Oklahoma football: Defense must show up if OU is to win at Baylor
By Chip Rouse
The biggest game in the Big 12 this season will take place in Waco. Texas, on Saturday when undefeated and conference-leading Baylor matches up with the four-time defending Big 12 champion Oklahoma football team in a battle for conference supremacy.
For the winner, it also will be the chance to keep its slim College Football Playoff hopes alive.
Oklahoma has won 25 of the 28 games played between the two schools, but all three of the Baylor wins have come since the 2011 season, and two of the three victories over the Sooners were in Waco (2011 and 2013).
Baylor head coach Matt Rhule, who came from the same role at Temple, has done an outstanding job in just three seasons in Waco. The Bears were 1-11 in Rhule’s first season at Baylor in 2017. Last season, he led the Bears to a six-game improvement over the year before, finishing with a record of 7-6, including a trip to the Texas Bowl and a 45-38 victory over Vanderbilt.
Through nine games, Baylor is one of five unbeaten teams remaining in the Football Bowl Subdivision and ranked 13th in the College Football Playoff rankings.
Baylor is just the second FBS team since 1937 to start a season 8-0 within two years of going 0-8 to begin a season.
Despite having one loss, a seven-point defeat suffered at Kansas State three weeks ago, Oklahoma ranks ahead of the Bears, at No. 10 this week, in the second installment of this year’s CFP rankings.
Saturday’s showdown in Waco, where ESPN’s GameDay will be camped this weekend, will be the second highest-ranked game between two teams from the Big 12 this season. Both games involved Oklahoma.
The Sooners were No. 5 and Texas No. 11 when those two teams met last month in Dallas for their annual Red River hoedown in Dallas. Oklahoma won that game 34-27.
This will be the 37th time the “GameDay” show has showcased a game involving Oklahoma. Only Alabama (47), Ohio Stat (45) and Florida (41) have appeared more times than the Sooners. OU is 23-13 in games featured on “GameDay.”
Oklahoma will wear its alternate Rough Rider uniforms for the Baylor game (cream jersey, red bottoms and white Rough Rider helmets). The Sooners are 10-2 when they wear their alternate Rough Rider uniforms and 5-0 in away games.
The game will be broadcast on ABC-TV starting at 6:30 p.m. CT. Chris Fowler will do the play by play along with Kirk Herbstreit.
This will be a statement game for both Baylor and Oklahoma. The Bears want to show the CFP selection committee and the rest of the college football world that they are a legitimate national title contender, while the Sooners want to rid themselves of the criticism and doubt they’ve created the result of questionable outings the last two games and prove they are still the big dog in the Big 12.