Sooners Stun Tennessee with 31-24 Double-Overtime Road Victory

Big Game Bob Stoops has his mojo back, and the 19th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners stun Tennessee with a hard-to-believe, come-from-behind 31-24 double-overtime win over the 23rd-ranked Volunteers.

For over 45 minutes on Saturday evening, Tennessee looked like the superior team, boosted by playing at home before 105,000 screaming, highly partisan fans and with the Oklahoma offense sputtering and consistently shooting itself in the foot.

But with Tennessee holding a seemingly comfortable 17-3 lead at the beginning of the final quarter, the Oklahoma offense finally came alive and and finally got possession of the ball outside of the shadow of its own end zone, where the Volunteers had pinned the Sooners for most of the game.

Sep 12, 2015; Knoxville, TN, USA; General view during the first quarter at Neyland Stadium during the game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the University of Tennessee. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

Quarterback Baker Mayfield, who was running for his life for the first three quarters, engineered two Sooner scoring drives in the final 10 minutes of the game, the second one coming with 40 seconds remaining in regulation when Sterling Shepard snared a touchdown throw from Mayfield before falling out of the end zone, to fight back from 14 points down and totally turn around the game.

Tennessee wasted little time taking control of the game. An interception of a Mayfield pass on OU’s opening possession set up the Volunteers on a short field and led to a field goal in the first five minutes of the game. The Volunteers scored a touchdown late in the opening quarter on a 9-yard scoring pass from Tennessee quarterback Joshua Dobbs to Josh Malone, and followed that with another short-field drive early in the second quarter that ended with a 4-yard run by Dobbs. Just like that, Oklahoma found itself in a 17-point hole in the opening 18 minutes of the game.

The Sooner defense, which had been on its heels for most of the first half as Tennessee operated in Oklahoma territory for a good part of the first as a result of highly favorable field position, came out in the second half with fire in its eyes. After gaining 161 yards of offense in the first half, the Tennessee offense was held out of the end zone and managed only 65 total yards in the third and fourth quarters, and 45 of that came on the opening drive of the second half.

Mayfield was 8 out of 25 in passing for 84 yards over the first three quarters of the game, but over the final 15 minutes of regulation and in overtime he was 9 of 14 for 105 yards and three touchdowns.

Sep 12, 2015; Knoxville, TN, USA; Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) takes the snap during the second half against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Oklahoma won in double overtime 31-24. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

Samaje Perine was bottled up by the Volunteers defense for much of the game, but he ground out some critical rushing yards in the Sooners two fourth-quarter touchdown drives and ended up with 78 yards on the ground for the game. Perine also was on the receiving end of the first OU touchdown in the final period, catching a 2-yard scoring toss from Mayfield to bring the Sooners within seven points with just over 8 minutes to go in the game.

The Sooners ended up with a sizeable total-yards advantage, netting 348 yards of total offense to 254 for Tennessee. A week ago in a blowout win over Bowling Green, the Volunteers rang up 604 yards of offense and 399 yards rushing. The Volunteers’ so-called triple-headed monster of Jalen Hurd, Alvin Kamara and QB Dobbs accounted for just 129 yards against the tough Sooners rush defense, and 106 of that came from Hurd.

Oklahoma repeatedly put itself in third-and-long, down-and-distance dilemmas for a good part of the game with costly penalties. The Sooners were flagged nine times for 67 yards. Third-down efficiency was also a problem until late in the game. OU was only successful on about 33 percent of its third-down possessions until the fourth quarter when the Sooners converted on 7 of 11 third downs in its late scoring drives.

The two Oklahoma touchdown drives in the fourth quarter covered 80 yards in 14 plays and 60 yards in 13 plays, respectively.

It was a huge win for the Sooners, who wanted desperately to demonstrate to their fans, over 10,000 of whom made the trip to Knoxville for the game, that they have turned the corner and rebounded from last year’s disappointing 8-5 season and the humiliating blowout to Clemson in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

What a comeback and what a big win for the Sooners, one for the ages.