Another week, another thriller, another defensive hero.

That’s the theme for the Oklahoma Sooners right now. It might not always be pretty, but the Sooners are making the play when it matters most and did it again in a 28-24 victory against visiting TCU on Saturday night in the final home game of the season.

This time around it was defensive back Brendan Radley-Hiles’ turn in the spotlight. On what was an incredibly emotional day for the sophomore from California, he helped preserve the victory with a diving interception with 1:41 left in the game.

“My coach put me in a great position,” Radley-Hiles said. “The D-line got there fast enough to make the ball come out early. I trusted in my technique that we prepare and go over a lot, and I was blessed to be in the position to make the play.”

Radley-Hiles on Saturday night. Nik Bonitto the week before at Baylor. Parnell Motley started the trend with the two-point interception against Iowa State.

The defense, yes, the defense has played hero in recent OU victories. But few will compare to the gamut of emotions running through Radley-Hiles.

Usually flocked by a strong support system, Radley-Hiles was on his own Saturday night with the rest of his family back in California. Radley-Hiles’ cousin, Anthony Radley, recently died and the funeral was Saturday.

When Radley-Hiles made the play, he fell to his knees, and the celebration was on.

“Honestly, right when I caught it, I hit the floor,” Radley-Hiles said. “All I could think about was my cousin. That play right there was him playing through me, in a sense.

“Right when that happened, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I still am right now.”

There’s absolutely nothing in the numbers to suggest this should have been such a tight one. OU had 511 yards of offense compared to 204 for TCU. The Sooners rushed for 366 yards and had the ball for 39:31 of the game.

The great equalizer, as always, are turnovers. And OU didn’t just have three turnovers, but all three came when the Sooners were driving. The final one resulted in a 98-yard interception return for touchdown that made the 28-24 score with 12:43 left in the game.

TCU had two drives to take the lead. The first? A dominant three-and-out of three plays for zero yards. The second? Yep, that’s where Radley-Hiles was able to lead a defensive-wide celebration.

“Very proud. That's the word,” defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said. “When you're called upon — there's times we call upon the offense to save our tail — we talked about complementary football the past few weeks. It goes both ways.

“Obviously, made a major emphasis of that over the course of 11 weeks now. I'd like to think it's kind of starting to take hold. You're never there. It's not a magic bullet. But making sure from an individual standpoint that every guy on the defense regardless of what the offense is doing, we've got to go get a stop.

“I think they're buying into that, then you have the video evidence that says we're capable of getting those things done.”

Head coach Lincoln Riley has said win and everything takes care of itself. The Sooners did to improve to 10-1 and set up a rematch with Baylor for the Big 12 championship in two weeks. Of course, Bedlam at Oklahoma State is next week, first.

No. 8 Penn State went down. No. 6 Oregon was upset. The Sooners needed some help in the college football playoff rankings and received that Saturday.

Simply put, everything is still within their reach.

“We get to play in the Big 12 championship game in a couple of weeks, which is significant,” Riley said. “It’s a big, big deal. Winning 10 games and getting to play in your conference championship is huge. Right now, all of our focus is going to go to Bedlam and Oklahoma State and going into Stillwater with a lot of goals intact. It’s exciting. I still know our best ball is out there and our team feels like that, too. We’re gaining on it. We’re going to work our tails off and try to put it all together.”