Oklahoma's Big 12 Run Ends as Oklahoma State Finishes Strong
STILLWATER — Oklahoma’s reign is over.
The Sooners’ run of six straight Big 12 Conference championships came crashing to the ground like so many trophies on Saturday night at Boone Pickens Stadium, a 37-33 loss to Oklahoma State engineered by a Cowboy defense that, in the second half, refused to yield.
OSU (11-1) is headed to its first Big 12 Championship Game next week, and Baylor is the Cowboys’ opponent. If OU (10-2) had been able to beat the Cowboys for the seventh year in a row, they’d have met again next week in Arlington, TX.
Instead, OSU gets a shot at just its second Big 12 crown — and maybe more. If the No. 7-ranked Cowboys handle the Bears again, they’ll have a good chance to seize a spot in the four-team College Football Playoff.
"It's a horrible feeling," OU coach Lincoln Riley said. "I mean, that's the only way I can describe it.
"We had a chance to win this league six years in a row, we're not gonna have a chance to do that this year, and that's a gut-punch, man. I hate it for our players. They fought their ass off tonight."
OU led by nine early in the third quarter, but the game turned on Sooner mistakes that delivered a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns and put the Cowboys in control.
OU ran eight offensive possessions in the second half that produced zero points and resulted in five punts, a fumble and two failed fourth downs. OU's only second-half scores were a touchdown and a safety after two special teams miscues.
After tackling Williams on fourth down short of a first, the Cowboy offense went nowhere and quickly punted the football back to the Sooners.
OU quarterback Caleb Williams almost had one more bit of magic at the end, scooping up a low snap and scrambling 56 yards to give the Sooners one last shot. But three throws into the end zone fell incomplete, and Williams was sacked on fourth down, setting off a mob scene at Boone Pickens Stadium that has been a decade in the making.
Williams finished 20-of-39 passing for 252 yards with three touchdown throws. He also ran 19 times for 36 yards. Kennedy Brooks led the Sooners with 139 yards on 22 carries, but he only got the football a handful of times after OU took its nine-point lead.
Riley said negative plays and penalties all but took the ball out of Brooks' hands in the final 20-plus minutes.
"Could I have given him the ball a few more times? Sure," Riley said. "But I think the bigger issue was the penalties and all that that moved us backwards and puts you in, obviously, a lot tougher spot."
After a back-and-forth first half that finished 24-all — Caleb Williams’ throw to Brayden Willis in the end zone in the closing seconds knotted it up — Oklahoma got a little separation early in the third quarter.
After a productive drive and Michael Turk put the Cowboys deep in their own territory, Perrion Winfrey forced a fumble by Dominic Richardson that bounced backward into the end zone. Two Sooners couldn’t pounce on it, but the result was safety that put OU up 26-24.
The Sooners’ next drive went nowhere again, and Turk punted deep into OSU territory. This time, Brennan Pressley muffed the return, and Justin Broiles recovered in the end zone for an Oklahoma touchdown that made it 33-24.
OSU cut it to 33-31 on Spencer Sanders’ 37-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter, then took a 37-31 lead with 8:54 left when Eric Gray returned the favor by muffing a punt at the OU 5-yard line. Demarco Jones recovered and Jaylen Warren rammed in a short touchdown run to put the Cowboys in front.
Oklahoma’s offense had unexpected success against one of college football’s stingiest defenses in the first half from both Williams (204 yards passing) and Kennedy Brooks (56 yards rushing).
But OU’s special teams also gave up a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown to Brennan Pressley in the second quarter that answered what had seemed like a critical Sooner touchdown.
Brooks became just the fourth player in school history to rush for 1,000 yards three times in his career, and Williams garnered the respect of his opponents.
"That kid's a beast, man," said OSU defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
In the end, it was an opportunity lost for the Sooners, and a second consecutive regular season with two conference losses. That hasn't happened since 2013-14 — the year before Riley arrived as Bob Stoops' offensive coordinator.
"I'll leave this game, obviously, disappointed that we didn't win and we don't have a chance to play for a seventh championship in a row," Riley said. "But I leave this game proud as heck of may team for this fight, the way we fought. We had a lot of great things in this game.
"You look all across college football, it's not easy. It's so hard, especially against good teams. That's what this league came down to."
