Season saving Sooner victory fueled by plays so big, they felt magical
Season saving Sooner victory fueled by plays so big, they felt magical
Should the crux of the story very nearly written about this game be included in the one the last 10 minutes of it demands be told?
Like a pair of penalties from tight end Jake Roberts that killed huge gains and another, from tight end Bauer Sharpe, that brought back a touchdown when he bent his pre-snap motion forward, taking the scoring catch Gentry Barnes was a moment from grabbing off the board?
Or the screen pass offensive coordinator Seth Littrell called for two snaps later, facing third-and-16, OU trailing by 11 points in the fourth quarter, leading to a fourth-and-11 go-for-it that became one of Auburn’s two sacks?
Or that Oklahoma’s defense, for all its to-date greatness and dependability, gave up march after march after march, as though the Tiger offense was quite a bit better than Tennessee’s, directed by Josh Heupel?
Maybe, but no more than we already have following a 27-21 victory inside Jordan-Hare Stadium the Sooners may well have deserved but perhaps did not earn, for rare does a squad out-gained by 191 yards return to the locker room a victor.
But that’s just what OU did because made plays can be more precious than the sum of all stats, as they were Saturday afternoon.
The best of them?
I’ll going with true freshman quarterback Michael Hawkins going all Sam Bradford circa 2008 Bedlam when, attempting a two point conversion that would push OU’s lead to three points with 4:06 remaining, first eluded surrounding pocket pressure and then created his own tilt-a-whirl, leaping from just inside the 3-yard-line, catapulting himself over 6-foot-1, 323-pound nose tackle Isaiah Rakes just to receive a shot from linebacker Austin Keys on the way down.
Unlike Bradford, Hawkins reached the end zone, setting OU up for victory with 4:06 remaining despite the Sooners appearing dead in the water only minutes earlier.
“His guts and his toughness,” Venables blurted out, speaking of Hawkins, during his post-game field interview, before quickly saying something nice about Jackson Arnold — “Jackson can make a lot of good plays, too, with his legs” — as though Arnold and his family don’t themselves realize how odd that sounds in the context of Hawkins becoming a Sooner folk hero one game into his career as a collegiate starting quarterback.
By the time Hawkins made himself a helicopter, he’d already brought the game close, converting a 60-yard throw to J.J. Hester, whose three catches for 86 yards were his first three of the season, setting up a 2-yard touchdown from Barnes that brought OU within 21-16 after Hawkins’ original two point try, a pass, fell incomplete.
What happened between that two-point chance and the next one, of course, was the game’s deciding moment, the one that will surely be referred to as “Sooner Magic” a million times before the weekend’s complete and though it can hardly be counted upon to decide another game this season, or ever, it’s not like it fell into OU’s lap and it’s not like it wasn’t a fantastic made play.
Facing third-and-4 at the Sooner 43, having already driven from his own 25, Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne dropped back to pass facing what appeared to be a six-man rush, with heavy pressure from R. Mason Thomas, yet wound up being more of a two-man rush as several Sooners halted their pressure and one of them, Kip Lewis, stepped back farther than the rest to move in front of and snare a toss intended for Tiger receiver Sam Jackson and, having done that, returned it 60 yards to paydirt.
I immediately thought of Torrance Marshall against Texas A&M in 2000, a pick brought back 41 yards to paydirt and though this team may never be confused with that one, the fourth quarter of both were and are quite similar.
Who’d have thunk that?
Who’d have thunk this?
Pretty much nobody watching and yet, somehow, both happened.
Nor was the game finished.
Auburn needed only a touchdown to turn back the tables.
But facing third-and-5 from his own 44, Thorne was hit with back-to-back sacks from R Mason Thomas — we’re going with his full moniker if that’s all right — who must have the coolest name of anybody who ever landed back-to-back sacks, though Mean Joe Greene, Dwight White and Lyle Alzado, if they ever did it, are probably in the conversation.
“We just kept hanging in there,” Venables said. “And what we told them was just find a way to win, somehow, someway, to believe.
“You have to be ready to fight your butt off all the way through the last seconds of that clock.”
It’s no way to have to win, and still a glorious, beautiful and fantastic way to win.
Even on a day their starting kicker missed both his field goals, from 27 and 51 yards, and your backup made both of his, from 24 and 39.
Even on a day they gained 482 yards from scrimmage and you gained 291.
Even on a day it appeared your offense would remain stuck at 10 points and still did not break 20.
Nobody can know where this team’s going, only that Saturday, it made it happen, almost magically.