Oklahoma Sooners Out-Bully the Self-Proclaimed Bullies of Auburn
By Chip Rouse
The Big 12-champion Oklahoma Sooners made it two Sugar Bowl wins in a row over Auburn, matching the Tigers’ physicality and literally running away with a 35-19 victory Monday night in the New Year’s Six Sugar Bowl.
Oklahoma fell behind early, giving up a touchdown drive on Auburn’s opening possession. From that point until the very last play of the game, in which Auburn scored their second TD of the game, the Sooners outscored the Tigers 35 to 6 to give head coach Bob Stoops his second Sugar Bowl win in four seasons.
In the weeks and days leading up to this year’s Sugar Bowl, the media coverage was filled with analyses claiming that the big, strong and highly physical Auburn defensive line would be too much for the Big 12 champions and their vaunted rushing tandem of Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon.
The Sooner players also read and heard about plenty of media material claiming that the big Tiger running backs, particularly Kamryn Pettway, would be able to run through and over the suspect Oklahoma defense.
That advance game hype provided added motivation for a Sooner team that was already primed and ready to take on the SEC’s No. 2 team this season.
Oklahoma outgained the run-dominant Tigers 228 to 175, and Sooner quarterback Baker Mayfield completed 19 of 28 passes for 228 yards as the OU offense produced a total of 524 offensive yards in the game, 185 more than Auburn.
Pettaway posted 101 of Auburns 175 rushing yards, and the 240-pound, bruising running back did prove to be a load for the Sooners defenders to corral and wrestle to the ground.
Auburn lost its starting quarterback, Sean White, to a broken arm suffered late in the first half, and that had a major impact on the Tigers’ inability to move the ball with any authority or consistency over the final 30 minutes of the game.
Mixon had an outstanding game for Oklahoma. The sophomore running back delivered 91 yards on the ground and two touchdowns and caught five passes for another 99 yards through the air.
Perine had 86 rushing yards, three more than he needed to become the career rushing leader at Oklahoma with 4,122 yards in three seasons, passing the great Billy Sims.
Mayfield, who threw for over 200 yards with no interceptions and scrambled out of multiple near takedowns well behind the line of scrimmage – only to find an open receiver downfield, including a 13-yard touchdown pass to Mark Andrews for the Sooners’ first score of the night – was named the Most Outstanding Player in the game.
In the coming days both Perine and Mixon will be making decisions on their future, deciding whether to leave early and declare for the NFL or return to Oklahoma for another year, but they have been huge cogs in the Sooners’ prolific offensive machine that scored 30 or more points in all 11 of OU’s wins in the 2016 season.
The Sugar Bowl win gives Oklahoma an 11-2 record for the season, and the Sooners are likely to move up from their No. 7 ranking in the final college football rankings. It also marks the 12th time in Bob Stoops 18 seasons at Oklahoma that his teams have won 11 or more games.