Oklahoma-West Virginia QuoteBook: The Best of What They Said

With another road loss, Oklahoma will need to rally to earn a bowl bid.

Oklahoma's season continued its downward spiral with a 23-20 loss to West Virginia on the road. 

Not only have the Sooners not experienced the anticipated amount of success in Brent Venables' first season in Norman, the team is going to have to rally to make a bowl game. After Saturday's defeat in Morgantown, Oklahoma is sitting at 5-5 overall, the program's worst start since 1998.

It was another unacceptable loss filled with mistakes and penalties all over the field. The Sooners don't have time to figure it out with Oklahoma State heading to Norman next weekend.

Here are the best quotes from Saturday's postgame media session:

Not getting into a great rhythm, you know? Again, we had some opportunities. From an execution standpoint in the first half, I think if we just make some layups, don't airball, you really feel like we have a tremendous game control going into halftime. But we didn't. But we did just all the little things you can't do wrong. Whether it's a false start or it's offensive pass interference  or a couple of different drops. And we come out to start the second half and we miss a throw just a quick screen and just don't start things off right the second half as well. So just out of sorts. Not able to convert on the third downs and really fourth downs.”

— Head coach Brent Venables

Again, they're young guys and they're hurting right now. They're really, really hurting. At some point and time, we've got to be pissed as well and do something about it. All of us. It ain't okay. We've got a bunch of reasons where we can justify failure. But we've got to get better. We've got to coach them better, and we've got to play better. We've to play smarter. We've got to be more efficient. I thought West Virginia did a great job today, but I thought Oklahoma beat Oklahoma today.

— Venables

That’s probably what I hate the most is that Eric played the way he played again and he’s not getting to enjoy it. For the second week in a row it’s a short story for other reasons — situational football today.

— Offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby

I hate it for our players. I feel for our guys. They competed and they fought hard today and again we came up short. It’s disappointing for our guys, our fans, for everybody. We needed to make one more play or one better call or one more whatever. We came up a little short.

— Defensive coordinator Ted Roof

 “You know, for me it’s more so for the younger guys just to experience this, just trying to instill in them that this is not normal. This is not forever. The tale of a man is when he’s down. What character do you have when you’re down? What are you going to do when you’re down? Trying to instill in the young guys to keep going, don’t give up. There’s two games left in this regular season, don’t give up. Keep fighting. Keep straining each and every week and it will get better.”

— running back Eric Gray

Honestly, I will go to myself first. I dropped a touchdown pass. Easy points on the board that we missed out on. Other than that, the running game’s looking great. Pass game, sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not. Not really much else to say.

— Wide receiver Marvin Mims

I mean, at some point you gotta get tired of losing. You can’t keep coming out here and keep doing the same things. We’ve only have one choice. Go back to work. We only got two games left for sure. So go back to work and we just gotta find a way to make sure we’re on the other side of what we were today.

— Safety Billy Bowman

“You look at what happened today and we’ve still got Bedlam next week. Everyone in the state of Oklahoma knows how big Bedlam is. Everybody in that locker room knows how big Bedlam is. So you definitely have to get up for Bedlam, everybody’s going to get up for Bedlam, and I think it’ll be a great positive to recharge again this week.”

— Gray

1-11 on third downs, 0-2 on fourth downs. That’s without a doubt the most frustrating part of it. Situationally, with Dillon at quarterback, up to this point, we had been really good and for whatever reason we found ways to not be good today and that’s going to fall back on me but we did not do a good job situationally and that’s ended up what cost us.

— Lebby

We have two games left. For the guys that’s been here on this team. Last year, we were 9-0 at one point. The year before that, we won the Big 12 championship. I was part of those teams. I’m part of this team. So I know what kind of team we can be. We just have to play up to our potential. And we haven’t. We’re sitting at 5-5 right now. Not a good feeling. Just the team wise, player wise, coaching wise, we have a lot of potential. We just haven’t played to it.

— Mims

“Hate it for our guys. Lot of fight from them today. We weren’t very good at the wrong times. Really disappointed for our guys. Seniors. The mistakes that we made today are things that — again — this game will punish you. It comes down to the little things. False starts. Holding. Taking sacks at the wrong time. Dropping balls. Getting offensive pass interference. Lined up offsides a couple of times. We had the kick-catch interference. Gave them a long return and then we kick it out of bounds another time.

— Venables

Whether that's coaches or the other leaders on the team, you've got to be practical, you've got to be honest and you've got to have accountability. We've been talking about finishing the right way for a long time. We'll continue to emphasize those things. The journey is tough. It's challenging. Through disappointment, there's an opportunity to grow and get better. That's what we'll try to do these last two games.

— Venables