Time to settle a score with BYU
Will the real Oklahoma Sooners please stand up?
After 2 road games in which Oklahoma played like it was, well…. last year, the Sooners ran a decent West Virginia team off the field Saturday night to the tune of 59-20.
Everything clicked against the Mountaineers in a contest that Brent Venables called probably their most complete game of the season. They truly played complimentary football.
After the defense let West Virginia roll down the field to score a touchdown on their opening drive while
averaging over nine yards a play, they shut the door. The rest of the game the Mountaineers struggled
gaining four yards a play and making only four third-down conversions.
Meanwhile the offense had little or no problems scoring at will on all but two of their 12 possessions. It was the Dillion and Drake show as Gabriel had a hand in all 8 touchdowns, running in three and throwing five touchdown passes.
And Drake had a career high 164 yards and three touchdown receptions of his own.
It seems that the Sooner’s biggest problem this year has been consistency. They finally found it on both sides of the ball.
Those that wanted Jeff Lebby’s head on a stick the past two weeks, and I must admit I was one of them, have to give him some credit for Saturday’s play calling. Over 600 yards of offense with 221 rushing and 423 passing was a welcome relief after the past 3 weeks.
And to top the night off, with osu’s embarrassing loss against UCF along with Kansas falling at home against Texas Tech, Oklahoma is right back in the middle of the hunt for a Big 12 Championship game birth.
That hunt will take them to Provo this week for the Sooner’s first and only Big 12 clash with Brigham Young University Saturday morning.
Oklahoma doesn’t have a good track record against BYU. Meeting only two times in their history, the Sooners are winless against the Cougars. The first contest in 1994 came in the Copper Bowl under lame duck head coach Gary Gibbs who had resigned rather than be fired to make way for maybe the worst decision by an Oklahoma administration, the hiring of Howard Schnellenberger. BYU won going away 31-6.
The most recent match-up was in 2009 as the very first college football game to be held in the new Dallas
Cowboys stadium unofficially known as “Jerry World.”
Sam Bradford had decided to forego the NFL draft for one more shot at a National Title only to get injured just before halftime.
Bradford made a come back in the texas game that year but was hit again in the same shoulder and that would be it for his college career.
With Bradford gone for the second half, the offense went stagnant, and BYU pulled out a 14-13 win.
OU hopes past doesn’t repeat
I was at that game with a bunch of friends. We had set up our tailgate in the parking lot. Jerry World has separate spots for tailgating you can pay extra for.
My good buddy Chris had maybe the best comment after the upset loss when he said, “Well, at least we didn’t spend a whole bunch of money coming done here for the weekend…”
BYU has struggled its first year in the Big 12 having only gone 2-5 in conference and 5-5 overall. They have the last ranked offense in the conference and the third to last defense.
But it’s on the road and if there is anything to the old saying that history tends to repeat itself…
Look, on paper this is an easy win for the Sooners. They are 25-point favorites.
But of course, we all know you don’t play the game on paper. OU’s last two games are must wins if they hope to stay in the hunt for a spot in the Big 12 Championship game. So that’s why the Worry Meter is at 75% this week.
If the Sooners can exorcise some old demons against the Mormons, they will be one step closer to going
back to Jerry World this year.
With all that being said….BOOMER!!!
— Dave
WORRY METER: 75 PERCENT
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