I have to think Dana Holgorsen was being disingenuous, but he did say this.

“They invented intimidation,” Holgorsen said. “They invented intimidation. Call it unsportsmanlike if you want to. It’s just kind of been their M.O. for a long time. We’re not backing down from anybody, so when they pull some of that stuff, we’re going to stand up.”

To me, it sounded like he thought it was bush league, that he thought the Sooners thought they were doing something groundbreaking and he didn’t understand or appreciate the focus they placed on it. But what really bothered him was that it bothered the Mountaineers.

“We looked undisciplined, we looked uncoached,” Gibson said. “It wasn’t good. It wasn’t our best. Those guys are good players. We just got rattled early and never, ever recovered.”

Gibson said the Sooners tried to be bully.

“They did, and our kids bought into it,” he said. “Our kids were too worried about pushing after the play and doing dumb stuff, undisciplined stuff.”

There’s a rift between these two teams, and I’ll be sad and surprised if we don’t see crimson T-shirts with “We invented intimidation!” in cream letters in Norman next fall.