MANHATTAN, Kan. — Oklahoma wide receiver Juaquin Iglesias couldn’t camouflage his disgust. Everyone at Snyder Family Stadium could see it when he dropped an easy and critical third-down pass with about 7 minutes left in the first half.
The Sooners had allowed a 21-point lead to slip away and every bit of the momentum had darted over to the Kansas State sideline.
Funny thing about momentum, it bounced around like a Super Ball Saturday. No. 4 OU was the only team able lasso it for a significant amount of time in its 58-35 victory over the Wildcats.
The Sooners (7-1, 3-1 Big 12) grabbed it right back when OU quarterback Sam Bradford went right back to Iglesias to convert a fourth down and set up the go-ahead touchdown. The play ignited a wild frenzy in which the Sooners scored 27 points in the final 6 1/2 minutes of the second quarter and turned a shootout into a blowout.
“It’s just the ups and downs of the game,” Iglesias said. “You just have to figure out the play and go out and make the next one.”
There were a lot of plays like that Saturday. That’s how you wind up with 1,078 yards of total offense and 93 points.
But the Sooners put a bunch of them together late in the first half.
Sam Bradford struggled by his Mt. Everest like standards, completing just 13 of 23 attempts. But those 13 catches went for 255 yards and three touchdowns.
Kansas State quarterback Josh Freeman was better than advertised. The 6-foot-6, 250- pound junior was 29-for-51 for 478 yards. Most of those attempts came with a Sooner riding him.
“He was huge,” said OU linebacker Travis Lewis, who picked off two of Freeman’s passes and finished with 15 tackles. “I missed like four tackles on him. He was incredibly hard to bring down.”
The Sooners figured out a way to avoid the Freeman dilema late in the first half.
Taking a 35-28 lead on DeMarco Murray’s 10-yard touchdown catch, OU caught fire.
The defense forced a fumble to set up Bradford’s 29-yard touchdown pass to Jermaine Gresham. Dominique Franks picked off another pass to set up a 4-yard touchdown run by Murray. Ryan Broyles capped the incredible spurt with a 68-yard punt return for a touchdown with 1:23 left until halftime.
The Wildcats (4-4) had nothing close to a fitting retort.
“I believe national championship teams or national championship caliber teams, like they are, answer the way they answered,” Kansas State coach Ron Prince said. “When you do something positive, they came right back out and they played some of their most physical football at 28-28. There was no question, no doubt left as to who is the more physical football team at 28-28.”
It’s hard to believe a 60-minute football game basically came down to 6 minutes. But it did.
Everything else had an equal and opposite reaction.
Kansas State moved the ball and scored points. Bradford didn’t have his best day, but Chris Brown and DeMarco Murray had theirs. Both rushed for 100 yards and combined for 246 and three touchdowns.
Both defenses had afternoons that will make them cringe when the game tape rolls today. But OU had the second half of the second quarter as a barometer for how good it can be when all pistons fire.
“After it was tied our guys really responded and came up with some key turnovers. The offense clicked, moved the football and scored points,” OU coach Bob Stoops said. “The end of the half we really had a flurry that really separated us.”
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
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