Oklahoma football led the nation in scoring offense this season, averaging nearly 50 points a game, but the Sooners also gave up a boatload of points to their opponents, which meant for some very close encounters and chilling finishes.
Half of the Sooners’ 12 wins this season, were by 10 points or less and four by five points or fewer. That’s too many close calls for comfort, but also serves as a testament of how this Oklahoma team refuses to lose and knows how to win.
The Sooners’ 12-1 season and revenge win over Texas for the Big 12 championship earned them a spot in the College Football Playoff, where they will face their biggest challenge of the season against top-ranked Alabama, the country’s second highest-scoring team (47.9 points a game).
In two seasons under head coach Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma has won 24 games against just three losses, won consecutive Big 12 championships (part of a four-year streak), appeared in back-to-back College Football Playoffs (and three of the last four) and produced two Heisman Trophy winners. It’s abundantly clear that the Sooners made a terrific choice in selecting Riley to replace Bob Stoops, the winningest coach in the illustrious history of Oklahoma football.
As good a season as it was for Oklahoma football in 2018, especially on the offensive end, behind perhaps the best offensive unit ever to play at OU, it wasn’t easy. The Sooners had to fight and claw and earn every victory.
Here are Oklahoma’s five best wins of 2018 (not counting the possibility of one or two more in college footballs upcoming Final Four), a season that will go down as one of the best in Sooner history, but also with its share of trial and tribulation: