No. 3 Sooners Crush No. 11 Texas 55-17 at LinesMaker

No. 3 Sooners Crush No. 11 Texas 55–17

DALLAS —Travis Lewis took the Golden Hat tro­phy and treated it like a real hat, hold­ing it to his head as he trot­ted along the field, wav­ing to the thou­sands of Okla­homa fans still in their seats. When he got to the sec­tion where friends and fam­ily were sit­ting, Lewis walked along­side the rail­ing, hold­ing out the tro­phy for folks to touch.

So many peo­ple starred in this resound­ing vic­tory that it only made sense for plenty of peo­ple to take part in the celebration.

Landry Jones threw three touch­down passes, Dominique Wha­ley ran 64 yards for a touch­down and three defen­sive play­ers found their way into the end zone, too, pow­er­ing No. 3 Okla­homa to a 55–17 vic­tory over No. 11 Texas on Saturday—the kind of whip­ping that could help the Soon­ers return to the top of the poll.

OU was No. 1 from the pre­sea­son until two weeks ago. The Soon­ers slipped to sec­ond after strug­gling at home against Mis­souri, then to third even after whip­ping lowly Ball State. Vot­ers were more impressed by what they saw from SEC heavy­weights LSU and Alabama.

This per­for­mance, how­ever, showed that Okla­homa is as good as folks orig­i­nally thought.

The Soon­ers (5–0, 2–0 Big 12) were pre­cise on offense and swarm­ing on defense. They scored the first four times they had the ball and cruised to leads of 24 at half­time and 45 mid­way through the fourth quar­ter. Texas’ only touch­down on offense came in the final min­utes, long after Okla­homa was on its way to the most lop­sided win over its Red River rival since 2003, when it won by a series-record 52 points.

“It was an excel­lent day,” OU coach Bob Stoops said. “To come down in here in this sit­u­a­tion and win like that is really pretty special.”

Jones was 31 of 50 for 367 yards and no turnovers. He improved to 2–0 against the Long­horns, and gave Okla­homa its third win over Texas in five years.

Oklahoma’s most impres­sive feat was the three defen­sive touch­downs: an inter­cep­tion returned 55 yards from Demon­tre Hurst, a sack-fumble returned 19 yards by David King and a vicious strip of a receiver taken 56 yards by Jamell Flem­ing . It was the first time in the school’s long, proud his­tory that its defense has scored three times in one game, and only the sec­ond time a pair of fum­bles were returned for TDs. Okla­homa matched another school record with eight sacks.

“To me there is noth­ing more fun than a defen­sive touch­down when you’re on that side of it,” Stoops said.

Here’s yet another nice bit of his­tory for Soon­ers to savor: this win pushed Okla­homa ahead of Texas for the fourth-best win­ning per­cent­age among major col­leges. Only Michi­gan, Notre Dame and Ohio State are bet­ter. The Long­horns actu­ally slipped from third to fifth.

Texas (4–1, 1–1) was try­ing to fig­ure out how far it’s come since being 5–7 last sea­son. Now coach Mack Brown’s knows his squad still has a ways to go, espe­cially on offense.

Sopho­more Case McCoy and fresh­man David Ash had their share of rookie mis­takes at quar­ter­back, such as McCoy los­ing two fum­bles and Ash throw­ing two inter­cep­tions. Receiver Mike Davis was to blame for the pick­pocket fumble.

The two times Okla­homa didn’t imme­di­ately score on those turnovers, the Soon­ers still cashed them in for points, get­ting a field goal and a touch­down on the ensu­ing drives.

“You don’t give your­self a chance to win,” Brown said.

With the Soon­ers swarm­ing run­ning plays and get­ting heavy pres­sure on passes, McCoy and Ash couldn’t keep dri­ves going. The longest com­ple­tions before the game turned into a joke were a screen for 15 yards and an 18-yarder along the side­line against a pre­vent defense in the final sec­onds of the first half.

How silly did it become? Late in the third quar­ter, Texas let a first-and-10 at the Okla­homa 15 turn into a fourth-and-49 from its own 47. The ensu­ing punt didn’t even reach the first-down marker.

“You learn so much from a loss like this,” Ash said. “You learn what it takes to play at the level Okla­homa plays. They’re a great team. It’s great to get exposed to that. We’re a young team. The great thing is we have so much poten­tial to become a really great team.”

The Soon­ers were so ready for the Long­horns that they let them know it before kick­off. Okla­homa play­ers lined up between the 30s and hollered at Texas play­ers as they ran onto the field. Coaches and offi­cials scram­bled to main­tain peace.

OU drove inside the Texas 10 on its first two series, but set­tled for field goals of 26 and 24 yards, seem­ingly both­ered by the noise at the end of the field occu­pied by Texas fans. The Soon­ers moved into the friendly end for the start of the sec­ond quar­ter and, on the first play, Jones threw a 19-yard touch­down pass to Kenny Stills.

Okla­homa got the ball back on an inter­cep­tion by Tony Jef­fer­son, a defen­sive back who picked off passes on three con­sec­u­tive series against Ball State. Jones threaded a 30-yard pass between two defend­ers on a third-and-25, then hit Ryan Broyles with a 5-yard pass just inside the right front cor­ner of the end zone.

The play had to be reviewed, and Okla­homa fans used the break to start chant­ing “Boomer! Sooner!” Long­horns fans answered with their chant “Texas! Fight!” Their cries lasted longer and were louder than their foe’s, only to end with the news that the touch­down stood.

Texas fans were hardly heard from again. Once Okla­homa got its third defen­sive score—the strip of Davis with 11:22 left—most folks in burnt orange headed out to drown their sor­rows at the State Fair going on all around the Cot­ton Bowl.

Jones was 31 of 50 for 367 yards and no turnovers. He improved to 2–0 against the Long­horns, and gave Okla­homa its third win over Texas in five years.

Broyles caught nine passes for 122 yards, leav­ing him four recep­tions shy of the NCAA career record. He also tied a con­fer­ence record with his 42nd career TD catch. Stills caught five passes for 51 yards and two touchdowns.

Wha­ley ran for 83 yards on 13 carries.

McCoy was 9 of 16 for 116 yards and three sacks. Ash was 11 of 20 for 107 yards and a touch­down with two inter­cep­tions and four sacks. Jaxon Ship­ley caught nine passes for 89 yards, includ­ing a 4-yard TD pass from Ash with 2:31 left. He took one snap at quar­ter­back and was sacked.

Fozzy Whitaker had the 100-yard kick­off return for a touch­down, tying the school record. He also ran for 43 yards and caught a pass for 15.

Related Posts:

• Okla­homa St. Routs Soon­ers, Takes Big 12
• Texas A&M Fires Coach Sherman
• Texas Beats Aggies in Likely Rivalry End
• Jones Has 505 Yards, Soon­ers Rip K-State
• Sun­day Morn­ing Obser­va­tions, Week 8: Sparty Is No Longer Sparty, the Soon­ers Col­lapse, Penn State Keeps on Win­ning (Somehow)

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