Oklahoma football: Takeaways from a Cotton Bowl triumph

Oklahoma football looked like the better team through most of their 34-27 win over Texas in a game that was much further apart on the stat sheet than it was the scoreboard.

Despite out-gaining the Longhorns 467-310, Oklahoma Football needed a strong fourth-quarter effort and a late Jalen Hurts touchdown to finally put their pesky rivals away and claim bring the Golden Hat trophy home after it spent a year abroad in Austin.

Here are some takeaways from the Sooners 34-27 win over the Longhorns

This defense is for real

The Sooners showed themselves to be better on defense through the first five games of the year, but they were clearly saving their coming-out party for the biggest possible stage.

Against one of the best offensives in the country, the Sooners looked nothing short of overwhelming at times. Oklahoma sacked Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger a total of nine times and held Texas to 6-of-14 on third downs.

The entire country will be talking about the Oklahoma defense this week after the Sooners turned in their most impressive performance on that side of the ball since a 2017 road win over Ohio State.

The take that has been bounced around for the past couple of years has been if the Sooners can field a top 40 defense, they should win a national title. It would be hard for anyone to argue that the defense on the field on Saturday wasn’t one of at least the 40 best in the country.