DeMarco Murray tightly tucked the ball under his arm as he trotted off the field. He had just secured a position atop an impressive list of Sooner running backs — setting the new school record for most touchdowns by an Oklahoma player.
Murray had scored his 58th career touchdown, coming during the Sooners’ 52-0 rout of Iowa State on Saturday night on Owen Field.
“I kept that one, “Murray said. “Coach (Bob) Stoops will let me keep that one.”
Murray ran for 112 yards and two touchdowns and scored on a 15-yard screen pass to surpass 1969 Heisman Trophy winner Steve Owens’ record of 57 touchdowns in his career.
Ryan Broyles broke his own mark for receptions in a game, finishing with 182 yards on 15 catches and one touchdown.
Landry Jones threw for 334 yards and three touchdowns while completing the highest percentage of any Oklahoma quarterback with at least 25 attempts.
“It was a special night for all of us. I was really proud of DeMarco and Ryan,” said Jones, who completed his first 13 passes and 30 of 34 passes (88.2 percent) overall.
“DeMarco’s one was really special, just thinking about all of the great running backs that we’ve had here at Oklahoma. He’s an outstanding player, and our team wouldn’t be the same without him.”
The Sooners amassed 672 yards of total offense and never got much of a challenge in a series they’ve dominated, winning 68 of the 75 games played between the teams. Oklahoma won its 12th straight in the series, moved to 12-0 under Stoops in the game following Texas and extended the nation’s longest home winning streak to 34.
Iowa State absorbed its second straight blowout against a top 10 team that was off the week before, after a 68-27 loss to then-No. 10 Utah last week.
“They are dang good at what they do,” coach Paul Rhoads said. “It’s as much what they are doing has how they are doing it. They run a very fast tempo, which we knew. They snap the ball in rhythm and had us off balance with a good selection of run and pass.”
About the only drama in the second half was whether Murray and Broyles would get their records—which both did in the third quarter—and whether defensive captain Travis Lewis would get the shutout he wanted.
The Sooners allowed most of their early opponents to keep it close, winning four of the first five games by eight points or less. So Lewis said on Monday that his message to the defense was to get the first shutout for a unit that recorded three a season ago.
Grant Mahoney was wide left on a 45-yard field goal and well short on a 50-yard try in the first half, and the Cyclones never got past the Oklahoma 49-yard line after halftime. Backup Jerome Tiller replaced starting quarterback Austen Arnaud on the second drive of the third quarter, but had even less success against the Sooners’ defense.
“We needed to come out there with a strong performance,” Lewis said. “We finally got healthy, you give us two weeks to prepare for a team and we’re playing at home. That’s three combinations that you don’t want to put together with this team.”
Murray passed Owens’ mark with a 10-yard TD run in the third quarter, breaking the tackle Leonard Robinson’s tackle on his way into the right side of the end zone. He ranks as perhaps the most versatile back in Sooners history, with 46 rushing TDs, 10 receiving and two on kickoff returns in 42 games.
All of Owens’ scores in his 32 games came on runs, as did each of 1978 Heisman Trophy winner Billy Sims’ 53 career TDs.
Broyles had two catches on the drive that led to Murray’s record-setting touchdown to move past his previous career best—and the school record—of 13 against Stanford in last year’s Sun Bowl.
“This is the second part of the season, and we felt like we needed to do this after the bye week,” Broyles said. “We prepared to clean things up, and I feel like we’re making the right strides to be an even better team than we thought we could be at this point.”
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