KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The frigid air, the frozen tundra. Nebraska. Oklahoma. Revived running attacks. Naturally, the two teams combined for 85 passes in Saturday night’s Big 12 Conference championship game before 80,031 fans at Arrowhead Stadium.

The difference in Oklahoma’s 21-7 victory? The Sooners defended the pass better than did Nebraska.

So much was made during the week of Oklahoma’s vaunted downhill running attack. That, combined with Nebraska’s tackling problems, had many wondering if the Sooners would run roughshod.

Not so. The Blackshirts stood up to the challenge, holding the Sooners to 42 yards rushing. The tackling was sound.

It’s almost as though Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops expected that to be the case.

“We went in ready to throw the ball a good amount,” Stoops said. “We felt the way they were trying to defend us, it would be there.”

It was indeed.

Nebraska’s secondary has been suspect all season, and the Sooners certainly exploited the Huskers’ biggest weakness. OU quarterback Paul Thompson, who last year converted to wide receiver after an ineffective season-opening performance against TCU, threw for 265 yards and two touchdowns.

His biggest strike came in the first quarter, when his play-action pass fell perfectly into the hands of Malcolm Kelly, who’d beaten cornerback Cortney Grixby for a 66-yard touchdown.

Thompson’s biggest series came in the third quarter, when Nebraska, on the verge of seizing momentum, had OU backed up third-and-10 at the Sooner 1-yard line. This time, Thompson just eluded pressure in the end zone and delivered a play-action toss to Jermaine Gresham for a 35-yard gain. Gresham beat safety Tierre Green on the play.

“When you’ve got a team backed up third-and-long,” Nebraska linebacker Bo Ruud said, “you can’t afford to give up a big pass.”

The play set up a 99-yard scoring drive in which Thompson completed six of seven passes, including a 3-yard TD toss to Kelly to give OU its 21-7 cushion.

“I thought our defense was playing well in the second half, that third quarter,” Nebraska coach Bill Callahan said. “We let them out of a hole. We were pretty aggressive on our front and coverage, and they hit us on a play-action pass for a huge gain.

“That kind of took the wind out of our sails right there. We had them backed up, but we just couldn’t make a play.”

Said defensive end Jay Moore: “That was huge,” Moore said. “We had them right there. That changed the way the second half went.”

While Oklahoma set the tone with its passing game, the Huskers and quarterback Zac Taylor were out of sync through the air all night. Taylor completed 23 of 50 passes for 282 yards and threw a season-high three interceptions.

Nebraska had success initially running the football, with Brandon Jackson running for 45 yards in the first quarter. But Callahan went away from the run in the second quarter.

“You’ll look at that and you’ll derive your own opinion, but I really felt coming we could balance them, but we didn’t, and that’s a fact,” Callahan said. “We didn’t get it done. We didn’t play good enough. We didn’t coach good enough. That’s my fault.”

Nebraska ran for only 84 yards, averaging 4 yards per attempt. Jackson suffered an apparent hand injury in the second half and didn’t return. He finished with only 13 carries after carrying 34 times in NU’s final regular-season game against Colorado. The only other running back who had a carry was Kenny Wilson, who lost two yards on a toss sweep play after Jackson’ injury.

Marlon Lucky, who has a sore back and didn’t play until the fourth quarter, caught two screen passes. Cody Glenn, who’s suffering from a foot sprain, did not play.

Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.