As good as the Oklahoma football team has been on offense this season, it was a defensive play that saved the day for the Sooners and preserved a 37-27 victory over an Iowa State team that refused to quit.
For a while in the second half, you had to wonder if were going to see deja vu all over again for an OU team that has dominated Iowa State over the years.
The fifth-ranked Sooners got three touchdown passes from quarterback Kyler Murray in the opening half to take a 24-10 advantage into the locker room at the break. OU marched 74 yards in 10 plays to score a touchdown just before the half, eating up all but five seconds of the final 4:24 of the second quarter and taking momentum into the halftime intermission as well as a 14-point lead..
A seven-yard touchdown pass from Murray to senior wide receiver Myles Tease capped the Sooner scoring in the first half.
Murray was brilliant for a third straight game, completing 21 of 29 passes on the day for a career-high 348 yards and the three touchdown tosses, and added another 77 yards on the ground with his legs. The redshirt junior Sooner quarterback connected with wide receivers Marquise Brown for 75 yards and OU’s first touchdown, CeeDee Lamb for five yards in the second quarter and Tease right before halftime.
For the second consecutive game, Murray led the Sooners in rushing. The OU quarterback is Oklahoma’s leading rusher through three games with 169 yards. Brown hauled in a game-high nine catches for 191 yards, the second time in three games the lightning-fast wide receiver has gone over 100 receiving yards this season.
Sophomore Trey Sermon, taking over as the lead running back for the injured Rodney Anderson, added another Oklahoma touchdown with a 22-yard run in the third quarter as the Sooners widened their lead to 31-17.
Iowa State sophomore quarterback Zeb Noland, starting his first collegiate game in place of injured Kyle Kempt, who led the Cyclones to a major upset victory over the Sooners a year ago in Norman, did an outstanding job of keeping his team in this game.
Noland completed 25 of 36 pass attempts for 360 yards and two touchdowns. But it was his one critical mistake, a pass intercepted by cornerback Parnell Motley at the Oklahoma 40-yard line on a third-and-four play with under a minute to go in the game, that ended any hope for a second straight Cyclone upset over the Sooners.
It was poetic justice for Motley, who the Cyclones targeted all day with long throws to much taller Iowa State receiver and had been beaten deep on several plays in the game. In one game-saving play, the Sooner junior went from potential goat to hero, as Oklahoma put away the resilient Cyclones for OU’s 17 consecutive true road win and its 26th win in the last 27 games against a Big 12 opponent.
Iowa State pulled within seven points, at 34-27, early in the fourth quarter, but would get no closer.
The win was the Sooners seventh without a loss at Iowa State in the Big 12 era and 25th in a row overall. Oklahoma’s last loss at Iowa State dates all the way back to 1960.
Oklahoma heads home with a perfect 3-0 record to begin the season and a nonconference home date next weekend against Army.