MANHATTAN, Kan. – This was the one that wasn’t supposed to surprise people. Oklahoma knew what to expect coming to Kansas State to face the Wildcats.

A new coach in Chris Klieman, but the same Bill Snyder tough as nails mentality. Where things were different, however, was supposed to be with the Sooners. Especially defensively.

Where OU has fallen in the past, this was supposed to be the group that didn’t. After seven games, first-year defensive coordinator Alex Grinch had earned that right as the unit was no longer a weak spot.

Until Saturday. The same warts of years past were on full display again as KSU upset the No. 5 Sooners 48-41 on Saturday afternoon and has OU back to the drawing board.

OU (7-1 overall, 4-1 Big 12) was down 48-23 entering the fourth quarter before running out of time to try to pull off a miraculous comeback.

“Obviously, we lost our composure,” Grinch said. “I’ve got to look at myself in that way. How can I be better to put them in, whether it’s a call or how we’re handling them on the sideline — do you charge them up? Do you tell them to relax and stick with it? — what they need to hear in those moments. But yeah, the lack of poise. In the end, not making plays.”

Grinch has preached it for months and months about how crucial it is to get takeaways. His philosophy has been two per game equals nine wins. OU was 7-0 despite that as the Sooners entered the game with just six turnovers.

That number after Manhattan? Remains unchanged. OU, for the second time in three games, had two costly turnovers of their own. The Sooners did not force a takeaway in the month of October and only have one in five conference games.

“Once again, lack of takeaways reared its head,” Grinch said. “We talk about takeaways equal victory and it hasn’t applied yet, but it certainly applied today. We knew we were going to come down this road at some point. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to learn a real hard lesson that way. We gotta do a better job as coaches, obviously starting with me.”

Takeaways weren’t the lone blind spot. OU has been so consistent in tackling and swarming to the ball. That was not evident against the Wildcats.

The Sooners had become almost a locked down third down defense, but KSU was able to go 6 of 13 on third down and converted its only fourth down attempt.

OU suffered two blows in the secondary. One of its own doing when senior Parnell Motley was ejected in the first half for kicking a player. The second saw starting safety Delarrin Turner-Yell leave the game early in the third quarter and never return.

KSU netted 426 yards of offense and did exactly what it wanted to do in holding the ball for more than 16 minutes than OU (38:08-21:52).

“I mean, it's .... if push come to shove, the weight of the world on my shoulders, I want the weight of the world on my shoulders,” linebacker Kenneth Murray said. “So as a leader of this defense, we're going to get it fixed. There ain't going to be no going down the stretch and back-to-back bad games and stuff that we've seen in the past.

“No, this is different. We've had one bad Saturday, that's life. Move on. We're going to get this thing fixed.”

The loss ends OU’s 22 true road game winning streak.

“Winning on the road’s hard,” head coach Lincoln Riley said. “We’ve said it during, however long this road-game streak is. It’s always hard, and you’ve got to play good. You’ve got to be mentally tough and give Kansas State a ton of credit. They beat us.

OU controlled its own college football playoff destiny, but now it’s up in the air. At 7-1 and after the performance it just had, though, that’s the last thing on their mind.

The Sooners have done it before, obviously, bouncing back from losses in 2017 and 2018 to be one of the four teams. It’s just an obstacle nobody considered OU would have to face after how it had performed in the first seven games.