10 Thoughts: TCU

It was a roller coaster of a game for Oklahoma, but ultimately they can step off the ride smiling due to their 52-46 road victory over TCU in their conference opener.

Bob Stoops avoided losing back-to-back regular season games for the first time since 1999 and the Big 12 Championship carrot remains on the stick for a team that still showed plenty of its flaws, but also flashed why many believed the Sooners were picked to win the Big 12 for a second-straight year.

Here are my 10 takeaways from the OU escape in Fort Worth.

Tackling has to be getting worse across football. It’s an indisputable fact at this point, right? There’s probably no one smoking gun to blame either. Modern rules that favor offenses, the evolution of bigger, faster skill position players, less contact in practice because of concussion awareness, etc. all are likely contributors.

There’s been a lot of talk on the board, and rightly so, about the Oklahoma defense’s inability to get pressure on quarterbacks and Obo Okoronkwo did that with two exclamation points on TCU’s final drive forcing an intentional grounding and a sack. Throughout the game he displayed a combination of inside and outside pass rush moves that the Sooner defense hasn’t seen in awhile. If Obo starts to put it all together, he could be the disruptive force in the front seven that OU has been searching for.

For weeks, our own Josh McCuistion has been reporting that the top teams involved with the No. 1 player in the country, Marvin Wilson, are Oklahoma, Texas, and Florida State.

After Wilson was in attendance for the Sooners loss to Ohio State, many had written OU off.

But the Seminoles and Longhorns both losing for a second-consecutive week and Charlie Strong sitting on the hot seat created a perfect complement to a top-25 road victory for Oklahoma.

They're also probably not that upset about Jalen Reagor taking a visit to TCU now.

Dede Westbrook's yards per catch coming into today’s game was 9.1.

Against TCU, the senior’s seven receptions for 158 yards and two touchdowns was good for a 22.6 average, as he finally looked like someone who could be a reliable downfield target and No. 1 receiver for Baker Mayfield.

It’s probably only because I’ve seen Varsity Blues so many times, but this is how I imagined Austin Kendall finding Baker Mayfield in the locker room at halftime after Mayfield just had his leg rolled up underneath him on a sack right at the end of the second quarter.

Two defensive timeouts in the first half. Another early in the third quarter and then again before a two-point conversion that the Sooners ended up allowing anyway. I give up my crusade to try and convince college coaches how important timeouts are – especially in the second half.

I’ve always said the greatest performance enhancing drug in sports is confidence and that may be truer for Baker Mayfield than any other play in college football. Once the junior quarterback was able to get things rolling you saw what confident Mayfield can do.

After starting the game just 1-of-4, Mayfield went 22-of-26 for 267 yards and two touchdowns. Credit Lincoln Riley for getting the running game going, hitting some easy throws on the outside to Westbrook, and setting up the flea-flicker to all get his quarterback back on track.

A shoutout to my fellow Norman North alum Nick Basquine who had two separate tough catches on third and long to extend a scoring drive that ultimately proved to be the decider at 49-24.

One of the narratives coming into this game was that Oklahoma was looking for a spark to ignite a team that was in desperate need of one. When Paul Whitmill was ejected for the helmet-to-helmet shot he took on Joe Mixon with 13:21 remaining in the first half may have been that spark.

The Sooners followed up the ejection with a 53-yard touchdown drive to tie the game and eventually seized a 49-24 lead.

Sure, the second cornerback position is still a nightmare and Lincoln Riley wondering away from Mixon and Perine happening at the same time TCU made their comeback was no coincidence.

But Oklahoma is all of the sudden the likely favorite in the Big 12 again and who would have thought that down 21-7 in the first quarter with seven players out due to injury?

How close was Rome to burning when TCU pulled within 49-46 with over five minutes to go in the fourth quarter?

It's not quite 4-0, but sometimes in life you have to take "It could've been worse."