It’s almost football season, which means it’s time for the next installment in this basically-annual series. One day I might finish it? Today we’ve got four OU games that finished with a combined 15-point margin of victory, generally against feisty-but-overmatched opponents. All of these games are getting firmly into the “great memory” tier though.
17: Oklahoma 66, Texas Tech 59 – October 22, 2016
This is a legendary game on many levels. Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield dueled it out on the dusty plains of Lubbock in a game that may have epitomized the wide-open gunslinging nature of the 2010s Big 12. RIP, 2010s Big 12. We never knew how good we had it.
My freshman roommate had his girlfriend over for the weekend, so I was unofficially kicked out of my dorm. I found a home for the night on Jason, Sam, Robert, and Scott’s couch. Who knew I was staying with two of my future groomsmen? We watched the game on their little Traditions-East-provided screen. I can still see the corner of the room it sat in in the back of my mind.
The game went bonkers from the very beginning. Mayfield hit Joe Mixon for a 56-yard touchdown 97 seconds into the game. Then Texas Tech turned over the ball and Mayfield hit Dede Westbrook for a 49-yard TD. It was the 11:28 mark of the 1st quarter and it was 13-0, and you could almost convince yourself that this would be a cakewalk.
Then Mahomes got going. He led a charge that actually gave the Red Raiders a brief 24-23 lead right before the half, and the Sooners only took the lead back into the break because they went 75 yards in two plays (of course). The teams traded haymakers for the entire second half. I gleefully narrated the whole thing to a freshman friend of mine named Elizabeth who wasn’t able to watch the game because she was at Harvard for a crew race. OU pretty much held Tech at arm’s length the entire way. The five of us crowded around that little TV went from frustration at the lack of defense to amazement at the spectacle in front of us to outright rooting for FBS records to be set, many of which were
Mixon was unstoppable, running the ball 31 times for 263 yards and also snaring one of the all-time great one-handed touchdown grabs as one of his 5 total touchdowns. Mahomes was even more unstoppable. He was 52-88 for 734 yards and 5 touchdowns. He also ran for 85 yards. I guess this is all a little more excusable in light of the fact that Mahomes might be on pace to be the greatest QB of all time, but still…
The Saturday evening game finished late, late into the night. I remember having a meal swipe left on my card that was going to expire at midnight. There was so little time after the game that we couldn’t even go use it. Shock, awe, and disbelief were the main moods. In time, this game had become known as something of an all-time college football classic. At the time, it was just another Mike Stoops defense getting stomped.
16: Oklahoma 59, West Virginia 56 – November 23, 2018
We’ll continue with the theme of no defense here by turning to one of the most important games of the 2018 season. Unlike the 2016 Red Raiders, the 2018 Mountaineers were something of a known and presumably pretty decent quantity. They were led by QB Will Grier – not exactly Mahomes, but more than acceptable as far as college quarterbacks go – and entered this Black Friday night game at 8-2 with their only losses having come at Iowa State and Oklahoma State. A win would give West Virginia the tiebreaker at 7-2 in conference play to go to the Big 12 title game ahead of OU, who at 10-1 was on the verge of returning to the College Football Playoff for the second straight year.
I was in Michigan for Thanksgiving that year; it would go down as the final Thanksgiving that Elizabeth and I didn’t spend together. In part that was due to the fact that she was debuting to high society in Washington that day, and I frankly had little interest in being part of that spectacle. Somewhere in a 4-or-5-star hotel in D.C, Elizabeth was getting updates read off to her as the Sooners and Mountaineers went blow-for-blow with each other. It wasn’t quite as complex in Kentwood – my dad and I watched on the TV in his living room. I don’t know if he had sat down to watch a 2018 Oklahoma game before, but he was about to get educated in what a late-era Mike Stoops defense was really capable of.
Grier figured out very quickly that if there was one thing OU’s decimated secondary couldn’t do, it was defend the deep ball. He dropped bombs all day on guys like a freshman Bookie Radley-Hiles, throwing for 539 yards on just 32 completions. Yeesh. Kyler Murray matched Grier blow-for-blow, throwing for 364 yards of his own on just 20 completions. Good gravy. Murray also added the electric threat of his legs, scoring on a 55-yard TD to open the scoring for the Sooner offense.
And yet for all of the invective that OU’s defense would draw (deservedly), the two plays of the game were made by the defense. One came before the half with West Virginia driving to try to tie the game up at 28. Grier disappeared under a pile of bodies as a rare blitz got home. The football bounded away from him. Caleb Kelly scooped it up and brought it all the way back the other way to make it a 35-21 Oklahoma lead.
