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Sugar to decide more than title for Sooners -- it'll determine their legacy

Are Will Peoples and the Sooners a great team for 2003, or a great team for all-time? The Sugar Bowl should help provide the answer. AP

NEW ORLEANS -- A month ago, we were ready to declare them one of the greatest teams of all time.

Heading into Sunday's Sugar Bowl, however, it's debatable whether they're even the greatest team of this season.

''Now that we have one loss," said Tommie Harris, "it's like we're Prairie View or something."

Funny what losing 35-7 does to your reputation.

Bob Stoops' Oklahoma Sooners have won more games over the last four years than any team in college football. They boast the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, the nation's most highly regarded coach and through their first 12 games had compiled one of the most dominant seasons in history.

Yet this one game, a national championship showdown with LSU, could significantly alter the way the college football world views Oklahoma.

Win, especially convincingly, and the Sooners will have created quite the legacy, winning their second national championship in four years -- a feat accomplished just once in the past decade -- and maintaining their status atop the nation's power structure.

Lose, however, and Oklahoma becomes something quite different altogether. They become a once-great team that choked down the stretch. They become a program that's failed three straight years to recapture its 2000 magic.

Most damning of all, they would take a backseat to America's new darlings, the USC Trojans, in the minds of the sport's followers.

Sugar Bowl SI.com's Stewart Mandel If the Trojans represented L.A. glitz, then the Tigers were Bayou blue collar in beating the Sooners in the Sugar Bowl. Closer Look Nick Saban showed why he deserves the huge raise that is coming his way after winning the national title. Spotlight HERO: LSU defense The Tigers held the top-ranked Sooners offense to 154 total yards, only 52 on the ground. LSU had five sacks and forced two interceptions that led to touchdowns. GOAT: Jason White The Heisman winner flopped in the big game, completing only 13-of-37 passes and tossing two picks, one of which was returned for the game-deciding touchdown. Rose Bowl SI.com's Stewart Mandel It may not have been USC's typical blowout, but after watching the Trojans manhandle Michigan, AP voters will have no trouble justifying their opinion. Spotlight HERO: Keary Colbert Overshadowed by All-American Mike Williams the entire season, the senior WR caught six passes for 149 yards and two touchdowns in his final collegiate game. GOAT: Michigan's O-Line The same bunch who plowed over Ohio State couldn't get the job done against USC, as John Navarre was sacked nine times and Chris Perry ran for just 85 yards. BCS Recap Sugar: LSU 21, Oklahoma 14 Rose: USC 28, Michigan 14 Orange: Miami 16, Florida St. 14 Fiesta: Ohio State 35, Kansas State 28 2003-04 bowls schedule and results

"It's kind of a disappointment," said quarterback Jason White, "if you win 12 games and don't have anything to show for it."

You can debate all you whether their title-game berth was merited, but there's no denying the extent of Oklahoma's dominance during their first 12 games.

They won 11 games by 20 points or more. Four by more than 40. They posted the nation's No. 1 scoring offense (45.2 points per game) and No. 1 total defense (255.6 yards per per game).

So impressive were the Sooners that voters honored OU players with the Heisman (White), Nagurski (cornerback Derrick Strait), Lombardi (defensive tackle Tommie Harris), Butkus (linebacker Teddy Lehman), Thorpe (Strait) and Davey O'Brien (White) awards.

All that went up in smoke, though, on one miserable, unexplainable night in Kansas City when Kansas State running back Darren Sproles shredded their normally impenetrable run defense and the Wildcats' defense forced White into his worst game of the year.

With that, the Sooners suddenly found themselves with plenty of free space on their bandwagon.

How can a team that didn't win its conference get to play for the national title, cried the critics. If Kansas State was able to get to White, imagine what LSU's defensive line will do.

Fortunately for Oklahoma, they have a coach who exhales confidence with nearly every breath. He's been charged with reassuring the troops that their last game was an aberration, and they seem to have gotten the message.

"We know we're good," said Lehman. "We don't have to prove anything to anyone else."

"There's a very fine margin in winning and losing," said Stoops. "The way we've played in so many games, the point production, the great defense -- there's a lot more to deal with that's positive than negative."

In college football circles, there is no more coveted prize than the crystal ADT national championship trophy that will be awarded to the winner of Sunday night's game.

Yet it's impossible to ignore the fact that out west, USC, which did nothing in the Rose Bowl to dissuade AP voters from keeping them No. 1, will likely be hoisting an impressive trophy of its own come Monday morning. Or the fact that the Sooners wouldn't even have a chance at the crystal football if not for a preexisting agreement by the nation's coaches to vote the BCS winner No. 1.

In many eyes, Oklahoma's title would always be accompanied by an asterisk. But then, so could USC's.

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In the aftermath of their 28-14 victory over Michigan last Thursday, Trojans players not only basked in the glory of a title they hadn't yet officially won but, with a little coaxing from reporters, started looking ahead to next season and their likely status as the team to beat.

All of which had to leave the Sooners asking, "Umm ... remember us?"

"I keep reading about all the guys they have coming back," Stoops said of the Trojans. "We have 10 starters coming back on offense, eight on defense."

Is someone actually crying West Coast bias?

Suffice to say, the Sooners have more at stake Sunday night than just the crystal football.

Pride. Swagger. Regaining respect.

And most of all, letting the nation know they're not going to sit back and let USC hog the spotlight just yet.

Here's one guess that they'll get it done.

Stewart Mandel covers college sports for SI.com.