Sooners don't have answers in Bedlam
STILLWATER – Heading into the third quarter, heading into the fourth quarter, it was all still there for Oklahoma. A chance at a Big 12 championship, a potential fight for another berth in the college football playoff.
It was all right there. And then it wasn’t. For whatever reason, and you could probably list several at this point, things just never connected for the 2021 Sooners the way almost everybody expected after the way the 2020 season ended.
Nobody could have seen OU not even playing for a Big 12 championship, but here we are after No. 7 Oklahoma State overcame a nine-point deficit in the third quarter to win 37-33 on Saturday night in Bedlam at Boone Pickens Stadium.
“Gut-wrenching loss tonight. No other way to describe it,” head coach Lincoln Riley said. “Heart's broken for our players. It's a horrible feeling. That's the only way I can describe it. We've had a chance to win this league six years in a row; we're not gonna have a chance to do that this year and that's a gut punch, man. I hate it for our players. They fought their ass off tonight. They really did.”
With a fourth-and-10 from the OSU 24 yard line in the final seconds, no answer for quarterback Caleb Williams, no answer for the offense. A sack by Collin Oliver, and the Sooners for the first time since 2014 will not be Big 12 conference champions.
On paper, this felt like a can’t-miss team. After a dominating ending to the 2020 season, expectations were through the roof for the Sooners. At their best? It’s easy to see why anyone would say that.
However, the Sooners were rarely at their best this season. One-possession victory after another against teams deemed incredibly inferior.
OU had a second life when Riley made a quarterback switch going from Spencer Rattler to Caleb Williams in the second quarter vs. Texas on Oct. 9.
But it was a lot to ask of a true freshman who never even had a senior high school season to just become the guy without any missteps.
And after taking a 33-24 lead with 10:36 left in the third quarter, the Sooners would never score again.
“Probably, off the top of my head, I would say the penalties was probably the number one thing in the second half that hurt us,” Riley said. “We had the penalties and we had the crazy kinda backwards pass that we ended up kicking out of bounds that ended up way back. Those really, against a good defense like that, you've gotta play clean football.
“Those were huge, huge plays in the game and a lot of them came as we had drives going, or several of the penalties negated big plays… You've gotta go play your butt off to play well against them. We did in the first half, but we had too many unforced errors in the second half.”
There just came to be moments each contest where OU would self-destruct. The first half wasn’t really that in a tight game tied 24-24.
And OU even got the first breaks of the second half before the wheels came off. A Williams fumble, a muffed punt giving OSU a first-and-goal, it just kept adding up.
The Sooners were penalized 12 times for 74 yards. And anytime it felt like the offense was about to get out of a hole, the yellow flag flew.
“I'm not about to point fingers, it was just on – man we just didn't execute as well as we did in the first half. Just simple as that,” running back Kennedy Brooks said. “We should have done better. We could have done better, but we should have done better. Other than that, it was just on us. That's all it is, it was just on us.”
Brooks had 139 yards on 22 carries. Williams completed 20 of 39 passes for 252 yards with three touchdowns and the fumble.
Woodi Washington had two interceptions, and Trevon West and Justin Broiles combined for a fumbled punt recovered in the end zone by Broiles.
A lot of good, a lot of it. Just not enough of it, not at a consistent level that was required to go for a seventh straight championship.
Riley was as emphatic as ever when pressed by SoonerScoop.com’s Carey Murdock about LSU rumors, saying he is not going to be the head coach for the Tigers.
With that done, it’s time to examine where the Sooners go from here. A 10-2 overall record is a banner year for some, but that’s not what OU aimed for, not what it expected.
“You've got guys that have been through it, been with us, won championships, won games like this, went on to win championships, and then you've got guys that are in that locker room with us for the first time that haven't been part of this ride and what it feels like,” Riley said. “I think for everybody, what this does is it makes you appreciate it.
“What this program's been able to do here over the last seven years is pretty amazing, and it makes you appreciate how hard winning is, how hard winning championships are, how hard winning against good football teams on the road, how hard that is.”