Oklahoma Football: Six Bowl Losses Sooner Fans Would Like to Forget
By Chip Rouse
2007 Fiesta Bowl – No. 8 Boise State vs. No. 9 Oklahoma
This was the bowl matchup that no team from a major conference wanted: a mid-major team from the Western Athletic Conference with an undefeated 12-0 record going up against one of college football biggest names in the Oklahoma Sooners.
This amounted to a no-win challenge for the Sooners. Everyone expected the big, bad Sooners to exert their will and win the game. So it would be no big deal if OU did win. On the other hand, the vast majority of the population outside of the Sooner State and Big 12 Country were pulling for the ultimate “David vs. Goliath” outcome in this one.
And early on in the game, it appeared that the majority was going to get its wish. Boise State scored the first 14 points as the Broncos took a 14-7 lead after one quarter. Boise State added another seven points in the second quarter and went to the locker room at halftime holding on to a 21-10 advantage.
Things turned from bad to worse for the Sooners in the third quarter, when Boise State intercepted a pass by OU’s Paul Thompson and returned it 27 yards for a touchdown. Upset alert: Boise State 28, Oklahoma 10.
OU got an eight-yard touchdown run by Adrian Peterson late in the third quarter to narrow the Bronco’s advantage to 28-17 entering the final quarter.
That’s when things changed dramatically. The Sooners scored the next 11 points, seven of which came with just 1:26 remaining in the game, to knot the score at 28 and give Oklahoma fans new hope. And it would get even better 20 seconds later, when OU defensive back Marcus Walker picked off a pass by Boise State’s Jared Zabransky and brought it back 33 yards for a go-ahead touchdown to put the Sooners up 35-28 with just over a minute left in the game.
Faced with fourth down and 18 yards to go for a first down and under 30 seconds remaining on the game clock, Boise State pulled off the first of three trick plays that will be shown in college football bowl highlight reels for many years to come.
On what could have been the final play of the game, Zabransky connected with an open Drisan James on a 15-yard completion, still three yards short of the first-down marker, but James lateraled the ball to a trailing Jerard Rabb who caught the OU defenders off guard and took it the final 35 yards for a game-tying score, sending the game into overtime.
And that wasn’t the end of the Boise State trickery.
The Sooners scored on their first overtime possession, as Adrian Peterson took a handoff and took it 25 yards for a touchdown on the Sooners very first play of the extra session.
Down to a another fourth down play and goal-to-go from the five-yard line, the Broncos executed a wide-receiver pass to an open tight end in the back of the end zone, making it 42-41 OU with the extra point coming to force a second overtime.
Instead of going for the tie by kicking the extra point, however, Broncos’ head coach Chris Peterson rolled the dice once more and called for an old-fashioned Statue of Liberty play.
Zabransky took the snap and held the ball behind his back while faking a forward pass. Running back Ian Johnson broke behind Zabransky and, with the hidden ball in hand, ran it inside the left end-zone pylon for the successful two-point conversion.
Game over!
David triumphs over Goliath, and mighty Oklahoma goes down to defeat in the upset heard around the college football world.