On a night where it looked like an Ali-Frazier brawl, the Sooners matched Baylor punch for punch. And in the end it was that Sooners’ defensive aggressiveness and some Baker Mayfield juking and jiving that knocked the Baylor Bears from the unbeaten ranks.
Oklahoma defeated Baylor 44-34 in Waco.
The Sooners defense shut down Baylor on four consecutive possessions — an unheard of feat this year in the Big 12 against the No. 1 scoring offense in the country.
Even when the Bears offense clicked — with easy drives for TDs to open the game and the second half, the Sooners offense answered, then provided the final answer with a fourth-quarter drive that capped the win over No. 4 Baylor.
After Baylor began the third quarter with a game-tying drive, Baker Mayfield hit Sterling Shepard from 7 yards out — Shepard’s second TD catch of the game — to retake the lead 27-20.
OU stretched the lead to 14 with a to-the-house 55-yard scoring run by Samaje Perine. But the Bears came back to narrow the margin to a one-score game on a 5-yard pass from quarterback Jarrett Stidham to LaQuan McGowan. And it was game on.
But a Baylor interception set up a 33-yard Austin Seibert field goal that gave the Sooners a 37-27 lead. Then Baylor came back within 37-34 on a 17-yard pass from Stidham to Jay Lee.
And then the Sooners struck back. OU went 78 yards in 10 plays, the final seven coming on a Mayfield pass to Dimitri Flowers after Mayfield performed one of his now-patented scrambles to keep the play alive.
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