Highly decorated with individual awards, Oklahoma failed to put together a complete team effort in the 2004 Nokia Sugar Bowl to match LSU in the 21-14 loss.
Sooners quarterback Jason White said the Tigers defense frustrated him all night long. The Heisman Trophy and Davey O’Brien Award (best quarterback) winner completed 13-of-37 passes for 102 yards with two interceptions. He said OU’s loss to LSU diminished the value of his individual accolades.
“Dampens it quite a bit,” White said after the game. “You win 12 games, and that’s extremely hard to do nowadays in college football, and you don’t have anything to show for it. It’s disappointing.”
White could not win the game by himself, said coach Bob Stoops. The Sooners offensive line surrendered five sacks, while establishing protection for a less than efficient 154 total yards.
“Jason is not out there alone,” Stoops said. “The players around him, we protect him, give him opportunities. Players need to catch everything when they have opportunities.”
White summed up the game for the OU offense saying that there were too many penalties with 11 for 70 yards.
“We just weren’t making plays and we were getting behind the sticks all night,” White said. “We would get third and five and jump off sides. That’s third and 15 … Can’t do much about it when you hurt yourself like that.”
OU threatened to tie the game on fourth down and 10 from the LSU 12-yard line. Second Team All-American wide receiver Mark Clayton nearly grabbed the tipped pass that was intended for Travis Wilson, but the ball fell to the turf – representative of the Sooners’ missed opportunities all night.
“It was time to give somebody a shot to catch it,” White said. “It was kind of the last desperation play on that drive.”
Clayton said OU’s failure to execute cost them the game.
“We didn’t try to make any adjustments,” Clayton said. “We just couldn’t execute. We couldn’t get anything going and when we did we hurt ourselves. We had some open plays and we just couldn’t execute.”
The Sooners’ defense had its accolades as well with three of the team’s five First Team All-Americans playing on the defensive side of the ball. OU yielded 315 yards and two offensive touchdowns.
Dick Butkus (best linebacker) and Chuck Bednarik (best defensive player) Award winner Teddy Lehman said the OU defense did not play up to its potential.
“We didn’t play to our ability the whole game,” Lehman said. “It’s tough to end this season losing the last two games.”
The Sooners lost to Kansas State 35-7 in the Big XII Championship game before losing to LSU 21-14. In the Sooners’ previous 12 games they defeated opponents by an average margin of 35 points per game. The Sooners played two teams in the Top 25 in that stretch, defeating No. 5 Texas and No. 22 Oklahoma State by an average of 47.5 points.
“These last two games we could’ve won and should’ve won,” Lehman said. “We’re stunned. That’s not how we play football at Oklahoma. We win games and we win big.”
Bronko Nagurski (outstanding defensive player) and Jim Thorpe (outstanding defensive back) Award winner Derrick Strait said the Sooners were in position but did not make the plays when it counted.
“I would not say we lost our swagger,” Strait said. “Pretty much we [were] in the right positions, coach [Stoops] was calling the right calls … pretty much we missed tackles and things like that.”
The Sooners may have lost the national championship game, but they still have pride in the letters OU and their coach, Strait said.
“You just have to be a part of our team and things like that because all of us have a pride in wearing the jerseys and things like that,” Strait said. “We know there’s a lot of tradition that comes with it. Coach Stoops, when he first came in, he helped us as far as believing in winning traditions and things like that. So we just kind of built on that and it’s been rolling ever since.”