<table> </table> Oklahoma safety Nic Harris wasn&#8217;t thinking about the Gainesville, Fla., gospel radio station when he mentioned WTLG.</p><p>The inspiration is there just the same.</p><p>&#8220;Win the last game,&#8221; Harris said.</p><p>It&#8217;s a figurative and literal imperative. Winning the last game roughly translates to not looking beyond the next opponent. &#8220;You treat the next game like it&#8217;s your last game,&#8221; Harris said. &#8220;So, August 30 is our last game.&#8221;</p><p>But the acronym is derived from the gut-punch Oklahoma felt while walking off the field for the final time in four of the past five years &#8212; all in Bowl Championship Series contests.</p><p>Bowl-game losses have become the rule in Sooner Land, and they have soured otherwise fabulous seasons.</p><p>The latest, a 48-28 beatdown by West Virginia in last year&#8217;s Fiesta Bowl, wasn&#8217;t even the worst debacle. That would be bowl loss No. 2 in this four-of-five stretch, trailing only the 55-19 embarrassment to Southern California for the 2004 national championship.</p><p>&#8220;You hear a lot about it,&#8221; Sooners center Jon Cooper said.</p><p>Oklahoma was happy about knocking off top-ranked Missouri in the Big 12 title game, beating the Tigers for the second time last season. But players say that&#8217;s not how success is measured at the storied program.</p><p>&#8220;People in Oklahoma aren&#8217;t satisfied unless you win a national championship,&#8221; Cooper said.</p><p>Because of this recent skid, Oklahoma no longer stands alone among Big 12 programs with the most bowl victories. The Sooners are tied with Texas with 24.</p><p>All of which has coach Bob Stoops, once known as &#8220;Big-Game Bob,&#8221; unapologetic.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been in six Big 12 championships and have won five of them, so we&#8217;re doing something right,&#8221; Stoops said. &#8220;We know how to win those games, and we&#8217;ll manage the others the best we can.&#8221;</p><p>Those five conference championships are three more than anybody else has won.</p><p>The sense around the Big 12 as the annual media days wrapped up Wednesday was that the Sooners will have every opportunity to fix their bowl-game woes in 2008.</p><p>Oklahoma is the runaway choice to capture the South Division. Several players considered the league&#8217;s best at their positions are returning.</p><p>The Sooners may have the nation&#8217;s premier offensive line, with four players receiving some kind of preseason-honor mention. They&#8217;ll protect quarterback Sam Bradford, who as a redshirt freshman led the nation in passing efficiency.</p><p>The defense should be typically swift and strong. So where can things go wrong?</p><p>Look back to the West Virginia game. Oklahoma was flagged for 13 penalties. The Sooners were the fourth-most penalized team in the Big 12 last season.</p><p>That heralded offensive line that allowed fewer than one sack per game surrendered three to the Mountaineers.</p><p>&#8220;We have to play smarter,&#8221; Stoops said.</p><p>He never expressed that thought earlier in his career when Oklahoma seemed a charmed program. Beginning with the national championship season of 2000, the Sooners won nine of their next 10 games against teams ranked in the top 10, including two major bowl triumphs. Thus the &#8220;Big-Game Bob&#8221; title.</p><p>Stoops said the recent January blues haven&#8217;t affected his desire to continue his career in Norman. He loves his job and appreciates the unique condition of having the same bosses &#8212; president David Boren and athletic director Joe Castiglione &#8212; for all 10 of his head-coaching years.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s really pretty special,&#8221; Stoops said. &#8220;It&#8217;s exciting to go to work every day.&#8221;</p><p>Well, maybe not the day after the recent bowl games, but the closer Oklahoma gets to the next opportunity, the less of an issue it becomes.</p><p>&#8220;I know we can do a better job of closing things out,&#8221; Cooper said. &#8220;We will finish strong this year.&#8221;