Oklahoma soared to a championship in year two under Bob Stoops, got piledrived in two consecutive championship games, and has since spent a good but ungreat three years developing quarterbacks, riding the statistical whiplash of all those early beatdowns of Mack Brown, and earning Boise State Hollywood film rights by enabling their Cinderella story in this year’s Fiesta Bowl.

(In fact, open 2007 with the same theme: the quarterback race is “wide open” again, according to Stoops, who acquired his mentor Spurrier’s affection for yanking qbs around until one demonstrates an undeniable throttlehold on the job.)

What happened to Maximum Bob and the Sooners? One could credit the Big 12’s catch-up to both the offensive and defensive schemes of OU, or the increasingly level regional recruiting field (hello, Mack,) or the malaise of exaggerated expectations necessarily following any championship. Those are all complex explanations requiring pages of analysis, citation, notation, research, and deep thought.

Or you can blame opera. We’d totally rather do that. It completely explains how Jason White ended up with two rusty door hinges from Home Depot for knees.