The Cyclones managed to blow yet another eminently winnable game on Saturday, falling 17-14 to the Oklahoma Sooners, who have a lame duck as a coach and a player who had taken less than 20 snaps as a quarterback.

The big question of where to place the blame in one of the top five disgusting losses in the fabulous Dan McCarney era (the list is long, folks) is a difficult one.

The good news is that no one specific area could be held accountable for the loss.

The bad news is that virtually every area of the team had key lapses that led to the Cyclones demise on a gray Saturday in Norman.

Let’s start with the defense. Ah, the familiar scapegoat actually played very well — except, that is, for when it really counted. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

How a man is roaming free with 1:12 left in the game is beyond me.

Unfortunately, it became painfully clear that it was within reach of the Cyclone defenders, who once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when Gerald Williams caught a 44 yard touchdown pass from Jake Sills to secure the victory.

Other lapses included Dustin Avey dropping an interception that would have clinched the win and the touchdown pass that was virtually a Hail Mary with only 18 seconds left in the first half. That pass allowed the Sooners to tie the game at 7 and give them big momentum.

So to sum up, the defense played well — just not well enough.

Let’s now turn to the offensive side of the ball. The offense starts with Todd Bandhauer, and on two key occasions, it also ended with the normally heady senior from Crystal River, Fla. The two interceptions that he threw both came in the end zone, normally a Cardinal (and Gold) sin.

The first one was tipped and not entirely the fault of Bandy. However, the last one was completely inexcusable.

It came early in the fourth quarter, and it was right after Sills coughed up the ball on his own 17 yard line. On third and goal, Bandhauer threw into the left corner of the end zone, and the ball was picked off by Corey Ivy of the Sooners.

A field goal would have meant a 7 point lead for the ‘Clones, who have not won a game decided by less than seven points since 1993, and the attempt would have been possible even for Jaime Kohl, whose range and accuracy have seemingly gone down year by year since he was a solid kicker as a freshman.

The offensive line’s numbers look fabulous. They gave up their first two sacks of the season on Saturday. A pretty incredible number, two sacks in eight games. Well, let’s take a closer look at the line’s reason for “success.”

The line yesterday and basically all season has afforded Bandhauer no time to throw the ball. The reason for the few number of sacks has much more to do with the fact that the quarterback takes three step drops a majority of the time, and it’s harder to give up a sack with a three step drop than it is to imagine the Cyclones ending up with a winning record under Dan McCarney.

Also, Bandhauer has been far too eager to avoid the sack this year, many times forcing the ball into tight coverage instead of taking the loss of yardage.

And let’s talk about the running game. It seems to me that the line has not opened a hole for a Cyclone carrier since Blaise Bryant was toting the ball for the Cardinal and Gold.

Davis had under five yards in the entire second half, and 46 of his 76 yards came on one run that he created almost entirely on his own.

I guess I did forget about the holes the line forged against Ball State. However, I believe this is offset by the fact that the editorial staff here at the Daily could have successfully knocked the Cardinals off the ball.

The main thing that the offense could not accomplish was getting the key first down late in the fourth quarter that would’ve sealed the deal. The calls were indeed predictable, but winning teams get those first downs. Winning teams beat Oklahoma.

In fact, mediocre teams beat Oklahoma.

Let’s move on to another area that Cyclone critics (like myself) have crowed about this year, the play-calling.

The play-calling again, for lack of a better or more appropriate term, sucked. Which means it was a marked improvement over earlier games in this 2-6 season, which has seen ISU lose five in a row.

The call by Pete Hoener to open up the ‘Clones last-gasp drive was a draw to J.J. Moses, followed by a time-out.

The line of thinking was that it would catch the opposition off guard.

Hmm, they must have forgotten that they were not playing an intrasquad scrimmage.

And during the rest of the game, particularly in the second half, the play-calling reflected not only lack of imagination that has plagued the offense for much of the season but a lack of confidence in the offensive line to sustain their blocks long enough to throw a downfield pass.

It truly was a frightening Halloween in Norman, Okla. However, it had nothing to do with the haunted houses or scary movies that made the day a nightmare for ISU.

It was more due to the lack of execution in crunch time that made for another bitter taste in the Cyclones’ mouths.

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Josh Flickinger is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Rockford, Ill.