Oklahoma football: Sooners’ offensive numbers were big winner vs. Kansas

Let’s be honest, there was a lot of trepidation on the part of Oklahoma football fans as the Sooners prepared to host Kansas on Saturday.

Yes, Oklahoma had dominated the Jayhawks over the years, including a 17-game winning streak that dated back to the last century. But this was a very different Kansas team that came to Norman this weekend ranked 19th in the country in the Associated Press poll.

Add to that the fact that this same Kansas team almost and perhaps should have beaten the Sooners a year ago in Lawrence were it not for the heroic fourth-quarter efforts of freshman OU quarterback Caleb Wiliams.

The Sooners came into this game on the heels of two of the worst overall performances by an Oklahoma football team in as long as most of us can remember. Consecutive losses of 31 and 49 points doesn’t foster a lot of confidence, even going up against a team you’ve beaten like a drum over the years.

Here’s the scary catch, though. Starting quarterback Dillon Gabriel played only a little over a quarter in those previous two games. He was back in the saddle and on the field on Saturday, and as a result, the Sooners flipped the script and emphatically showed they still had heart and game.

"“Dillon makes a big difference,” head coach Brent Venables said in his postgame press conference. “As we saw today, having missed him for the past seven quarters, he makes a big difference in the flow of your whole team. Not just the offense.”"

When Oklahoma scored the opening touchdown three minutes into the game, it marked the first Oklahoma lead in a game in the previous 12 quarters.

“Today we showed who we are,” Venables told the Sooner players in the locker room after the game.

Here are a dozen more numbers that tell the story of the win over Kansas:

6 — Oklahoma has won six of its last seven regular-season games as an unranked team going back to 2009.

14 — Oklahoma scored only 14 points with Dillon Gabriel out of action and in the concussion protocol. The Sooners matched that number midway through the first quarter on their way to 52 for the game.

20 — Dillon Gabriel threw his first interception of the season a little more than halfway through the third quarter. He had gone 20 consecutive quarters without throwing an interception.

30 — OU has won 30 of its last 32 home games at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

30:19 — Time of possession for Oklahoma against Kansas. That is the longest OU has had possession of the ball in a game this season and the first time they have won the time of possession in a game this season.

76 — The Sooners successfully converted 16 of their 21 third-down possessions against Kansas.

100 — Oklahoma ran 100 offensive plays against Kansas. It was the 12th time in program history the Sooners have run at least 100 plays in a game and the first time since 2014.

102 — OU tight end Brayden Willis caught five passes for a career-high 102 yards and a touchdown.

176 — Rushing yards by OU’s Eric Gray in the win over Kansas. It was the second most productive day of his college career. He rushed for 246 yards in a game against Vanderbilt while at Tennessee in his freshman season.

403 — The 403 passing yards by the Sooners in Saturday’s game were the most by the Sooners since last season versus Texas Tech, when Caleb Williams and Spencer Rattler combined for 469 yards.

487 — Oklahoma’s 487 yards of offense in the first half on Saturday was the the Sooners second-most all-time in a single half.

1992 — The year 1992 was the last time a ranked Kansas team faced an unranked Oklahoma team in this series.