Oklahoma walked into the belly of the beast and came out with its best victory of the season.
Oklahoma vs. West Virginia final score: Three things we learned from the Sooners’ 45-33 victory
True freshman tailback Samaje Perine took over the game in the second half, powering the Sooners to a big road victory.
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The Sooners overcame a 24-17 deficit and pulled away in the second half for a 45-33 victory. True freshman Samaje Perine was the man of the match with a scintillating performance, logging 34 rushes for 242 yards and four scores in the win.
Oklahoma needed some tomfoolery to stay in the game in the first half, including this completely bonkerpants WR reverse pass to QB Trevor Knight:
OU also added a 100-yard kickoff return by Alex Ross in the waning minutes of the first half to push the game back to 24-24, and that's a vastly different vibe at the half than if West Virginia gets into the locker room up seven.
But for all the novelty of Oklahoma’s first-half scores, it was a commitment to brute force that helped the Sooners break away after the half. Perine scored both of Oklahoma’s touchdowns in the third quarter, but those were just exclamation points on some seriously bruising drives for which West Virginia simply had no answer on defense.
The final damage was self-explanatory: Oklahoma gained 227 yards in the second half, and 165 of those came on the ground. Head coach Bob Stoops even broke out the old “Belldozer” package with former QB/current TE Blake Bell back under center for another go at smashmouth football. It was one snap, but it worked: OU gained a crucial first down on 3rd and 2. The message was clear: “we’re going to mash, and you’re not going to stop us.” Lo and behold, West Virginia could not and did not.
Three things we learned
1. Oklahoma keeps rolling along. This wasn’t the Sooners’ first test from a Power 5 team, as Tennessee challenged OU last week, but 1) that was in Norman and 2) Tennessee is no West Virginia. As the list of serious CFB Playoff contenders dwindles (too-de-loo, LSU, and FSU didn’t impress in its victory), Oklahoma is racking up the types of victories that a Top 4, conference champion-type program gets.
2. You still shouldn’t want to play in Morgantown. The final margin on this game was 18 points, but West Virginia gave Oklahoma all it could handle for most of the game, and that was a level of performance that would beat 80-90% of the teams in college football. Alas, it was Oklahoma that showed up and brought its own A-game, so it was just chalked up as another L.
But make no mistake: Morgantown is a loud, raucous, easily excitable place to play, and now that the Mountaineers have seen Oklahoma and Alabama and found out “hey, we can play with these guys,” they’re going to have zero fear for the rest of the WVU schedule.
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3. Bob Stoops is Mister 100, and he's earned it. With the victory, Bob Stoops moves to 100 Big 12 victories in regular season conference play: 100-24, or just a hair over 80%. By way of comparison, the legendary Mack Brown was only ("only") 98-33 in the Big 12. That's not even 75%. KSU's legendary Bill Snyder? 81-43. Get it together, Bill!
Anyway, the point is this: Bob Stoops is, at this point, unequivocally the best coach in Big 12 history. Now he’s got a nice, round number to show for it—and the distance he’s going to keep putting between Brown and himself in the win column over the course of this year won’t hurt, either.
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