John Shinn
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Miss two field goals and give up kickoff return for a touchdown in any other year and Oklahoma might have been lucky to escape Kyle Field with a victory.
Saturday, however, the Sooners thrived, routing Texas A&M; 66-28.
OU coach Bob Stoops didn’t seem amazed by his team’s third straight romp, but he was impressed.
“I think it’s the team. It isn’t just the offense, it’s all of it together,” he said.
Sam Bradford threw for 320 yards and four touchdowns. DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown ran for more than 100 yards and seven different Sooners found the end zone in what could aptly be described as OU’s best performance of the season.
It couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s late in the year and about 20 teams are jockeying to position themselves for BCS bowl bids. About a dozen still have national title aspirations.
All of them are doing their best to impress voters and computers.
“We know at the end of the season, we have to have impressive wins,” said wide receiver Ryan Broyles, who had five catches for 91 yards. “That’s what we were looking for.”
Kyle Field has typically been a place where the Sooners think more about survival than style. In their previous four games there, all had been decided by seven points or less with one a loss.
The venue is considered one of the most dangerous snake pits in college football. It’s cement walls are lined with teams whose conference and national title aspirations died on its turf.
But as the fourth quarter began, Stoops was thinking about how much to pull back on the reins.
The sixth-ranked Sooners (9-1, 5-1 Big 12) did just about anything they wanted earlier. They took a little over 15 minutes to grab a 28-0 lead. They moved the ball any way they pleased. OU’s 653 total yards were split almost equally between running and passing.
“It was another one of those deals where everything we did was right, we got in a rhythm and everything was clicking,” Bradford said. “We were pretty balanced between run and pass. It was hard for that defense to figure out which one they wanted to stop.”
Texas A&M; (4-6, 2-4) seemed to pick neither. The Aggies entered their final home game trying to turn around a disappointing season. They made steps in that direction with back-to-back wins over Iowa State and Colorado.
“It’s a little bit of a difference there,” Texas A&M; coach Mike Sherman admitted. “Have to be honest with ourselves. Oklahoma’s at a level where we want to be. We want to get there, but we weren’t today.”
OU was trying to prove that no one else is.
It was running through Stoops’ mind when cornerback Dominique Franks returned a fumble for a touchdown with more than 3 minutes left in the third quarter to put the Sooners up 66-21.
His team was putting together a very impressive victory at a place visiting teams often perish. Go for more to really give the voters something to chew on?
“There’s still sportsmanship issues that you do your best to handle. I think that’s still important,” Stoops said. “We played through three quarters and then let it go. We had 66 points. You just have to choose sportsmanship over, I guess, BCS points. To me, I still think that’s the right way to play.”
OU will find out this afternoon when the BCS rankings are released. It will move up at least one spot with No. 3 Penn State losing to Iowa. No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Texas Tech are still undefeated.
Beyond that, it’s a beauty contest. OU did plenty to show it belongs on the stage with any team.
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com
