Postgame P (FREE): Murphy's Law, Cajun fries and Bernie Madoff - 247Sports
Well, that sucked.
In fact, it’s hard to comprehend exactly how much that sucked, or to comprehend exactly how it sucked as much as it did.
The Sooners had zero excuses on Saturday. They were as healthy as they’d been since the season opener. It was the first game of Championship November, a month in which the Sooners hadn’t lost a football game since 2014. They were fresh off a long-awaited bye week. They felt slighted by the College Football Playoff committee after being ranked No. 8 in back-to-back weeks. They were gearing up for battle with a team that had just been brutalized -- to the tune of 531 total yards — by a quarterback who would have been third on Oklahoma’s depth chart this season.
The Sooners had every reason to strut onto the McLane Stadium turf and wreak utter havoc upon Baylor. Instead, they made the bold decision to take another bye. Oklahoma looked incapable of moving the ball out of a wet grocery sack, and defended the run with all the fervor of the Popeye’s employee who shovels Cajun fries into your chicken finger box. They got penalized for roughing the snapper. Gabe Brkic had two field goal attempts and shanked both.
The Sooners succumbed to Murphy’s Law for the game’s first 20 minutes the last time they visited Waco. The malaise lasted a full 60 minutes this time around.
Lo and behold, the Sooners’ 14-game winning streak in the month of November is over, as is their previously FBS-best 17-game overall winning streak. Their College Football Playoff hopes aren’t up in flames just yet, but there’s smoke beginning to rise. And perhaps the most concerning reality is that if Baylor wins its final two contests and Oklahoma loses Bedlam to Oklahoma State, the Sooners won’t be playing in the Big 12 title game.
Every one of this team’s goals is still attainable. But there is zero — and I do mean zero — margin for error. Oh, and they didn’t do themselves any favors with regard to public perception yesterday.
Let’s break it down.
Not Going To Sugarcoat It… I’m Pissed
— What the hell was Lincoln Riley thinking when he removed Caleb Williams from the game?
YOU JUST GO 'HEAD AND SHUT UP PARKER HIS HAND WAS INJURED.
Yes, believe me — I’m fully aware his hand was injured. It clearly wasn’t injured enough to prevent him from leading a quick-strike touchdown drive on the Sooners’ final offensive possession. And if it was the primary reason for Williams’ removal, pray tell why the head coach rationalized the decision by saying that he was looking for “a spark.” Against that energized Baylor defense, Williams gave the Sooners the best chance to win because of his added value in the run game, no matter how poorly he’d played to that point. It was a 10-7 ballgame when Riley removed Williams. The Sooners were one drive away from taking the lead; there was no reason to hit the panic button and switch quarterbacks. Rattler’s possessions produced zero points, as his lack of pass rush elusiveness burned the Sooners — sacks killed both drives that Rattler led. It was an utterly needless maneuver in a situation that was by no means ideal, but also by no means dire. It was blatantly obvious that Rattler wasn’t going to accomplish anything that Williams wouldn’t against the inspired Bears.
— It’s frankly astonishing how bad Oklahoma’s third-down defense has become. The Sooners allowed Baylor to convert a crucial third-and-15 on one second-half drive, then surrendered another conversion on a third-and-12 draw play that ultimately led to a Baylor touchdown. Remember the infamous Kansas game a few weeks back? Oklahoma allowed the Jayhawks to succeed on 9 of 13 third-down conversions. This team is stunningly inept when it comes to getting off the field, and it has as much to do with poor tackling as it does with poor situational awareness by both Alex Grinch and his players.
— That field goal was classless. Dave Aranda can blow smoke about a tiebreaker all he wants; the odds that such a tiebreaker would come into play are infinitesimally small. There is no plausible scenario in which those three points matter at all. And when you consider the fact that the lead-up to that field goal included Aranda pulling an Urban Meyer and calling all his timeouts in the final 90 seconds, it provides a pretty clear indication that he simply wanted to rub salt in the wound any way he could. It spurred a veiled jab from Riley in postgame, as the Sooners’ head coach declared, “Doing it with class is important to me. At the end of the day, that’s why we decided to bring 11 guys out [for the final play], even though deep down I damn sure didn’t want to.”
Must… Stay… Positive
— I mean… Oklahoma’s not out of the playoff race, I guess? The Sooners no longer control their own destiny, and they need a decent amount of help. However, their case is buoyed by the fact that the ACC is a lame duck in the race, and the Pac-12 is one Oregon loss away from occupying the same boat. Right now, barring catastrophe, Georgia is a mortal lock for the CFP, and the Big Ten champion is a safe bet as well. As long as Georgia defeats Alabama for the SEC title, one Oregon loss OR one Cincinnati loss is all that’s required to open wide the door for a one-loss Big 12 champion. However, that could just as easily be Oklahoma State as it could be Oklahoma.
— Woodi Washington actually looked really sharp in his return from a two-month injury absence. He made a couple of key tackles, was stingy in coverage and looked for all the world like the same shutdown corner that he was prior to the groin injury that cost him seven games. Obviously, it doesn’t much matter how the secondary plays if the front seven surrenders 296 rushing yards, but having Washington back in the mix is crucial for the Sooners’ maligned defensive backfield. For much of the season, the secondary has been the clear question mark; now, it’s fair to wonder whether the Sooners’ run defense is capable of containing Breece Hall and Jaylen Warren over the next two weeks.
— Texas lost to Kansas. In the sport of football. In the year of our Lord 2021. As 31-point favorites. Via a completed two-point conversion pass from a backup quarterback to a walk-on fullback. If Caleb Williams’ hand develops gangrene and he’s forced into medical retirement by next week, his legacy will nonetheless be secure, because he broke Texas football. When Williams relieved Spencer Rattler in the Red River Showdown, the Longhorns led 35-17 and were cruising toward a 5-1 record (and probably a top-10 national ranking). Since Williams unleashed righteous fury on Texas before a raucous Cotton Bowl crowd, Steve Sarkisian’s team has won precisely zero football games. Hook ‘Em has now dropped five in a row, the first such instance in program history since 1956. Kansas had never — like, ever — beaten Texas in Austin, and they hadn’t won a conference game on the road over anybody since October 2008. Let’s contextualize those dates a bit: in 1956, the Beatles were still six years away from formation, Eisenhower was president, Picasso was still alive and there were only 48 states in the Union. In 2008, Instagram didn’t exist, Bernie Madoff was still a free man, Donald Trump was pioneering the first season of Celebrity Apprentice and Michael Jordan wasn’t yet eligible for the Basketball Hall of Fame. ALL GAS NO BRAKES!!!
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source: https://247sports.com/college/oklahoma/Article/Oklahoma-Sooners-postgame-Baylor-Bears-loss-McLane-Stadium-Caleb-Williams-Spencer-Rattler-Lincoln-Riley-Dave-Aranda-175378974/
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