Headlines are limited.
On the page, you only get a few words.
Online, you get more, just not nearly enough to wrap the calamity that was sixth-ranked Oklahoma’s 23-6 loss to unranked Texas inside the Cotton Bowl Saturday afternoon.
Were space unlimited, perhaps this would have worked:
“How the Sooners failed to play their best quarterback, manage the clock, get their offense stuck in a phone booth and mud at the same time, apparently having taken no advantage of the bye week preceding the Kent State game”
It doesn’t rhyme, but it covers the bases.
Additionally, though devil’s advocates have been in short supply since OU topped Auburn three Saturdays ago, if you were one of them, congrats, you were right and the rest of us were wrong.
Because the depth of OU’s misery is hard to fathom.
By the time it was over, the Sooners had scored no points since getting a second field goal from Tate Sandell 9:09 before the half to lead 6-0.
After advancing the ball 81 yards in the first quarter, OU gained the grand sum of 177 the rest of the way, only 138 following Sandell’s last three-pointer and just 88 after the half.
The Sooners lost full control when you just can’t lose it, at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second, turning what appeared to be an opportunity to lead 13-3 at the break into no points at all, the result of horrendous clock management and no clear plan toward what to do with 10 seconds left, no timeouts, the ball on the Texas 30.
What happened was John Mateer threw into the end zone with lots of air and no zip and Longhorn Malik Muhammad picked it off and momentum being a real thing, Texas then took the second-half kick and went on a 7-plus-minute, 14-play drive to put the game away, OU failing to get within 37 yards of paydirt the rest of the way, crossing midfield only twice,
Texas found itself, yes.
Arch Manning, though he only threw for 166 yards, did not turn the ball over and abused the Sooners on third down after the half; Quintrevion Wisner, running and catching for 128 combined yards, looked like the best player on the field; the Longhorn defense returned to being the unit we thought it was before it walked into Gainesville and went splat.
But OU helped plenty.
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