Sooner loss may be forgotten faster than Jeff Lebby's choice to put QB at risk on first OT snap

Oklahoma wide receiver Drake Stoops (12) passes the ball to quarterback Dillon Gabriel (8) during overtime Saturday night in Lubbock. Gabriel caught the pass only to be immediately drilled by Texas Tech defensive back Reggie Pearson. (AP Photo/Justin Rex)

Most go the other way.

Most don’t want the good to become an enemy of the very good, the very good to become an enemy of the outstanding or the outstanding to become an enemy of the perfect.

Brent Venables, however, will tell you, yes, go ahead and let one rung of “acceptable" become the enemy of the next rung because you’ve got to get to the next rung. 

And the next one. 

And the next one.

Because, he’ll tell you, you may make the play, you may have achieved the objective, even drawn raves and compliments for it. Yet, the moment will come, eventually, where less than optimal gets you beat and perfection therefore remains the quest.

It would be nice, then, if the men who work under Venables’ direction, striving to be perfect, could at least operate in a way that’s, I don’t know … defendable?

Honestly, this could have been a very different column. At many times Saturday evening, it was going to be a very different column.

Even after the Sooners gave back their dominant start, even after, for no good reason, bad second-quarter clock management — a facet of the game one presumes had been a focus in days prior — helped Texas Tech get right back into the game, it appeared Oklahoma was going to overcome all of it and on his best night to date, Dillon Gabriel would be the hero.

It didn’t end that way.