Fast and furious, all cruising no crashing for OU in L.A.
PASADENA, Calif. – Another year at Oklahoma where it is becoming pick your poison as to how to stop the Sooners offense.
Crowd the box, OU can beat you deep with its talented set of skill guys. Decide to cover the pass game, the rushing lanes bust open, too.
And there are nights when it all comes together as was the case for OU’s dominating 48-14 victory against UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday evening.
It started from the jump with quarterback Jalen Hurts going for 52 yards out and rushing for 99 yards on four carries and a touchdown. By the time the first quarter had reached its conclusion, it was OU 17-0 on the scoreboard and 258-89 in total yards.
“We’ve played good team football early in games,” head coach Lincoln Riley said. “We’ve got stops defensively. We’ve done what we need to do on special teams. We’ve been able to move the ball offensively. We are playing good team football and it’s showed up. We were able to sustain it a little bit longer tonight – still not anywhere where we need to be. But there were steps. It’s baby steps.”
That’s been the mantra for the Sooners throughout their 3-0 start. Happy with the wins and the record, but everybody believing there is still a lot more to accomplish on each side of the ball.
Playing in its first road game of the season, you could hardly tell by the crimson-clad OU fans invading the Rose Bowl. But it was a different environment, and it felt like a different mindset and reaction with the entire team.
They were locked in. They were engaged, and it showed early and often.
“You feel this team start to feed off each other,” Riley said. “That’s such a difficult thing to kind of simulate as you go through spring, camp, because you are always going against each other. All of the sudden, you start playing on the same team a little bit.
“There was a feel and flow of the game and just building off of each other’s momentum. You could really feel that on the sideline tonight, I thought more than the first two games. I’m proud of that.”
It started with Hurts, who put up eye-popping number for the third game in a row. He completed 15 of 20 passes for 289 yards with three touchdowns and rushed for 150 yards and another score.
OU’s balance was on full display once again, accumulating 611 total yards of offense, while forcing two turnovers and earning four sacks.
It’s not perfect, but it’s picking up steam. And even when things look as though they could go sideways, there’s someone like Hurts who always keeps his cool and seems to know what to do.
“Just playing football, man,” Hurts said. “Everything isn’t going to be like you draw it up. It’s not going to be that way all the time. But how do you manage the situation, how do you respond to that adversity handed to you? I think we did a good job of that tonight as far as responding in a good way.”
And just like that, one-fourth of OU’s season is in the books with the non-conference slate now a thing of the past.
It’s hard to gauge where OU stands, and it’s sort of pointless to try to compare this team to 2017 with Baker Mayfield or 2018 with Kyler Murray. All this team can do is show out and handle its business.
So far, that hasn’t been a problem in 2019 even if they can be among their harshest critics.
“I think what drives me is I’m never going to be satisfied, ever,” Hurts said. “What drives me is knowing that it can be better. Good ain’t good enough if it can be better. And better ain’t good enough if it can be best. So we’re gonna continue to try and climb that mountain, we’re gonna continue to try and take steps every day. “