The offense was scoring at will and the defense was making life hell for Jalen Hurts, and for a time No. 13 Baylor seemed like a safe bet to rocket up the rankings, leading No. 10 Oklahoma 28-3 early in the second quarter on Saturday night. But Oklahoma’s offense, like a Ferrari so many times under head coach Lincoln Riley, instead became a tank, plowing right through the Bears’ defense with drive after drive after drive.
In fact, after trailing by 25, Oklahoma ran 72 plays for 351 yards while its defense pitched a second-half shoutout, and the Sooners came back to win, 34-31. The 25-point rally is the largest in Oklahoma history.
Playing without All-American wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, the Sooners leaned on Hurts and the running game, overcoming three Hurts turnovers in the process, as the quarterback threw for 297 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for 114 more. Most importantly, the Sooners snapped the ball 95 times and held the ball for 40:46, limiting Baylor to just 16 plays after halftime.
Oklahoma forced a Baylor punt to open the game and, taking over at their own 47, quickly moved into the red zone, but Hurts was sacked on a 3rd-and-5 and the Sooners settled for a 39-yard Gabe Brkic field goal.
Charlie Brewer had Denzel Mims streaking wide open for what would have been a 78-yard touchdown on the first play of the ensuing drive, but skipped the ball to him. It didn’t matter. He hit Mims for 11 yards on the next snap, kicking off a 78-yard touchdown drive that Brewer himself capped with a 2-yard keeper.
After forcing one of the rarer sights in college football — an Oklahoma three-and-out — Baylor went up 14-3 on a 30-yard connection that missed earlier, as Mims got about as open as a receiver can get on a 30-yard fade route.
Facing an uncharacteristic 14-3 deficit, Oklahoma added to its own misery with a pair of Hurts turnovers. The first came deep in his own territory, when the quarterback placed the ball on the ground in an attempt to steady himself and simply lost the ball, which Terrel Bernard recovered for Baylor at the OU 27. Brewer kept for 23 yards on the final play of the first quarter, then added the final four on the first snap of the second.
On Oklahoma’s next possession, the Sooners reached the Baylor 36 when Grayland Arnold stepped in front of a Hurts pass and returned it 71 yards to the OU 9, where he was finally tackled by Hurts himself. A second Brewer-to-Mims scoring strike put Baylor up 28-3 at the 11:02 mark of the second quarter, and putting the Sooners on the wrong end of a 48-3 run dating back to the fourth quarter of the Iowa State game.
Oklahoma finally stopped the bleeding with an un-OU like 14-play, 75-yard, near 6-minute drive, one that was extended when a 4th-and-5 incompletion at the Bears’ 33 was wiped away due to defensive holding by Baylor’s Jameson Houston. Hurts’ 5-yard pass to Austin Stogner made the score 28-10 with 5:06 left in the first half.
Baylor answered the Sooners’ prolonged drive with one of its own, moving 61 yards in 13 plays, but stalling at the the OU 11 as the Bears settled for a 28-yard John Mayers field goal with three seconds left before halftime.
Oklahoma accepted the ball to open the second half and rumbled down the field, moving 74 yards in a deliberate 12 plays, consuming 5:44 of clock, as Stogner’s second short touchdown catch cut the deficit to 31-17.
Baylor’s offense picked up right where it left off as JaMycal Hasty broke free for a 32-yard run into Sooner territory, but he forced the ball out of his own hands and OU’s Pat Fields grabbed the bouncing pigskin, giving the Sooners’ their first takeaway since their win over Texas Tech way back on Sept. 28. Led largely by the ground game, and the ground game led largely by Hurts, Oklahoma moved all the way to the Baylor 4 on a 2nd-and-goal play when Baylor’s James Lynch knocked the ball from Hurts’ hands and recovered it in the end zone, keeping the score at 31-17 with three Hurts turnovers serving as the difference.
The Bears, though, went three-and-out and Oklahoma mounted another long drive, this time going 90 yards over 13 plays and 4:59, and a 19-yard grab by Theo Wease pulled OU within 31-24.
When Baylor’s offense stepped on the field at its own 22 after the ensuing kickoff, the Bears had run all of four second half plays to Oklahoma’s 36, gaining 38 yards to OU’s 215. Baylor desperately needed a drive and they didn’t get one, as a Tyquan Thornton drop on 3rd-and-9 doomed the Bears to a second consecutive three-and-out.
Oklahoma took over at its own 23, but by that point it didn’t matter where the Sooners got the ball. The drive could have started in Norman and Baylor’s once-fierce, now-gassed defense still wouldn’t have stopped them. This time, OU went 77 yards over 13 snaps and 6:01, tying the game with 5:25 to play on a 2-yard lob from Hurts to Brayden Willis (plus a Brkic PAT).
Needing a drive even more than they did last time, Baylor got one first down (thanks to pass interference against Mims) but could not get another as Brewer threw incomplete on 2nd- and 3rd-and-11 and Oklahoma, which trailed 28-3 early in the second quarter, took the ball at their own 27 with 4:15 to play and a chance to take the lead. Oklahoma got its lead, but it wasn’t a knockout blow. This drive totaled just eight plays and 59 yards, stalling at the Baylor 14 and resulting in a 31-yard Brkic field goal, the true freshman’s 12th make in as many tries as a Sooner, to put Oklahoma back in front for the first time since leading 3-0 early in the first quarter.
Trailing 34-31 with 1:45 to go, Baylor quickly moved to the Oklahoma 40, but Brewer was nearly intercepted by Sooner linebacker Nic Bonitto on 2nd-and-10 and then was intercepted by Bonitto on 3rd-and-10, completing the second half shutout and the record comeback.
With the loss, Baylor’s 11-game winning streak and its surprise College Football Playoff hopes are now history, but the Bears (9-1, 6-1 Big 12) can still forge a rematch with OU (9-1, 6-1 Big 12) in the Big 12 Championship.