Oklahoma football: Notable numbers from Sooners’ narrow escape
By Chip Rouse
It wasn’t pretty and it clearly wasn’t pleasant, but the Oklahoma football Sooners somehow managed to escape a major upset, holding on for a 28-21 overtime victory over the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy.
Despite the way-too-close-for-comfort victory over an Army team that was seeking its first win over a ranked team in 46 years or a top-10 team in 55 years, the Sooners remained in the No, 5 spot in the Coaches Poll, but it cost them in the Associated Press media poll, where they fell one spot to No. 6.
Time was not on Oklahoma’s side on Saturday, as Army pounded the Sooners on the ground with 78 triple-option running plays that netted 339 yards and ate up almost 45 minutes on the clock. What that means is the Sooners possessed the ball for only a little over 15 minutes in the game (the equivalent of one quarter of action) and ran just 40 total plays (38 in regulation and two in overtime), less than half of the number executed by the visiting Black Knights.
The Oklahoma offense watched from the sidelines for most of the game, but when it was called into action, it was highly productive, which is the only reason the Sooners were able to come out on top in the game, notwithstanding two game-saving pass interceptions by the overworked and weary OU defense.
The Sooners gained 8.9 yards per play, while Army averaged 4.3 yards on every running play and managed to stay out of third-and-long situations for most of the game.
At the end of the evening, though, the only number that really counts is the one on the scoreboard, and that advantage went to Oklahoma.
Here are a dozen more numbers that factored into the outcome of this game and OU’s 2018 season thus far:
2:26 — Total time of possession for Oklahoma in the fourth quarter against Army.
3 — Total number of punts in the game (two by Army and one by OU).
5-3 — Oklahoma’s record all-time in overtime games.
11 — Kyler Murray’s three touchdown passes in the win over Army ran his total to 11 on the season.
13 — Army converted 13 of 21 third-down opportunities (62 percent success fate). Oklahoma had three third-down opportunities the entire game and converted just once.
28 — Tackles in the game by sophomore linebacker Kenneth Murray, an OU school record and the most by any player in the Football Bowl Subdivision since at least 2000, according to the Oklahoma athletic department. The previous school record was 24 tackles by Carl McAdams in 1965.
28 — The Sooners scored 28 points in the game, only the second time they have scored fewer than 30 points in the last 28 games.
40 — Oklahoma’s 40 total plays versus Army was the third fewest in recorded program history, or since 1937, when the NCAA began keeping stats, and the fewest since 1960.
47 — The differential in plays run in the game by Army and the number of plays by Oklahoma. That difference in favor of a Sooner opponent is the second largest in OU history in a win.
119 — OU’s Trey Sermon led all rushers in the game with 119 yards on 18 carries, an average of 6.6 yards per carry. It was his second career game with over 100 rushing yards.
339 — Rushing yards by Army in the game. Four different Black Knight running backs gained at least 38 yards on the ground.
87,177 — Attendance at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium for the Army game, the fourth largest in stadium history. It also was the 119th consecutive home sellout.
Statistical information for this article provided by the University of Oklahoma athletic department.