The Orange Bowl has been like a second home to OU football over the years.
The 2000 season notwithstanding, trips to South Florida in recent seasons have not been all that rewarding for the Sooners.
Oklahoma has made 49 postseason bowl appearances in its long program history, and 19 of those have been in the Orange Bowl, the most of any team in the country that has played in at least 40 bowl games. The Sooners have been to the Orange Bowl four times in Bob Stoops’ 17 seasons.
All four OU Orange Bowl appearances under Stoops, including the College Football Playoff loss to Clemson on Thursday, have been part of a national championship scenario. The Sooners are 1-3 in those games, the one win, a 13-2 victory over Florida State in 2001, delivering a national championship.
The numbers have not gone Oklahoma’s way in their last three Orange Bowl trips, all three of which had national title implications. Here are five numbers that tell the story of how the Sooners came up short against top-ranked Clemson, bringing to a close an otherwise stellar 2015 OU football season:
0 – For the first time all season, Oklahoma was shut out in the second half. Clemson outscored the Sooners 21-0 in erasing a 17-16 OU lead at halftime. The Sooners had outscored their opponents by an average score of 20.7 to 8.7 in the second half this season. The last time Oklahoma failed to score in the second half was in a 48-14 loss at home to Baylor in 2014.
15 – With the Sooners on a first-quarter scoring drive and with a second-down-and-seven from the Clemson 27-yard line, Oklahoma fullback Dimitri Flowers was flagged for an unsportsmanlike penalty, which backed the Sooners up 15 yards and placed the ball at the Clemson 42. Instead of second-and-seven, it was second-and 22. Back-to-back runs of three and two yards combined by Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon on the next two downs left Oklahoma well short of a first down and also out of field goal range. Instead of potentially going up by 14-3, the score remained 7-3 in favor of OU. Clemson scored on the exchange of possession and took the lead at 10-7. Flowers’ untimely penalty stopped a Sooner scoring drive and effectively resulted in a 14-point swing in the score.
25 – Yards receiving by Sterling Shepard in the second half on four catches. He caught three balls in the opening half for 62 yards.
29:31 – Possession time for Clemson from the second quarter through the end of the game, almost twice as much time as the 15:29 Oklahoma possessed the ball in the final three quarters.
245 – Rushing yards by which Clemson outgained Oklahoma on the ground. Only one other time this season did the Sooners have such a rushing deficit against their opponent. Texas outrushed Oklahoma by 246 yards (313 to 67) in the only other game the Sooners lost in the 2015 season.