Oklahoma football 2018 kickoff preview: Games 9 through 12
By Sixto Ortiz
The Sooners cap off the 2018 regular season with a gigantic road matchup against the West Virginia Mountaineers in Morgantown. West Virginia is one of the few teams in the Big 12 that is bringing back a seasoned quarterback, senior Will Grier. In fact, many pre-season Heisman lists have Grier as a potential Heisman candidate. He is that good.
Add in the huge stakes, and a dash of the exuberant and rowdy Milan Puskar Stadium home atmosphere, and this game looms large as a tremendous challenge for the Sooners. If Oklahoma wants to win an unprecedented fourth consecutive Big 12 title, the path to achieving that goal will most likely go through Morgantown.
In fact, many preseason narratives have the Sooners playing the Mountaineers twice, once in the season finale and again in the Big 12 Championship.
As Will Grier goes, so do the Mountaineers. In 2017, Grier was a very productive quarterback in a conference filled with great signal callers: Grier threw for 3,490 yards, 34 touchdowns and 12 interceptions with a 64-percent completion percentage. Barring some unforeseen injury or step back in performance, Grier should be even better in 2018.
In 2017, the Sooners caught a break, because Grier did not play in that game in Norman, which Oklahoma won 59 -31. Chris Chugunov took the reins of the Mountaineer offense in this one and was decidedly unspectacular, passing for 139 yards and no touchdowns. It’s doubtful the Sooners will benefit from that injury bug again, so they will have to face Grier, on the road. The Sooner pass defense will have to play a stellar game to keep the West Virginia star quarterback in check.
In the 2017 contest in Norman, Kennedy McKoy and Martell Pettaway both combined for four scores. The now departed Justin Crawford added another 97 yards on the ground. Overall, the three Mountaineer backs combined for 253 yards. For Oklahoma to succeed in Morgantown, the run defense will have to be better, especially defending the Wildcat formation direct snaps to Kennedy McKoy, a play the Sooner defense had no answer for in Norman.
Offensively for Oklahoma, the Mountaineers had no answer for Rodney Anderson, who gashed the West Virginia defense for 118 yards and four scores. Expect more of the same in Morgantown in 2018, except this time the Oklahoma offense may feature more run plays designed to take advantage of Kyler Murray’s wheels. Murray darted for 66 yards on the very first play of the game between these two teams last season in Norman.
The stakes will be high in this one, and it may just come down to the last possession. By this time in the season, we will know if the Sooner defense has turned the corner and is able to contribute to a win. We predict they will.
Prediction: Oklahoma 35, West Virginia 31