The third quarter mostly went West Virginia’s way. They took their first lead in a long time 42-38 late in the quarter and almost forced OU off the field on the ensuing drive before Murray layered in a perfect deep ball to Hollywood Brown. Murray then hit Brown on a drag route from the 45, and the electric receiver scampered down the sideline while breaking through some of the worst tackle attempts you’ll ever see en route to a touchdown. It was a play that became symbolic of the lack of defense being played in the 2010s Big 12. RIP, 2010s Big 12. We never knew how good we had it.
Although perhaps the symbolic play should have been the next play from scrimmage when Grier found Gary Jennings for a 75-yard TD to retake the lead. My dad was watching in abject horror at this point.
The game finally turned on another defensive play. Another blitz got to Grier and the ball squirted away again. This time it was Curtis Bolton who picked it up. “Buzzy” rumbled all the way for a score to put OU up 59-49 with 10 minutes left. They would withstand the storm in part due to Murray standing in the pocket for a solid 6 or 7 seconds before CeeDee Lamb finally came open to catch a rocket of a comebacker on the game-sealing 4th down conversion.
Somewhere in a hotel dressing room, an extremely inebriated Elizabeth must have smiled.
15: Oklahoma 28, TCU 24 – November 23, 2019
There was a little bit of extra emotion involved in Senior Night in 2019. Four of the best years of my life with some of the greatest friends I’ll ever meet were coming to a close. Some of these people I would probably never watch a college football game with again. It definitely wouldn’t be the same, regardless.
Elizabeth and I had Winston with us for OU’s penultimate game against TCU. I guess Delaware just doesn’t bother with having classes the week of Thanksgiving. We’d be heading back to the east not long after Winston for the great debutante ball of 2019. For now, we had a night game in Norman to warm up those drinking muscles with. One last day at James, Moriah, and Chandler’s apartment the day of a game. One last walk from State Apartments to the stadium on a crisp November evening in Norman. One last time spitting in James’s face while the OU band played the pregame show. One last Sooners in the NFL.
Oklahoma got off to a rip-roaring start against the Horned Frogs. They forced a three-and-out on the first drive and then marched right down the field, with Jalen Hurts taking the ball the last 7 yards for the opening score. After another horrendous three-and-out from TCU, the Sooners scored in 5 plays; this time it was Brayden Willis making an acrobatic play against the pylon to make it 14-0. TCU got the ball for a 3rd time and again went backwards (literally; each of the first three drives featured 3rd-and-15 or worse). Hurts worked with Charleston Rambo for a few chunk plays before finding CeeDee Lamb for a 5 yard score early in the second quarter. Just like that, it was 21-0 and the rout was on.
But of course, as this was a late-stage Lincoln Riley team, the rout was off the moment adversity struck. A few minutes later, Max Duggan (yes, the guy who would beat Michigan in the CFP semifinals three years later) squirted free for a 62-yard run to set up TCU with their first TD of the game. While OU was marching down the field yet again, Jaden Haselwood fumbled. The Frogs managed to get in a field goal before the half and it was 21-10. I was torn about how to feel. It was obvious OU was dominating outside of a big play and a fluke turnover, but I had also seen the unraveling begin in much more benign situations. James, of course, was panicking.
He didn’t look like he was wrong when the 3rd quarter started. Hurts got sacked on a 4th down near midfield to start the 2nd half and then Duggan ran for a TD. Suddenly, it was a one-score game. But then Hurts and Kennedy Brooks went to work to restore the two-score lead, and Alex Grinch’s defense forced a punt. So maybe I was right not to panic. Maybe Winston was right to just enjoy the game? Maybe we were all right, or maybe we were all wrong? Late-stage Lincoln Riley was a paradox of emotions. Regardless, Hurts and Brooks got back to work on a 13-play drive that could put the game out of reach… until Jalen did the one thing you absolutely cannot do. He threw a pick six.
So it was going to be one of those games. I couldn’t do anything about it but sit there and hope that OU survived like they always did (and try to ignore the ball of panic standing in the student section next to me). Once again the Sooners marched down the field. Once again Hurts made a big play to get the ball inside the 10. This time he was stripped of the ball as he was going to the the ground with 7 minutes to go. It had to be maximally painful. The defense bowed up, forced a three-and-out deep in TCU territory, and gave the ball back to Hurts one more time. But at this point the meltdown was fully on. With 3 minutes left, Rhamondre Stevenson was stuffed on 4th-and-1 from the TCU 40. The Horned Frogs had enough time and a short field to go win it.
