Bob Stoops used to get asked about the month-long gap between the end of Oklahoma’s regular season and the Sooners’ bowl game, and whether he worried about a loss of rhythm for his typically turbocharged offense.
“I would be,” the coach would invariably say, “if we were the only ones that had to be off.”
Stoops was right, of course. It wasn’t any different for his team than the one he played. It wasn’t any different for Florida State in 2001, LSU in ’04, USC in ’05, Florida in ’09 or Clemson in ’15, when OU fought for a national championship or with title implications at stake.