The good, the bad, the big-picture takeaways from Sooners' rout of WVU

NORMAN — Just like last week at Oklahoma State, the OU defense couldn't have started any worse on Saturday.

West Virginia got the ball first and immediately drove down the field. The eight-play, 75-yard drive was capped off by a 13-yard touchdown from CJ Donaldson, and the Sooners found themselves trailing by a touchdown just four minutes into the game.

But unlike last week, the Sooners quickly bounced back. The offense, which looked as good as it has all season, scored 31 unanswered points before halftime and the defense settled in.

The Sooners rode that momentum to a 59-20 rout over West Virginia, securing a must-win game at Owen Field.

Here's a look at the good, the bad and the big-picture takeaways from an impressive win:

(Editor's note: There was a lot of good).

Gavin Sawchuk runs all over the Mountaineers: OU fans have been waiting on Sawchuk to breakout for weeks.

It took a little longer than expected, but it's finally happened over the last couple of weeks.

The redshirt freshman made his fourth-consecutive start against WVU and immediately had an impact. He had a 30-yard run on the Sooners' first possession that setup a Dillon Gabriel touchdown, then had a 24-yard run later in the quarter. Sawchuk surpassed his career high for rushing yards early in the third quarter.

He finished with 135 yards on 22 carries, marking his second-straight game of 110 yards or more.

Notably, Tawee Walker saw just one carry in the first half and no other running back saw a carry. It appears Sawchuk has officially overtaken the starting job.

The Sooners as a team ran for 217 yards on 5.9 yards per carry, their most efficient performance on the ground this season.

Gabriel plays a nearly-flawless game: The Gabriel we saw in the UCF, Kansas and OSU game just didn't look quite as good as he did against Texas.

But against the Mountaineers, Gabriel put one of his best games as a Sooner. He attacked downfield early and often. He averaged 18.4 yards per completion, his best in conference play. He completed 11 passes of 15 yards or more.

But he also did damage as a runner with 11 carries for 50 yards and three touchdowns.

All told, Gabriel had 473 total yards and eight total touchdowns. Oh, and he passed his childhood hero Colt Brennan to become 10th in NCAA career passing yards. Oh, and he set a new school record for touchdowns in a single game.

Impressive showing for the redshirt senior.

OU defense settles in: That opening possession was rough for the Sooners' defense. After that, they found a rhythm.

The Sooners allowed just 13 yards and zero first downs on the next five WVU possessions. On the sixth one, the Sooners had another goal-line stop after shutting out the Mountaineers from inside the one-yard on three straight plays.

A big reason why was the Sooners' third-down defense. WVU converted on just x of xx attempts and struggled to sustain drives.

While the Mountaineers did eventually capitalize on two scoring drives, the Sooners largely kept them inefficient.

Drake Stoops keeps raising the bar: Last week, the sixth-year senior set single-game career highs in receptions (12) and yards (124). But he decided that wasn't good enough.

Stoops set another career high in receiving yards against the Mountaineers with 164, adding 10 receptions and three touchdowns. He nearly had more receptions than the rest of the receiving corps combined.

Stoops now leads the team in receptions (62), yards (692) and touchdowns (9).

Sooners crack down on turnovers and penalties: The Sooners' back-to-back losses could largely be boiled down to their turnovers (6 total) and penalties (19 total). But they did a much better job against the Mountaineers.

The Sooners committed zero turnovers and were whistled for five penalties, though two were assessed to McKade Mettauer following an extra-point attempt.

Danny Stutsman returns: The Sooners clearly missed their defensive leader last week against OSU. But he returned on Saturday, finishing with a team-high eight tackles and two tackles for loss.

Kip Lewis also continued his ascension, finishing with seven tackles and a TFL.

Special teams issues continue: The good news is Zach Schmit made his only field-goal attempt (a 23-yarder). The bad news is that Gavin Freeman muffed two punts. One of them came in the first quarter, with OU leading 17-7, and it was recovered by the Mountaineers at the OU 33-yard line.

Fortunately for the Sooners the defense forced a field goal, which the Mountaineers missed. But it very nearly cost the Sooners their early momentum.

No officiating love for Kani Walker: West Virginia's touchdown late in the first half was set up by a pass-interference penalty on Walker in the end zone.

Upon further review, however, there didn't seem to be much contact on Walker's part.

It was a tough break for Walker.

Where was this team the last three weeks?: "Simply put, both sides of the ball looked much better than they did against UCF, Kansas and Oklahoma State.

The offense especially.

Jeff Lebby, who's been the biggest target for criticism the last two weeks, almost seemed to make a statement with his play calling. The Sooners totaled 646 yards of offense — the most in a game this season — while averaging 8.5 yards per play.

The Mountaineers aren't necessarily a stingy defense, but they've been decent at stopping both the pass and the run. And the Sooners completely surpassed their offensive performances from any game this season. The defense did its part, too.

When the Sooners play like they did on Saturday, they're hard to beat.

Big 12 title hopes remain alive: Entering Saturday, the simplest path to the Big 12 title game included a Kansas loss and a Texas loss.

And, of course, they needed to win out.

In addition to getting a win, the Sooners also got some help with the Jayhawks' 16-13 loss against Texas Tech. The Sooners still need a bit of help, but they took a couple major steps to getting back into the discussion.