His 25-yard misfire yesterday, which clanked off the right upright, is the shortest miss by a Sooner since Michael Hunnicutt infamously yanked a go-ahead 19-yarder wide left against Kansas State in 2014. Ever since the day he laid his foot into a particularly sizable staple of Mexican cuisine as part of an NIL promotion, he is 0-for-3 on field goal attempts. A burrito has singlehandedly undone Gabe Brkic. He’s got to figure it out fast if Oklahoma is going to retain the Big 12 crown. The kid looked like a cyborg throughout the month of October, but he’s looked like a freshman thus far in November. And absent his 74-yard touchdown run on the Sooners’ second play from scrimmage, Williams rushed for -7 yards on 11 carries. Caleb Williams struggled mightily, completing just 8 of his 18 throws. If there is one team that is specifically designed to win defensive duels that come down to field position and ball control, it’s Oklahoma State. They’re not going to win next week if Lincoln Riley’s pass attack lays an egg like that. YES, GARY IN ATOKA, I AM AWARE THEY STILL WON.
You’d have to go back to the Samaje Perine Game in 2014 - the one that saw Cody Thomas complete 3 of 13 passes in a steady downpour - to find the most recent instance of such aerial ignominy for Oklahoma. In the year 2021 Anno Domini, the Sooners threw for 96 yards in a football game and won.
Oklahoma had 96 total passing yards in this football game. Without further ado, let’s get to what you came here for. If they lose this Saturday, they’ll need Texas Tech to upset Baylor, otherwise it’s the Bears - not the Sooners - that will face off with Oklahoma State at AT&T Stadium. The equation is quite simple: if Oklahoma wins this Saturday, they’ll have to win a grudge match with the Pokes one week later in Arlington. Mike Gundy’s team is 10-1 behind the nation’s stingiest defense, and they’ve already clinched a berth in the Big 12 championship for the first time in program history. This year, however, the generally mediocre Oklahoma State Cowboys are anything but. All that stands in their way is a program that has historically been little more than a doormat for OU. Yet the Sooners continue to forge ahead toward a seventh straight Big 12 crown. In sum, then, I suppose the constant is this: most every week this year, I’ve opened this column by typing something to the effect of, “Well, it wasn’t pretty, but they won.” Not even stalwart kicker Gabe Brkic, once the very measure of consistency, has been especially steady as of late. Caleb Williams appeared to be the Sooners’ savior, but even young Superman has encountered tough sledding over the past couple of weeks. The run game has been outstanding at times and an afterthought at others. Yet the performance from Alex Grinch’s defense has been up and down. Really, the only common denominator over the first 11 games of the Sooners’ season is winning - for the 19th time in 22 years, they’ve now put a double-digit number in the win column. What is the constant for this Oklahoma football team in 2021? In a way, that particular combination of facts provides the perfect encapsulation of the Sooners’ season: it just doesn’t make much sense at all. Nothing about the box score or the stat lines would indicate that Oklahoma came out on top over the Iowa State Cyclones, but they did. Reader, it does not, and yet the Sooners won a football game on Saturday despite it all. Oklahoma converted 1 of 10 third downs.ĭoes any of that sound like a winning recipe?
The opponent possessed the ball for over 38 minutes. Caleb Williams played perhaps the worst statistical game of his life.