Oklahoma football: Sooners win, but numbers tell sobering story
By Chip Rouse
The scoreboard on Saturday recorded an Oklahoma football victory to open the 2021 season, but the Sooner performance fell disturbingly short of all the preseason hype afforded a highly ranked team.
Saturday’s relocated season-opening game with Tulane was a tale of two halves. Oklahoma commanded the opening 30 minutes after a shaky start and went to the locker room at halftime with a comfortable 37-14 lead. Too comfortable, as head coach Lincoln Riley would later acknowledge in his postgame interview.
What momentum the Sooners had swung in their favor in the first half quickly switched sides on the second half and came frighteningly close to costing No. 2-ranked Oklahoma the game and their first opening-game loss since the 2016 season.
OU began the 2016 season in similar position, as the No, 3 team in the nation and with Baker Mayfield in his second season as the Sooners’ starting quarterback. A poor start dearly cost the Sooners in the 2016 game, which ended in a 33-23 road loss to Houston.
Tulane capitalized on several bad decisions by Oklahoma in the second half on Saturday and a lackluster Sooner offense to pull within five points. And with 2:17 to go in the game had possession of the ball after recovering an onside kick near midfield. with 2:17 to go in the game.
Fortunately, the struggling OU defense rose to the occasion when it absolutely mattered the most, getting a potentially game-saving fourth-down stop just inches short of the first-down marker that turned the ball over to the Sooners and preserved a 45-35 victory.
Breaking down the game into two halves, the Sooners clearly won the first half, 37-14, but the second half belonged to Tulane, outscoring Oklahoma 21-3 and holding the Sooners to just 118 yards of offense.
Coming into the season-opening game, expectations were sky high that this was the most complete Oklahoma team in Riley’s five seasons as head coach and the best defensive unit in three seasons under defensive coordinator Alex Grinch. Instead, Sooner fans are left with an a bothersome flashback of the team’s same old defensive lapses of recent seasons.
Here are a dozen other compelling numbers that tell the sobering story of Saturday’s near disaster:
0 — Number of punts by Oklahoma in the game.
2 — Spencer Rattler’s two interceptions were his most since throwing picks in the Sooners’ second game of the season a year ago. a 38-35 loss to Kansas State. He threw only seven interceptions in 11 games all of last season.
3 — OU junior kicker Gabe Brkic made three field goals of greater than 50 yards, and FBS record. He was four of five in field goals for the game.
5 — Oklahoma fell behind twice in the early going of Saturday’s contest with Tulane. The Sooners did not trail in any of their final five games in 2020.
7 — Tulane was picked to finish seventh this season in the American Athletic Conference.
8 — True freshman wide receiver Mario Williams hauled in six of his eight targets in his Oklahoma debut
10 — Total tackles made by OU safety Delarrin Turner-Yell, none more important that the fourth-down tackle he made of Tulane quarterback Michael Pratt just short of the first-down marker late in the game to turn over possession to the Sooners and preserve the victory.
25 — Oklahoma’s percentage in third-down conversions in the game (3 of 12).
30 — From the three minute mark in the first quarter to the end of the second quarter, the Sooners scored 30 unanswered points to take a 37-14 lead.
35 — Tulane’s 35 points was the most given up by Oklahoma in a season opener since 1981, a 41-27 loss to West Virginia.
1973 — Tulane came frighteningly close to recording what might have been the biggest upset of the 2021 college football season. The last time the Green Wave beat a top-10 team was in 1973. They have never beaten a top-five team.
42,206 — Announced attendance at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium for Saturday’s game, half of full capacity because seating was restricted to the lower bowl only.