LINCOLN — First, know that Oklahoma's players and coaches heartily saluted the Nebraska defense after going without an offensive touchdown for the first time in 12 seasons.

“Man, you've got to give credit to Nebraska,” said quarterback Landry Jones, who threw five interceptions in Saturday's 10-3 loss. “They played a great game.”

Offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson also gave credit to the Husker defense.

“They have a tremendous defense, and they are going to make plays,” Wilson said. “They caught us short with some blitzes.”

Coach Bob Stoops declined to compare the Nebraska and Texas defenses.

“But we knew it was good coming in,” he said. “Nebraska really did play well.”

With that out of the way, the Sooners — who at 5-4 are still short of bowl eligibility — are sick of seeing the same offensive mistakes in November that occurred in early season losses to BYU and Miami.

“It's happened long enough,” Wilson said. “We've got to have some change. Every game, we get to the 30-yard line and spit the bit out.

“We aren't going to be a championship team until we can get past that.''

The repeating of mistakes — Stoops cited “dumb” penalties and failure to convert drives in NU territory — means change is coming to the OU attack.

“Positive coaching, negative coaching, I don't know what,” Wilson said. “But there is no excuse for playing unsound football. We're too far down the road.

“We might have had some injuries and some hiccups. This is, with the open date, 10 weeks of ball. We're a veteran team by now. It's disappointing you don't show the signs of improvement a quality team does. We have to make strides down the stretch.”

Jones, in his seventh career start, tied the Oklahoma school record with 58 pass attempts. He hit 26 for 245 yards, but the five interceptions were crippling.

“I'd like to have a couple of those plays back,'' he said. “You can't have turnovers like that and expect to win.''

Jones said he wasn't rattled. But the Sooners' failure to score on any of the first three possessions after starting each one in Nebraska territory allowed the crowd to stay in the game.

As for Oklahoma's defense, Stoops said, “it would be hard to play any better.''

“We forced 11 punts on the road and they were 1 of 14 on third downs,'' he said. “You think you'd have a good chance to win the game.

“The difference is they had the one turnover that set up a touchdown for them, and we didn't get a turnover. That's how close this game was.''

Even with OU's offensive problems, Stoops felt a breakthrough was coming at any time.

“On several of those drives in the second half, we felt very positive,'' he said. “We were fairly consistently moving it.

“But you've got to credit Nebraska on third and fourth down. We had our opportunities and they made plays.''

Contact the writer:

444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com