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Oklahoma football: West Virginia game is Big 12 Championship semifinal

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - OCTOBER 3: The West Virginia Mountaineer leads the team onto the field before the game against the Oklahoma Sooners October 3, 2015 at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated West Virginia 44-24.(Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - OCTOBER 3: The West Virginia Mountaineer leads the team onto the field before the game against the Oklahoma Sooners October 3, 2015 at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated West Virginia 44-24.(Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /
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The final weekend of the regular season is upon us, and for Oklahoma football it represents far more than just another game.

The Friday night clash between Oklahoma and West Virginia is literally for all the marbles — or half of them, anyway. The winner of the game will punch its ticket to the Big 12 Championship game a week from this Saturday in Arlington, Texas. The loser will be sent home as an also-ran and forced to wait until Dec. 2 and Selection Sunday to find out where it will go bowling over the holiday season and against whom?

Think of Friday’s Big 12 showdown between the sixth-ranked Sooners and the 12th-ranked Mountaineers as the Big 12 Championship semifinal. The other semifinal game, given that analogy, pairs No. 11 Texas against Kansas, also to be played on Friday.

If Texas wins its game. the Longhorns will advance to the Big 12 Championship, If the Horns were to lose, however, Oklahoma and West Virginia would play again, on Dec. 1, for the Big 12 title, regardless of the outcome of the game in Morgantown on Friday.

Although they would need some help, the Sooners must win on Friday and again in the Big 12 title game to keep their chances alive for a return trip to the College Football Playoff. That’s a very tall order, but not an unrealistic one and something that Oklahoma at least has some control over.

In addition to the obvious prize that is up for grabs in Friday’s marquee Big 12 matchup, Oklahoma’s 19-game win streak in true road games, the longest active streak in the country among FBS teams, is on the line, as is the Sooners six-game win streak over the Mountaineers.

West Virginia has never beaten Oklahoma since the Mountaineers became members of the Big 12 in 2012. The Sooners are 8-2 all-time against West Virginia and 3-0 in Morgantown.

Past history has no bearing on Friday’s game, though, other than as a interesting backdrop and perhaps added fuel to fire up the home team Mountaineers.

By 10:30 or so Friday night (CT), we will know which two teams will play for the 2018 Big 12 crown and whether the light still flickers on Oklahoma’s College Football Playoff hopes. Win No. 11 by the Sooners will assure the former, with work still to be done on the latter.

dark. Next. Sooners still searching for leaders on defense

That would be something all Sooner fans would be especially thankful for this Thanksgiving week.

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