During those years, I always told Elizabeth that I always believed OU would come back and win. They did it time and again when punched in the face (or when they punched themselves in the face) when I was an undergraduate. Hell, they had just done it a few weeks ago in the next game in this article. But I distinctly recall feeling different this time. This time they had tempted the football gods one too many times and were going to suffer the wrath and consequences.
Yeah, or maybe not. Bookie Radley-Hiles picked off Duggan at the OU 32. The Sooners picked up an extremely questionable first down on a Hurts run on 3rd and short, and the clock struck zero. OU was 10-1, Winston had had a great time, and James (and myself, deep in my heart of hearts) could breathe a sigh of relief.
Oklahoma 42, Iowa State 41 – November 9, 2019
If you liked the previous game on this list, then you’re in for a real treat: just two weeks before OU played that nail-biter against TCU, they played an even nailier-bitier game against Iowa State. Just like the story above, Elizabeth and I were hosting a visitor (my sister, Taylor). Just like the story above, OU jumped out to a big lead before trying their best to squander it late. Just like the story above, James almost had a heart attack. I guess you could at least count on that Oklahoma team to be dependable in 2019.
The exact method to get to the final result was a little different. Where the Sooners had tried to squeeze the life out of TCU on the ground, they came out with an aerial assault against the Cyclones – starting with a 48-yard TD to CeeDee Lamb in triple coverage. Iowa State punted a couple of times, Hurts ran for a TD of his own, and then after a Brock Purdy touchdown pass, Hurts added another TD pass of his own to Trejan Bridges. When Lamb caught a screen pass in the middle of the second quarter and then crossed all the way from the left side of the field to the right en route to a magical 63-yard score, I let myself believe for just one second – as I must have done a million times during the Riley tenure – that maybe this time would be easier.
The entirety of the OU student section must have thought that as well. Yes, it was a night game on a Saturday in early November. So maybe they all had places to be. But the weather was absolutely gorgeous and students were filing out of the game left and right. Taylor noticed it from where we stood. Even the FOX broadcasters calling the game commented on it. But who knows, maybe they just thought a 35-14 Sooner lead at the half meant it was safe to head back?
As late as the end of the third quarter, it was hard to see that they were wrong. Kennedy Brooks rumbled 48 yards for yet another long TD to put OU back in front 42-21. That’s when the legend of Brock Purdy began. He threw a touchdown to one of the gigantic tight ends that Matt Campbell always used to have around. Then Iowa State got the lucky break they needed when Lamb fumbled the ball away. OU actually made a big-time red zone stop with just 7:30 left in the game, but they weren’t able to bleed the clock away entirely and eventually punted back. It took Purdy only four plays to score this time, and in the preview of the 2023 NFC Championship Game QB battle, it was now only 42-35 for Hurts’ team. Jalen had the chance to put the game away, but he started rolling right on third down and then went into a throw so bad that I yelled “NO!” before it even left his hand. Such a poor idea only had one possible consequence – a disastrous turnover with under 3 minutes left.
I kept waiting for the Sooner Magic moment to show itself. Unlike the TCU came that was yet to come, my attitude toward this game was one of amused tolerance. Of course Lincoln Riley’s Sooners were playing with their food. That’s just what they did. Silly people like James couldn’t help overreacting to them every single week. They wouldn’t actually give up the game-tying TD. Purdy fumbled on first and goal to set the Cyclones up way behind the sticks. See? My smugness knew no bounds.
It wasn’t until 3rd and goal, when Purdy left a perfect pass where only Charlie Kolar could get it, that I realized that actually Iowa State was going to score. And then the blood probably drained from my face when I realized that without a doubt, Matt Campbell was going for 2. There were only 24 seconds left. Holy shit, OU’s season hung in the balance right here. In front of an empty student section, Purdy dropped back. He looked left, he threw left. Veteran OU CB Parnell Motley jumped the route. For a second, everybody seemed to freeze… and then I realized that Motley had the ball, and was starting to celebrate before he even when down or out of bounds. Fortunately, the refs whistled the play dead so that his teammates could go mob him. 42-41, Sooners. They recovered the onside kick and made it official.
Now THAT surely made for a fun recounting when we all went to Fuzzy’s after the game to wait in line 2 hours for margaritas.
