Oklahoma football: Sooners double up TCU, except on scoreboard

For the third straight game, Oklahoma football had to hold on for dear life at the end to preserve victory, but the Sooners 28-24 win over TCU on Saturday wasn’t indicative of their overall dominance everywhere but on the scoreboard.

Oklahoma showed its championship teeth in the first quarter and a half against a good but young TCU defense that leads the Big 12 in terms of yards allowed. The Sooners jumped out to a 21-0 advantage early in the second quarter, and it appeared they were about to run away from the Horned Frogs and there was nothing TCU could do to stop it.

Almost as suddenly, however, the flow and feel of the game changed dramatically. Oklahoma failed to reach the end zone again until midway through the third quarter. Meanwhile, TCU put up 17 unanswered points to draw within 21-17, and it was game on.

While the OU offense was moving down the field with little resistance from the Horned Frogs early on, the Sooner defense registered consecutive three-and-outs on TCU’s first three possessions. After the first three possessions by both teams, Oklahoma had run 24 plays for 198 yards and three touchdowns, while the TCU had produced minus-17 yards in 10 plays.

TCU’s first score in the game was set up by a 62-yard run by quarterback Max Duggan to the OU six-yard line. The Horned Frogs scored two plays later to cut the Sooner advantage to 21-7.

Despite the four-point margin of the final score was, this game would not have been nearly as close were it not for three extremely costly Oklahoma turnovers. Sooner freshman receiver Jadon Hasselwood coughed up the ball following a pass reception just inside TCU territory in the second quarter. The Horned Frogs capitalized, marching 48 yards before having to settle for a 24-yard field goal that made the score 21-10.

On consecutive fourth-quarter drives, Jalen Hurts was intercepted and fumbled, respectively, inside the TCU 10-yard line. Both drives could easily have resulted, and probably should have, in 14 additional Oklahoma points.

For the game, Oklahoma outgained TCU by 307 yards (511 to 204), ran 40 more plays (85 to 45) and possessed the ball 19 more minutes (39:31 to 20:29).

TCU can take some comfort in keeping the game as close as it did, despite the vast statistical difference. On the other hand, the Sooners are coming closer and closer to losing a game due to their own self-destruction, and it is making Oklahoma fans extremely nervous with so much still on the line.

Here are a Baker’s dozen more notable numbers that tell the story of the game:

1, 3 and 4 — The margin by which Oklahoma has won its last three games (42-41 against Iowa State, 34-31 versus Baylor and 28-24 against TCU on Saturday night).

6.0 — Average yards per play by the OU offense in the win over TCU. It is the second week in a row that the Sooners have averaged less than their record-setting 8.8 season average.

20 — The win over TCU marks the 20th consecutive game Oklahoma has won in the championship month of November.

40 — Number of times Oklahoma has won at least 10 games in a season, the most in college football (one more than Alabama’s 39).

45 — The Sooner defense was on the field for 45 plays against TCU. That is the fewest number of plays for an Oklahoma defense since the 2006 season.

49 — The Sooners’ 511 yards of offense against TCU was the 49th time in the last 65 games, dating back to the start of the 2015 season, that Oklahoma has totaled at least 500 yards of offense in a game.

64 — Oklahoma ran the football 64 times in the TCU game. That was 43 more than the number of passes by the Sooners and the most since the 2014 season.

131-35 — Oklahoma held TCU scoreless in the first quarter, while putting up 14 of its own in the opening 15 minutes.  OU has outscored its opponents 131-35 in the opening quarter through 11 games this season.

221 — Amount of rushing yards more than the passing yards (145) by the Oklahoma offense versus TCU. The difference is the most since 269 yards more in 2014 against Iowa State.

400 — The win over TCU marked the 400th Oklahoma win at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. The Sooners are 400-87-16 at that facility.

1,000 — Jalen Hurts rushed for 173 yards on 28 carries against TCU. That gives him 1,156 rushing yards for the season. He is only the third Sooner quarterback to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season (Jack Mildren and Kyler Murray are the others).

1,000/3,000 — Jalen Hurts is the third player in college football history to rush for more than 1,000 yards and pass for more than 3,000 yards through 11 games in a season, according to ESPN Stats & Info. Louisville QB Lamar Jackson (in 2016 and ’17) and Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M (in 2012 are the other two).

82,241 — The attendance for the final home game of the 2019 Oklahoma football season, and the 129th straight home sellout at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.