the kickoff.
Of course, the OU faithful were vocally jubilant, cheering everything but the avalanche of yellow flags that began in the second quarter and brought the crawling game (50 minutes each for the first two quarters) to a boring halt.
Perhaps it shouldn't have come as too big of a surprise that there was going to be some flexing of flag-throwing muscles.
Referee Walter Davenport is not part of any Big 12 crew and this was his big chance to prove he was ready to make the leap to the big time.
Maybe the person evaluating him will forget his first two horrible calls because they went against ASU.
Not that it made that much difference.
By half the Indians were down 28-7 and there was positively no doubt there were 350,000 reasons why they had accepted the invitation to this slowdown matchup.
ASU did catch a bit of break after OU went up 28-0; the Sooners lost their focus and never really regained it.
Still, ASU came here hoping for a miracle, but knowing if it didn't happen the paycheck would not bounce.
Perhaps it was such a heavy payday that left the Indians a little giddy. It was a waste of money for Arkansas State to bring six cheerleaders to Saturday night's game against Oklahoma.
If you were an Indian from Arkansas State in Oklahoma on Saturday night there was just about enough to celebrate for maybe 11/2 or possibly 2 cheerleaders.
The six tried but it was impossible to keep the 30 ASU fans on their feet.
However, the Indians didn't roll over. They never gave up.
To the very bitter end, Cleo Lemon did everything he could to move the team and the defense, outmanned at almost every position, treated every Oklahoma possession as if it was 0-0 in overtime.
Make no mistake, this ASU team is better than last season's.
It may have come in spurts, but the Indians did move the ball some against OU.
Joe Hollis' plan really is working.
It just isn't working as fast, or well, as Bob Stoops' is at OU.
Stoops has a magnum of resources to work from while Hollis has to accept games against teams like Oklahoma just to pay the bills.
As long as Hollis had to play these type of games, which could be called Pampers specials -- down, dirty and disposable -- it would have kept his building at a slower pace than he envisioned.
Now that Hollis is also the athletic director, he is going to swap games like Saturday night's for one against Baylor. He'll drop Miami from next year's schedule. He'll keep Georgia, but that will be strictly for the money.
There will still be bills to be paid.
Which is the only reason ASU was here Saturday night.

Join Wally, Marcus Elliott and guest Booth Rand, creator of the Pigpen message board, live at 6 p.m., 374-9255, Comcast Cable channel 18.

This article was published on Sunday, September 10, 2000

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