While I don’t remember any choruses of “Where’s Clarky gone?”, since you didn’t ask, I’ll tell you. I spent this last weekend down in Big D, rubbing shoulders with the Ewings and assorted long-legged, big-haired Texas blondes in miniskirts and cowboy boots. Seriously. Okay, maybe I didn’t have an invite to Southfork. But the girls are lovely.

Why would I do this? Well, it’s obvious…Oklahoma vs. Texas. Good vs. Evil.

Since 1900 (seven years before Oklahoma even became a state), these two universities have had an annual football game because they just can’t get enough of each other. While some will argue the point, The Dallas Morning News asked 119 Division One coaches what the greatest rivalry in college football is, and Oklahoma-Texas prevailed, beating out Michigan-Ohio State, Auburn-Alabama, and Army-Navy.

Last year, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (a neutral site roughly equidistant between the two campuses) somehow squeezed in 96,000 souls, divided equally between the two schools, with the fans split down the 50-yard line. It makes for a helluva spectacle, half burnt orange, half red. And it’s always a sellout. I didn’t get the number for this years’ game, but there weren’t any empty seats until Texas fans started leaving in droves in the fourth quarter, one of the best sights in all sports.

And we heartily booed the other school’s marching band. Seriously.

Saturday, Oklahoma rolled their bigger, richer neighbors 63-21 for their third win in a row in the series, and both Texas touchdowns came late after OU had knocked the Longhorns’ starting quarterback out and put their own backups in. A true rout, something to savor. We booed the Texas quarterback as he cradled his injured wrist and defiantly marched down the tunnel in the Oklahoma end. Seriously. Booed a 19- or 20-year-old kid. And his marching band.

What’s this got to do with anything? A tale of two coaches and patience.

We used to laugh at Mack Brown at the Texas helm until he won a national championship in 2005 (and we’re back to laughing now). But Oklahoma’s last championship was in 2000. And a decade-plus of paying national championship money to a head coach without a championship? Well…it depends on who you ask as to whether that’s too long.

While I’m not necessarily quick to pull the trigger on Villa managers, I can say that 10 years without a championship, colored further by three subsequent national championship game appearances that all ended in losses, leads me to believe Bob Stoops just isn’t going to win another one at Oklahoma.

Others, though, will argue, pointing to the slew of conference championships and big-game appearances as proof that OU can’t reasonably expect to do any better. “Who would you rather have? What have they done? How many championships have they won?”

I’ve got a couple names in mind. And I don’t care about conference championships. Those titles are small comfort in the high stakes games of “amateur” American football. OU’s got seven national championships in their history, and it’s high time they had another.

But this is the difference in setups. Without relegation, you can spend a decade winning things and deciding you could do better. Over that decade, there are plenty who’ll say things could be worse.

In the Premier League, managers don’t get a decade of multimillion-dollar salaries and “underachievement” to find their doubters. Seven or eight games is enough for some to decide Villa could’ve done better.

Patience is relative, as are the stakes. And often, it really does take five to 10 years to see enough to conclude it won’t get any better, even if it’s been pretty fun and competitive.

Imagine the EPL being decided by a single game between teams without a loss. Imagine getting there four times and coming up empty in three of those. It’s real heartbreak when you know those chances are like golden eggs. It’s real heartbreak to go undefeated, laying waste to all-comers just to throw it all away in one failed game and start again from square one.

And imagine that not being enough, getting there, and winning everything but. Even if you did roll the Blues by six or seven goals in at least three of the past 10 seasons.

Apples and oranges, perhaps, but an interesting thing to take in and consider.

Paul Lambert’s barely drawn breath as the Villa manager. And one imagines he’ll only get one or two middling seasons at the most before people start calling for his head. Never mind seven or eight games.

But echoing what many have said over the past few days, these things take time. And Paul Lambert deserves at least a full season. When people ask why I don’t seem bothered about things, it’s because I’m looking at these sorts of timelines.

Granted, there’s no relegation risk, so it’s all rather different. But success can come overnight. It can come after a few years of getting things right. It can come and then evade. It can be measured in a number of different ways.

But whatever the sport, whatever the league, whatever the expectations, turning around a sleeping giant may well take more than a few games. And we’d all do well to remember that.

Paul Lambert, by all rights, deserves at least a year, maybe two, before we start calling for his head. After all, it’s been a long time since we won anything. What’s the rush?

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