Nebraska loses a game in late October to a Big 12 Conference South division opponent. . . . You just know the Cornhuskers will exact their revenge come December in the league championship.

Well, in the words of Lee Corso (who finally got one right with his pick of Oklahoma here Saturday), not so fast my friends.

A year ago in Austin, the damage done against Texas was more a self-inflicted wound. You, me, everyone knew Big Red had the better team.

And like a champion who had just lost on a fluke 12th-round knockout, the Huskers were quick to call for a rematch.

You didn't hear that battle cry after the Sooners knocked NU off its perch 31-14 in Memorial Stadium Saturday. And you want to know why? The better team won.

Bob Stoops might not want to hear people telling his maroon-clad warriors that they're the best bunch in the country before the first snowfall of the season. But let's face it, you don't go on the road and whip the No. 2 team (Kansas State) and then came back from a 14-0 hole against the top dog because you're lucky.

"I've seen a lot of people running around with their fingers up in the air - the proper finger, too," Oklahoma's coach said when asked if anybody had given him their opinion of the Sooners.

Frankly, they don't need to, either. Stoops has had nothing but good vibrations over his second OU team since it showed up for fall camp.

"One of our goals wasn't to be the No. 1 team in the country halfway through the season or three-fourths of the way through the season. We'll see," he said about the No. 1 tag. "I think we've proven who we are - and were a decent football team.

"(But) our players understand this, and I told them on Tuesday - when we win this game this isn't the end of the season. We still have four more games to play in conference and hopefully a championship game and then a bowl game. We still have a long way ahead of us."

At least, though, they can see the ultimate reward on the horizon.

All week, Stoops pulled at his players' emotions, trying to make them feel the passion that once existed in the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry. He showed them highlight after highlight, good and bad, of past games.

The one that touched quarterback Josh Heupel the most was the 1986 contest in Lincoln, when OU scored 10 points in the final two minutes to snatch victory from sure defeat.

Winning a game "they had no right winning," Heupel described it. "That's sort of the mystique of Sooner Magic."

Oklahoma may have started a new tradition under Stoops. But Saturday's outcome was not decided by a Sooner Magic hex. It was:

Heupel leading a 24-point, second-quarter assault.

Redshirt freshman cornerback Derrick Strait twisting the dagger with a leaping interception and 32-yard return for a TD on Nebraska's first possession of the second half.

A Sooner defense that after letting Nebraska treat it like a rag doll on its first two drives, cinch up its belt and say "OK, we made a few mistakes, but we're not going to stop bringing it at you." The Sooners then gave up just 151 more yards the rest of the game.

A team's confidence to follow the route Stoops had mapped out.

"It appeared (we) had things going our way," Nebraska Coach Frank Solich said. "But the test of a good football team is when your back is to the wall like that, how do you respond? And they responded very well."

Oklahoma's defense settled down to play so well that Nebraska opted to punt from midfield with a little more than nine minutes left. By then, the Sooners must have wondered if the Huskers were saying "Uncle."

Heupel hyped down some early overthrows to complete 20 of 34 passes for 300 yards and a TD. And had it not been for being sacked three times, he would have been OU's leading rusher.

Before Saturday's game, a common notion was Oklahoma wouldn't win if it couldn't run. And really, when the Sooners tried, it was a joke. That just shows how good Heupel is (so can we knock off the comparisons of Oklahoma's offense to Texas Tech's?).

Nebraska tried to keep pounding away. But after Oklahoma took the lead 17-14, it looked like the Huskers were rattled.

On the next series, they tried Bobby Newcombe on a reverse (it lost six yards), then threw two passes before punting. Four plays later, the Sooners had driven 54 yards for a TD to go up 24-14.

On NU's first second-half drive, Crouch carried twice for 20 yards. But then he got sacked on a first-down pass call, and after he got ran down for another loss out of the shotgun, threw his costly interception.

By then, the locals were probably plotting their plan of attack on toppling the south end zone goalposts (which did fall).

Amid the mayhem afterwards, Solich admitted that Saturday's loss was "all in all, not a similar type of game," as the defeat at Texas last year.

Yes, if you take away Matt Davison's fumble inside the OU 20 early in the fourth quarter, Crouch's interception and a second-quarter punt block that set up a field goal, this one would have been more interesting.

But even then, Solich would still be apt to tell you Oklahoma had the better team.

Maybe the Huskers will get a chance to show differently in a rematch. But that prospect didn't seem to be first on their minds leaving here.

"We're a long ways off from meeting anybody in the championship game in Kansas City. . . The thing that sticks out most in my mind (about last year's loss) is that it took us awhile to get back to playing as good as we're capable of playing," Solich said. "You want to make sure that we don't have that happen (again).

"The possibilities will only be there if we play our best football."

Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.