Oklahoma football: Numbers that mattered from a 12th Big 12 championship
By Chip Rouse
The Big 12 Championship is the domain of Oklahoma football, winners of nine of the 17 conference championship games.
The Sooners’ 39-27 victory over Texas on Saturday was their 12th Big 12 championship overall, nine more than the next closest challenger (Texas with three). It was also OU’s record-setting fourth consecutive Big 12 crown.
OU quarterback Kyler Murray was named the Most Valuable Player in the Big 12 Championship, throwing for 379 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for 39 yards in beating the team responsible for the Sooners only loss of the season.
The Oklahoma defense played its best fourth quarter of the season in a game in which it counted the most. Nursing a narrow three- to five-point lead for most of the fourth quarter, the Sooners held Texas scoreless over the final 15 minutes , forcing a punt, posting a game-changing safety of quarterback Sam Ehlinger and picking off an Ehlinger pass in the Longhorns’ three fourth-quarter possessions.
Oklahoma Sooners Football
It took a while for Murray and the explosive OU offense to get their high-powered engine in full throttle, but when it did, Texas was hard-pressed to slow it down. The Sooners produced over 500 yards of offense for the ninth consecutive game and ended the game with higher numbers in every major statistical category but one. The Longhorns committed 13 penalties totaling 128 yards, while OU was flagged five times for 60 yards.
Here are some more numbers that mattered in Oklahoma’s Red River revenge:
2 — Saturday’s win in the 2018 Big 12 Championship gives Oklahoma four consecutive Big 12 titles in football. The only other time the Sooners have accomplished that feat was from 1984-87, when Barry Switzer’s OU teams won four in a row in the former Big Eight Conference.
24 — Before Saturday, Oklahoma had scored at least one touchdown in 24 consecutive games. Texas limited OU to a field goal in the first quarter of the Big 12 Championship.
30 — Oklahoma has scored at least 30 points in 35 of its last 37 games. They have won 34 of those games.
66 – Total yards of offense by Texas in the fourth quarter on Saturday, 61 of which came in the final two minutes.
177 — Receiving yards by Texas wide receiver Collin Johnson, a Big 12 Championship record and the most ever by the Longhorns against OU.
602.3 — Average yards of offense by the Sooners In 10 games this season against Big 12 opponents. OU averaged 520 offensive yards in its two games with the Longhorns this season.
1,000 – Two Sooner receivers (Marquise Brown and CeeDee Lamb) exceeded 1,000 receiving yards this season, and Kennedy Brooks, who began the season as the No. 4 running back on the OU depth chart, went over 1,000 yards rushing with 28 yards in the Big 12 Championship.
2013 — The last time an Oklahoma player had recorded a sack for a safety before Saturday.
4,945 — Total yards of offense by OU’s Kyler Murray this season, breaking Baker Mayfield’s record (4,938).
83,114 — Attendance at Saturday’s Big 12 Championship game. That is the highest ever recorded at a college football conference championship game. The previous record was in 1992 at the SEC championship game (83,091).
Statistical information that appears in this article was extracted, in part, from the postgame notes provided by the OU athletic department.