Oklahoma football: Ranking Sooners 5 best games of 2018, so far
By Chip Rouse
#1 Dec. 1, Oklahoma 39, Texas 27 in Arlington, Texas
The Sooners had dual motivation coming into the Big 12 Championship game against hated Red River rival Texas. Oklahoma knew that a win, coupled with a loss by Georgia in the SEC title game against top-ranked Alabama would likely earn the Sooners the fourth spot in the College Football Playoff.
Things didn’t start off too positively for the Sooners or their fans. Texas marched 75 yards on the opening possession of the game to go ahead 7-0. The Longhorn defense held OU to a pair of Austin Seibert field goals on the Sooners first two drives. Another 75-yard touchdown drive by quarterback Sam Ehlinger and the Longhorn offense put Texas up 14-6 early in the second quarter.
After Texas had extended its lead to eight points, Oklahoma scored 14 unanswered points on a pair of touchdowns, the last of which came with just 18 ticks remaining in the first half. That gave the Sooners their first lead in the game, 20-14.
The Sooners received the ball to start the second half and drove 75 yards in eight plays to go up by 13 points, at 27-14. The Longhorns answered with back-to-back scoring drives, but their extra-point try after the second touchdown was blocked by the Sooners’ Amani Bledsoe, preventing them from taking the lead and leaving the score deadlocked at 27 entering the final quarter of play.
Two minutes into the fourth quarter, an Oklahoma drive stalled at the Texas 14-yard line, and the Sooners had to settle for a 31-yard field goal by Seibert for a 30-27 lead. The Sooners were on the move again with nine minutes remaining in the game. CeeDee Lamb picked up 54 yards on a pass from Kyler Murray, but was hit hard trying to stretch the play and coughed up the ball, recovered by Texas at the Longhorn eight-yard line.
The Oklahoma defense bailed out Lamb and the Sooners on the very next play. Acting defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill dialed up a corner blitz, and Tre Brown came charging untouched off the edge and sacked Ehlinger in the end zone for a safety.
The Sooners received the ball after the safety and proceeded to march 65 yards in 11 plays for a touchdown, but more importantly took over six and a half minutes off the clock. Sophomore tight end Grant Calcaterra made a one-handed catch in the end zone on a third-and-10 play from the Texas 18-yard line to put the Sooners up by 12 with 1:47 remaining.
With 51 seconds to go and Texas with the ball and second-and-10 at the OU 19-yard line, a pass from Ehlinger was intercepted by Parnell Motley at the one, ending the Longhorns’ last hopes.
Oklahoma won its fourth consecutive Big 12 championship and 12th in the Big 12 era, avenged lone loss of the season to Texas and, as things worked out, punched the Sooners’ return trip to the College Football Playoff.
Murray’s 379-yard, three-touchdown passing performance most likely also earned him the Heisman Trophy, the second Oklahoma quarterback to win the award in as many years and the fourth in the last 15 seasons.
Texas in Dec.
West Virginia
Texas Tech
Iowa State
Baylor