For the second straight week, the explosive Oklahoma football offensive machine rolled up more than 300 yards both rushing and passing in a no-contest, runaway 70-14 victory on Saturday over heavily undermanned South Dakota.
By all reason or logic, this game — if you could really call it that — should never have been played. But because of an unexpected scheduling alteration, South Dakota University was willing to fill the void, take the hit — and even more so, the payment offering — to travel 600 miles south to Norman, Oklahoma, where no team this century has a better home record than the Oklahoma Sooners.
Needless to say, the numbers in this dominant OU win are a stark reflection of the vast difference in talent and program level between these two schools. Rolling up 70 points and over 700 yards of offense against an opponent that was formerly classified as NCAA Division II-A (now the Football Championship Subdivision) is going to gain the Sooners any favors with the College Football Playoff selection committee, but that’s just the way the pointy ball rolls when you have a mismatch of this magnitude.
Sports columnist Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman last week humorously referred to a Division I-Division II matchup as college football’s version of the NFL exhibition season. To that point, you definitely needed a scorecard to keep up with all the personnel changes in the game.
Most of the Sooner starters got a short night and early rest, seeing just a half of action. But the benefit of that was being able to get a lot of players who would not ordinarily see much playing time valuable, live game action.
And there were some stellar numbers put up by some of those second and third-teamers.
Here are a dozen of the more notable numbers from Saturday’s Sooners win over South Dakota:
3 — The Sooner defense recorded its first three takeaways of the season (an interception and fumble recovery by Brendan Radley-Hiles and another interception by Jaden Davis). The last time OU was credited with three takeaways in a game was two seasons ago, and it has been three years since the defense ended a game with a plus-three turnover margin.
7 — Oklahoma was seven for 10 in third-down conversions against South Dakota and scored a touchdown in all seven trips inside the red zone.
9 — Possessions by South Dakota before the Coyotes scored their first points against the Sooner defense.
10.62 — Average yards per play by the OU offense in the win over South Dakota. It is the second straight week the Sooners have averaged over 10 yards per play.
11 — Eleven different receivers caught passes from three different OU quarterbacks on Saturday, and 10 Sooner players scored touchdowns.
20 — Oklahoma has scored at least 20 points in the first half in 26 of its last 30 games. The Sooners led 28-0 over South Dakota at intermission.
70 — The points scored against South Dakota are the most by the Sooners since a 79-10 win over North Texas in 2007.
83 — Jalen Hurts’ completion percentage through six quarters in two games (34 for 41, including six touchdowns).
125 — It’s the 125th season of Oklahoma football, and Saturday’s night’s game with South Dakota was the 125th consecutive sellout at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
144 — Junior wide receiver CeeDee Lamb caught six passes for 144 yards and the Sooners’ first touchdown on Saturday. He averaged 24 yards per catch.
333 – Rushing yards for the Sooners on Saturday, led by junior Rhamondre Stevenson with 104 on six carries. This is the 17th time in the 62 games and four-plus seasons that Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma that the Sooners have gone over the 300-yard mark in rushing.
605 — Total yards of offense by the Sooners against South Dakota after three quarters. This is the second straight game, the OU offense has gone over 600 yards before the fourth quarter.