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Notebook: Brkic with the walk-off

To call Oklahoma kicker Gabe Brkic unique is quite an understatement. Anybody who has talked to him in his three seasons with the Sooners knows he’s definitely his own person.

However, it’s that same attitude that also had nobody scared when he lined up to kick a potential game-winning field goal in the final seconds. From 30 yards out, boom, no problem as Brkic’s foot was the difference in OU’s 16-13 win vs. visiting West Virginia on Saturday evening.

There have been some game-winning OU field goals made with just seconds remaining, but Brkic’s third field goal of the night is the first ever in school history to go through the uprights with zero time remaining.

“It’s awesome, man,” head coach Lincoln Riley said. “We’ve really spent a lot of time in the offseason, for our guys, challenging them to be finishers, knowing that you're going to have to win these different ways. Means a lot.

“Just finding a way there at the end it's something that — honestly, especially at a place like Oklahoma, sometimes it's tougher to do that at home. It's just the expectations and if you let that get to you as a player, it can almost make it, at times, more difficult at home, and again I give our team a lot of credit. We fought through it, crowd was great at the end, fun night in there and yeah, there’s no better feeling than finding a way when it's all on the line.”

OU took over at its own 8 yard line with 3:39 left in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Spencer Rattler was 6-of-6 passing for 54 yards as OU went 80 yards on 14 plays. The Sooners forced West Virginia to use all three of its timeouts, but there was nothing the Mountaineers could do when OU called timeout with :02 left and Brkic’s chance at history.

“Well, they just leave me alone,” said Brkic about his preparation. “Brey Walker will give me a ‘yessir.’ He’ll turn around and say that. Everybody leaves me alone. I just do my job. Lock in mentally, and that’s it.”

Brkic made field goals from 28, 35 and 30 yards. This one we’ll be remembered for a long time.

“I was on the sideline. The only thing that was going through my head was ‘Let’s go into the locker room and turn up’ because I’ve got complete faith in Gabe Brkic,” defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey said. “He’s the best kicker in the country, and it was on like the 10-yard line. There’s no way Gabe is missing that, so I was just ready to get back inside and turn up with my boys.”

Defense stands tall

You can’t just take away West Virginia’s touchdown drive to start the game. But it’s incredibly hard to fault what Alex Grinch’s group did for OU the rest of the way.

That drive went 75 yards on 17 plays. The rest of the night? WVU had 151 yards on 46 plays, and of course, never found the end zone again.

“It was our recipe for winning tonight, I mean it just was,” Riley said. “The way the game unfolded defensively we bowed up and held a good offense down, some good players. Especially proud of what we did in the run game against a talented group. They do some really good things. Neal and those guys are so good schematically that it puts in a lot of tough positions and we just kept responding.”

Digging deeper into the numbers, and OU allowed just 47 yards rushing, giving up 1.6 yards per carry when everybody knew WVU was gonna try to get Leddie Brown going.

“We challenged each other to hold them under 100 rushing yards and one touchdown,” defensive lineman Isaiah Thomas said. “Because you know, we figured — I mean we felt that the first touchdown was a fluke and that we could prove that throughout the rest of the game, and obviously we did and it was fun to be out there.”

Winning ugly still counts

Nobody wants to hear it, but OU is still 4-0. It doesn’t matter the Sooners have won three of their four games by one possession.

There are a lot of teams that aren’t 4-0 at this stage. Worry about semantics later.

“At the end of the day, we’re Oklahoma,” linebacker Nik Bonitto said. “We’re taking everybody’s best shot. No game is – we’re gonna walk in and whoop everybody by 30. No one is going to do that. This is everybody’s Super Bowl when we play them. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot. We have to do our best job to respond. At the end of the day, we have to get the dub, and that’s what we did tonight.”

The Sooners have only scored three touchdowns in the last two games and haven’t beaten an FBS opponent by more than seven points this season.

But, yep, 4-0.

“Proud of our resilience,” Riley said. “I told the guys in the locker room, you look ... and I think most of you guys were obviously covering our team at this time last year, and the difference. To me, the biggest difference is, we found some ways here when we haven't been at our best to win some close games.”

Rushing woes

Whatever we thought was answered with the offensive line the last two games was completely erased by what didn’t happen vs. the Mountaineers.

A combined 17 attempts for Eric Gray and Kennedy Brooks for 55 yards and no touchdowns. They didn’t get any more opportunities because they were facing some tough down and distances to where they couldn’t run the ball.

“It just comes down to execution. Sometimes we could bust a run, but one guy isn’t doing his job,” offensive lineman Tyrese Robinson said. “It just basically comes down to execution and dominating your blocks up front.”

OU rushed 28 times for 57 yards, two yards per carry. Two yards and somehow got the job done. Andrew Raym got his first start at center, while Wanya Morris replaced Anton Harrison at left tackle in the second half. No closer to knowing the five linemen than we were when the season began.

Turner-Yell injury dampens night

If there was one defender who was having a banner night, it was safety Delarrin Turner-Yell. He had eight tackles and a tackle for loss. He had OU’s only takeaway with an interception.

But then the injury bug bit. Turner-Yell was hurt in the second half when it appeared his leg was stepped on making a tackle.

He didn’t return to the game, putting Keyshawn Lawrence in a prime spot with the game on the line.

“Well, I think it affects us a little bit,” defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said. “You know Keyshawn came in and you know some of the formations when (Number) six came in a quarterback you had the little option element and you've added some variables. A young guy in the program as opposed to guy that has been in the … and run those calls so … and kind of handle those sort of things. Key will be better for it.

“Specific to that, I thought overall, Keyshawn held up very well. But to your point, there’s a couple instances where you say, ‘geez, certainly have a lot of confidence in DT’s ability to handle the variables that way. Hopefully, we get him back sooner rather than later.”

There was no immediate update on Turner-Yell’s status following the game.


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