Oklahoma football: Best thing I saw as OU refuses to lose to Iowa State

Oklahoma football coach Brent Venables, in his press conference coming off the bye week, remarked that the Sooners could win all their remaining five games and they could also loss all of them.

Well, they’re off to a 1-0 start with the 27-13 win over Iowa State, defying what the oddsmakers and many experts though would be a much closer game. Baylor is next up on the schedule and the Sooners get the Bears at home next Saturday at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

This was not a pretty Oklahoma victory by any means, but the Sooners made enough plays on offense to build a two-score advantage in the second half and played with enough discipline and determination on defense to close down several Iowa State scoring opportunities, including a fourth-down stop at the OU three-yard line with just under a minute remaining in the game.

The Sooners are playing much better football in their last two games, and considerably better than was the case during the beastly three-game losing streak sandwiched between their five wins.

There were plenty of positive plays in all three phases of the games — offense, defense and special teams — which is typically the case when you win, but the one I that caught my eye the most was an Oklahoma scoring play two-thirds the way through the third quarter that struck me almost like redemption after seeing too many plays like that go against the Sooners in blowout losses to TCU and Texas in successive weeks.

At the 4:18 mark in the third quarter and with Oklahoma leading 13-6 and facing 3rd-and-11 from the Iowa State 41-yard line, Dillon Gabriel found a wide-open Jahlil Farooq racing down the right sideline with no defender near him. Gabriel delivered the pass and Farooq did the rest, taking it untouched all the way to the end zone for his second receiving touchdown catch of the season.

Farooq was targeted four times in the Iowa State game and caught all four for a season-high 74 yards, It was the sophomore wide receiver’s second consecutive game with four receptions. He had five catches in a game against Kansas State earlier in the season.

In eight games this season, Farooq has 20 receptions for 269 yards. His 41-yard dash to the end zone on Saturday was his longest of the season,