Sooners fumble away a winnable game along with their postseason hopes

Good teams find ways to win games. This season, Oklahoma has mastered ways to lose games, and Saturday night's debacle at Missouri may be at the top of the list.

Playing without its starting quarterback, the 24th-ranked Missouri Tigers outlasted a struggling Oklahoma team playing for its postseason life and posted a 30-23 win that effectively ended the Sooners' chances of becoming bowl eligible for the first time in 26 seasons.

In a game in which offense for much of the game was an afterthought, the final two minutes was an ideal example of the famous ABC "Wild World of Sport" tagline, "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."

With two minutes to go in the game, OU senior safety Billy Bowman scooped up a Missouri fumble by running back Jamal Roberts and returned it for a touchdown, giving Oklahoma a 23-16 lead just 90 seconds after the Sooners had tied the game on a trick-play pass from running back Taylor Taylor Tatum to QB Jackson Arnold.

At that late point in the game, it appeared that a bit of Sooner Magic had swooped down on Faurot Field and willed Oklahoma to a much-needed victory. Only, Missouri was not yet ready to concede defeat.

Backup quarterback Drew Pyne, who is playing for his third school, led the Tigers on an eight-play, 75-yard drive, capped by a 10-yard, dagger-to-the-heart touchdown pass to former Sooner Theo Wease that tied the game at 23 apiece.

The Missouri drive took just 57 seconds, leaving the Sooners with 1:03, plenty of time to work with to get into position for a potential game-winning field goal. On second-and-five from their own 35, Arnold, under pressure, scrambled to his right and was sacked for an 18-yard loss. In the process of being brought down, however, he lost the ball. And then came the worst nightmare.

The ball was picked up off the turf by Missouri defensive end Zion Young and returned 17 yards for the touchdown that served as the nail in the Sooners' coffin with just 19 seconds remaining in the contest.

Sooner head coach Brent Venables was visibly distraught after the game, calling it a "disheartening loss" in the postgame press conference. "I feel so bad for our players," he said. "I thought our guys just fought with all they had, and it wasn't good enough."

Oklahoma is off next week. The Sooners have two games remaining in the regular season -- against No. 9 Alabama on Nov. 23 and at No. 21 LSU on Nov. 30 -- and, in all probability, likely no chance of picking up a victory in either game, which would end OU's season.

Three telling takeaways from another game OU literally gave away

Oklahoma once again has a quarterback dilemma

Jackson Arnold, a former five-star recruit who started the season designated as the Sooners quarterback of the future, was benched four games into the season because of trouble taking care of the ball, and on Saturday night against Missouri, Arnold's third fumble, at a critical point in the final quarter, cost Oklahoma the game.

With the score deadlocked at 23 and the Sooners with the ball with under a minute to play, Arnold had the ball knocked out of his hand while trying to avoid a sack. Instead of throwing the ball out of bounds to kill the play, he held on to it. The ball was knocked loose, picked up by a Mizzou defender and returned for the winning touchdown. In his defense, the redshirt freshman was under pressure all night long, but you still have to be counted on to take care of the ball.

Arnold's troubles started in the Sooners' first two possession. He was able to fall on the first one, but lost the second on a Missouri fumble recovery. Arnold did not throw an interception, but that was only because a Missouri defender dropped an Arnold pass that was right in his lap and likely would have been returned for a pick six. The Sooner QB completed 15 passes for a total of just 74 yards. In his last three games after returning to the starting role, Arnold has averaged 210 yards per game.

Here's the killer, though. Oklahoma has committed 18 turnovers as a team this season. Arnold has accounted for 11 of those. It will be interesting to see if Arnold stays in the starting role to finish out the season. He definitely has not lived up to preseason expectations and sadly has become more of a liability in OU's struggling offense. Brent Venables keeps saying, "He's (Arnold) got to be better. You gotta get better at taking care of the ball." That may be the biggest understatement of the season.

OU has gone gone from a takeaway leader to a giveaway villain in same season

At one point this season, the Oklahoma defense was one of the nation leaders in takeaways and turnover margin. In the last four games, the Sooners have lost seven fumbles and had two passes intercepted. Those four games alone, including the Missouri game (two lost fumbles), have accounted for nine of OU's 14 total giveaways through 10 games.

Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz has words for former OU coach Bob Stoops

Taking the opportunity to respond to a comment made by former Sooner head coach Bob Stoops prior to the season, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz began his postgame press conference on Saturday with the opening remark, "This will be real disappointing to Bob Stoops, but OU doesn't always whip Missouri's (expletive)."

The comment was made in response to something Stoops told ESPN back in the spring regarding Oklahoma's move to the SEC: "We beat the (expletive) out of Missouri, all of a sudden now we're supposed to be afraid of them."

Drinkwitz has a ways to catch up, though. OU is now 67-25-5 against Missouri all-time. Drinkwitz is 1-0 lifetime against the Sooners.