NORMAN, Okla. — They call it The Kick and, here on the okra-fried plains, it is still flying.

Scarcely a day passes where the German immigrant who booted his way into Oklahoma lore is not reminded of that September day in 1977.

For a generation of Ohio State supporters, his name remains a profanity.

In the Sooner State, Uwe von Schamann is a folk hero, the kid who asked a roaring Ohio Stadium crowd for more noise, only to turn it so silent that — as Oklahoma running back Billy Sims later said — you could have heard a mouse urinating on cotton.

His 41-yard field goal that lifted No. 3 Oklahoma to a stunning 29-28 win over the fourth-ranked Buckeyes endures as one of those rare remember-where-you-were moments in the life of a fan.

The Tulsa World ranked the game the most memorable victory of three-time champion Sooners coach Barry Switzer’s career.

“I didn't know the Buckeye stadium sat 300,000 people,” Switzer said, laughing, ”because I've met that many who were there.”

So has von Schamann, now 60 and a fund-raiser at an Oklahoma City hospital for children with disabilities.

“People come up to me all the time and I hear some great stories,” he said.

“People tell me they were jumping up and down and broke their ceiling celebrating. One guy said he broke his foot against the coffee table. The best one I heard was from one of our assistant coaches. He told me before we went to Columbus, he told his girlfriend that if we win this game, he would marry her.

“I saw him years later, and he said, ‘Uwe, I sure wish you would have missed that son of a gun.’ ”

On Saturday, another chance at history awaits.

Savor the No. 3 Buckeyes’ trip to 14th-ranked Oklahoma.

The third meeting between these deepest shade of blue bloods — rated the top two all-time programs by the Associated Press — is the best kind of treat.

Traditionally, the Buckeyes try to schedule one marquee nonconference game per year. Their home-and-home opponents over the past decades include Notre Dame, West Virginia, UCLA, Washington, Texas, Southern California, Miami, California, and Virginia Tech.

Sometimes, the timing doesn’t work out and the matchup — scheduled years in advance — is a dud by the time the game rolls around. But sometimes, it does. And, in the too-often snoozing wasteland of early-season college football (Hi, Baylor), every so often comes the kind of intersectional showdown that can redefine a season or a career.

As von Schamann discovered, Ohio State-Oklahoma is one of those games.

Go back to their first meeting, and the anticipation was similar.

Woody vs. Switzer, then only 36 but already with two national titles. In 1977, it didn’t get any bigger.

And the product delivered.

In a game both sides thought they had won and lost, the Sooners — their wishbone offense terrorizing Ohio State — opened a 20-0 lead, only for quarterback Rod Gerald and the Buckeyes to rally for 28 straight points.

Oklahoma made it 28-26 on a touchdown with 1:29 remaining, but appeared done after the Buckeyes stuffed Elvis Peacock’s option run on a tying two-point conversion try. Instead, eight seconds later, von Schamann’s onside kick caromed off the hands of backup OSU quarterback Mike Strahine and into the grip of Sooners defensive back Mike Babb at the 50-yard line.

The visitors then advanced to the 23 with three seconds left, bringing out their nerveless junior kicker.

A Berlin native who settled in Fort Worth with his mother at age 16, von Schamann was voted the best kicker in Big Eight history and play six seasons in the NFL with the Dolphins. But his career would become known by this one sequence in the rattling canyon of the Horseshoe.

Hayes called a timeout to ice the kicker. Switzer went to his knees. A stadium prayed.

The tension escaped just one person.

As the crowd of 88,119 began a full-throated chant, von Schamann waved his arms as if directing an orchestra and sang along.

Block that kick! Block that kick!

“Usually, I don't hear the crowd, but that’s when I heard them yelling, ‘Block that kick,’ ” von Schamann said. “I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t very smart. I just felt very confident.”

Switzer’s thoughts: “He’s just a crazy German, is what he is.”

With that, Von Schamann’s kick sailed down the middle, setting off a scene of dogpiling delirium on the field and despair in the stands.

An unwitting reporter afterward told Hayes it was the most exciting game he had ever seen.

“To heck with the most exciting game,” Woody said. “I’d rather have them drab as heck and win.”

Heck, Switzer agrees.

“We lost Thomas Lott, our quarterback, and Billy Sims, in the first half,” he said. “I’ve told Uwe, ‘You've bragged about that kick and everybody talks about that kick. I’m going to tell you something. If those two hadn’t gotten hurt, we weren’t going to need your damn field goal. We were fixing to put a half a hundred on them. But I’m glad you were there.’”

Switzer laughs, of course. In truth, the ending reminded us why we watch these games at all, that September afternoon in 1977 living large — never mind that neither team went on to win the national title — in the proud history of two giants.

Von Schamann will be recognized before Saturday’s rubber match — Ohio State evened the score with a 24-14 win at No. 2 Oklahoma in 1983 — and has been invited by Sooners coach Bob Stoops to accompany the team to Columbus next year.

Von Schamann has been back to Ohio a few times to watch his son, Duke, a minor league pitcher who spent the past two seasons with the Akron Rubber Ducks and Columbus Clippers. He mostly escaped notice, though he figures his photo is hanging on the wall — or in the dust bin — of a few Buckeye homes.

“Every once in a while,” he said, “I’ll have somebody that will want me to sign a picture of the kick to send it to their Buckeye buddies as a joke.”

Thirty-nine years later, The Kick is still flying.

Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.

First Published September 16, 2016, 4:14 a.m.