Oklahoma football: Kyler Murray engineers a Sooner statement win

It was a classic Oklahoma football confrontation between the best offense in the Big 12 and the premier defensive team in the conference.

And for the third time in the last 11 months and the fifth consecutive time since Lincoln Riley has been at Oklahoma, the Sooners’ high-powered offense was too much for TCU to handle. And on this particular day, the Oklahoma defense played a huge part in the Sooner victory.

Oklahoma rolled up 536 yards of total offense , including 323 yards on the ground, against a team that had been allowing 312 yards a game, 14th best among FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams. Moreover, the OU defense, which had been playing so poorly it cost former defensive Mike Stoops his job, turned in its best performance of the season, holding TCU to just 275 yards of offense, more than 130 yards below the Horned Frogs’ season average.

It was a complete team performance sustained over a full 60 minutes.

In addition to it being the fewest offensive yards allowed by the Sooner defense this season, it also was the first time in seven games that  OU’s time of possession was greater than the opponents. The Sooners had the ball for 37 minutes to 23 for TCU.

Here are some more fun facts and figures from Oklahoma’s win on Saturday at TCU:

2 — Number of 100-yard Oklahoma rushers in the game (Kennedy Brooks with 168 and Trey Sermon with 110)

6 — Number of consecutive games in which Kyler Murray has thrown three or more touchdown passes.

7:21 — Time it took for the Sooners’ second touchdown drive in the TCU game. The 14-play, 75-yard drive was OU’s longest scoring drive of the season.

18 — Consecutive true road wins won by Oklahoma, the longest such active streak, dating back to 2014.

18 — Number of plays out of 55 total on Saturday in which TCU gained no yards on offense.

19-1 — The Sooners’ record in the Big 12 in their last 20 games immediately following the Texas game.

20 — Oklahoma has scored at least 20 points in the first half in 18 of the last 21 games.

26 – Number of first downs in the game by the Sooners, compared with 12 by TCU.

39 — Number of consecutive wins by Oklahoma following a regular-season loss. The last time OU lost back-to-back games was 19 years ago, in 1999.

52 — OU’s 52 points matched its all-time high against TCU, which came in Oklahoma’s last trip to TCU, in 2016.

72 — Number of offensive plays run by Oklahoma against TCU. That compares with a season-low 40 that the Sooners ran earlier this year in a win over Army.

168 — Career-high rushing yardage by Kennedy Brooks against TCU. He averaged 9.3 yards on 18 carries. He entered the TCU game with a total of 192 rushing yards this season.

Statistical information for this article was extracted, in part, from the Game Notes prepared  after the TCU game by the Oklahoma athletic department.