Oklahoma football: OUch! Notable numbers from a Burreaux barrage

For the second year in a row, the Oklahoma football team found itself ambushed early and buried in an avalanche of first-half College Football Playoff points.

And for the fourth time in five Playoff appearances, the Sooners failed to get past the semifinal round. The time, however, was the ugliest OU performance of all.

No. 1-seeded LSU had its way from the get go against Big 12 champion and No. 4-ranked Oklahoma. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, Sooner fans and the rest of college football world were wishing mercifully for the beatdown to be over.

The final score fairly well sums up what many of the experts had been projecting about OU’s slim-to-none chances against the tp-ranked Tigers: LSU 63, Oklahoma 28.

The ESPN/ABC television crew broadcasting the game, made a special point of noting just prior to the opening kickoff that this Oklahoma defense was “light years better” than the previous Sooner Playoff teams.

Maybe so, but the brutal reality after the bloodbath that unfolded in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday said something entirely different. The Sooners were utterly defenseless against an LSU offense led by quarterback Joe Burrow, who emphatically demonstrated why he was the landslide Heisman Trophy winner this season.

It was like playground pitch and catch against an undermanned Oklahoma secondary. Burrow, who was rarely pressured, connected repeatedly with his downfield receivers, completing 29 passes to nine different receivers, 14 of which were hauled in by Justin Jefferson for over 200 yards and four touchdowns.

The one big LSU concern coming into the game was the health of its top running back, Clyde Edwards-Helaire. He was hampered by a hamstring injury, and was a game-time decision. It turned out the Tigers weren’t hurt one iota by Edwards-Helaire’s limited availability.

Backup RB Chris Curry repeatedly broke off eight yards per carry early, ending up with 90 yards on the ground on 16 rushing attempts.

LSU’s 692 yards of offensive production more than doubled Oklahoma’s season-low 322 yards.

Jalen Hurts finished with 15 for 31 passing for 217 yards and 43 yards rushing to 260 total yards, his second lowest offensive output of the season (he had 224 total yards in a win over Oklahoma State).

In his postgame press briefing, Sooner head coach Lincoln Riley spoke of “all the adversity this team’s had to deal with (this season).” None more so than the 35-point beatdown on a national championship stage against LSU.

Here are a dozen more notable numbers that tell the sad story of this game and the stunning end to a quizzical yet successful season:

0 — Number of times this season that LSU has trailed at any point in the fourth quarter.

1 — Punts in the game by LSU.

8 — LSU quarterback Joe Burrow accounted for eight touchdowns in the game (7 passing and 1 rushing), a new FBS record in a bowl game.

12 — For the third consecutive year, Oklahoma finished the season with a 12-2 record. It is the ninth time since the 2000 national championship season the Sooners have won at least a dozen games.

35 — The 35-point loss is the worst in Lincoln Riley’s three seasons as head coach. The previous largest margin of defeat in Riley’s head-coaching tenure was 11 points.

40+ — CeeDee Lamb’s 51-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter gave him 24 TD catches of 40 or more yards in his career. That surpasses the previous record set by Ryan Broyles between 2008-11).

49 — LSU’s 49 first-half points is the most ever scored in any half in a College Football Playoff game and the second most scored in a half against the Sooners in Oklahoma football history (Nebraska scored 56 in the second half against OU at home in a 73-21 win in 1996).

63 — The last time Oklahoma gave up 63 or more points in a game was a 69-7 loss to Nebraska om 1997.

91 — The 91 total points scored in this game is a new College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six Bowl record.

97 — Total rushing yards by Oklahoma in the Playoff semifinal against LSU, the lowest rushing total by the Sooners since the 2016 season.

403 — Passing yards by Joe Burrow in the first half (out of 493 for the game) against Oklahoma.

1,298 — Total rushing yards by Jalen Hurts in the 2019 season, which surpasses the previous mark of 1,289 by Jack Mildren in 1971.