Oklahoma football: Stoops’ ’08 Sooners vs. Riley’s ’17 Boomers/Game 6
By Chip Rouse
Can Lincoln Riley’s 2017 OU team close out its series against Bob Stoops’ 2008 Sooners in a battle of Oklahoma football champions from the 2000s, or can Stoops’ Sooners hold them off and force a seventh and deciding game?
That’s the setting as we continue our fantasy championship simulation pitting two of the best Oklahoma teams of the 2000s — and what we consider to be the best team of the Bob Stoops era and the best so far under Lincoln Riley — against each other.
Stoops’ 08 team, with Sam Bradford running the show at quarterback, won the first two games in the best-of-seven format, and Riley’s ’17 squad fought back from the 2-0 deficit, winning the next two game behind Baker Mayfield and the foot power of Rodney Anderson.
The 20017 Sooners continued their winning ways with a high-scoring 59-56 victory in Game 5, which put Stoops’ Sooners on the brink of elimination. Can Bradford and Company stave off elimination and force a Game 7.
We’re about to find out.
Game 6 — Bob Stoops’ 2008 Sooners vs. Lincoln Riley’s 2017 Boomers
Despite 616 yards of total offense, 166 more than their opponent, Lincoln Riley’s 2017 OU team couldn’t keep Bob Stoops’ 2008 Sooners out of the end zone and lost 56-53 in another high-scoring game in their best-of-seven championship series.
The win by the 2008 team evened the series at three-all and set up a deciding seventh game between arguably the two best teams representing both the Riley coaching era and that of his predecessor Stoops.
Sam Bradford and the 2008 Sooners jumped out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead and kept their foot on the gas pedal for all four quarters. The 2017 team never got closer that three points, and that was late in the fourth quarter, only to have Bradford lead his team on a 75-yard touchdown drive on the very next possession to essentially ice the game.
Bradford completed 21 of 29 passes for 303 yards and four touchdowns and Chris Brown delivered 116 rushing yards and a touchdown to lead the 2008 offense. DeMarco Murray contributed another 65 yards on the ground and a pair of touchdowns.
Baker Mayfield had a terrific day throwing the football, completing 29 of 35 for 456 yards and three touchdowns, and Rodney Anderson produced his fourth 100-yard rushing game in the championship series, picking up 102 yards on 18 carries and three rushing touchdowns. But it wasn’t enough.
Anderson has totaled 595 rushing yards and five touchdowns in the six games.
It all now comes down to a one-game, winner-take-all series that will determine the best Oklahoma team of the first two decades of the 2000s in our fantasy OU football championship.