Kyler Murray and the Sooners have been on a roll, but that ended in Austin on Saturday.
No one has ever mistaken the Big 12 for a defensive conference, and Saturday was textbook. The Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma is usually entertaining but this year’s showdown had all the makings of an instant classic.
Saturday felt cathartic for the Longhorns, as though a decade worth of frustration came to a head. Once Texas hit its speed, the wires were torn out of the dashboard and the car never slowed down.
There will be a lot said about the Longhorns and what this means next for them, but let’s address Oklahoma for a moment. Many will see this as the first game Kyler Murray didn’t look spectacular — even though he kind of did.
Despite not having a video game day like Heisman competitor Tua Tagovailoa, Murray threw for four touchdowns and over 300 yards. He orchestrated an offensive attack, on the road in a rivalry game, where the Sooners scored 38-points.
This was entirely on Oklahoma’s defense, which mostly forgot to show up. Coming into Saturday, the unit as a whole was ranked 90th in the country in total defense and that showed against Texas. The Longhorns offense struggled to beat Kansas State last week, scoring less than three touchdowns in a narrow victory but hung almost half a hundred on Oklahoma in the program’s highest-scoring game of the season.
Nothing about the Sooners defense was good in Austin. With the game on the line and the ball with Texas, the defense committed a brutal pass interference that advanced the Longhorns down the field, kept the clock ticking, and helped set up a game-winning field goal.
This shouldn’t shock anyone who has been paying attention to the Sooners this season. Lest we forget this team almost lost to Army, something that was explained away by stans who claimed it was Army’s weird offensive schemes that threw the Sooners. An average of nearly 30-points allowed per game begs to differ on that. Allowing Sam Ehlinger to look like Colt McCoy, and barfing up almost 200 yards o the ground beg to differ as well. That’s the defense Oklahoma brought to Austin and it’s shouldn’t be stunning that it got boom-roasted in a rivalry game.
Do not for a moment try and put this loss on Murray. He everything himself, including rushing for almost 100 yards in addition to his air raid performance. This game would have been a bloodbath had it not been for Murray rallying the Sooners back in the fourth quarter. The only reason there was a sliver of hope for Oklahoma on the final drive of the game was Murray. Had he led the Sooners back, with the type of defensive support he received, he should have been given the Heisman on the spot.
Things were looking so great for the Sooners, with a Heisman contender at quarterback as they slowly took over national conversation. Now we’re going to spend a week trying to figure out ways they can still make the College Football season as the defense picks up pieces with no real sign that things will get better.
None of that is on Kyler Murray.