There was an impromptu halftime ceremony to honor Saturday’s 58-23 victory over Oklahoma State and the program’s ninth Big 12 Conference championship.
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“It was hard to do, but that’s why coach Stoops is great”, center Ty Darlington said. “Now, hopefully and probably, there’s a bigger piece of cake out there that we have to go after”. For Big 12 fans with ongoing playoff angst, 2015 marks a different year, with a different team, facing a different set of circumstances.
– They lacked a running game. The Bulldogs finished 9-3 this season but lost the three games that mattered to fans: Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. The Sooners were coming off a disappointing 8-5 season that included a season-ending 34-point loss to Clemson in the Russell Athletic Bowl. An aspect of the Sooners’ Big 12 championship is that it started as a four-way race between TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma State and the Sooners. The loss ended Notre Dame’s bid for a berth in the College Football Playoff and kept Stanford’s slim hopes alive. Next: Iowa in a winner-take-all Big Ten championship game Saturday in Indianapolis. The Sooners made a first down or scored a touchdown on nine of those plays.
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While the Sooners are likely heading to the playoff, Oklahoma State (10-2, 7-2) is likely headed to either the Alamo Bowl or Russell Athletic Bowl.
Rudolph limped at times last week against Baylor, when he threw for 430 yards and three touchdowns.
Baker Mayfield, the Oklahoma Sooners star quarterback, is dating Baillee Burmaster, who happens to be a senior on the Oklahoma State soccer team.
Rudolph has passed for 3,591 yards this season, the third-most in Oklahoma State history, and has thrown 21 touchdown passes and just nine interceptions. In the first half, OSU ran seven plays with only the quarterback in the backfield. – Derrick Henry ran 46 times for 271 yards and Adam Griffith kicked five field goals to propel Alabama (11-1) to the Southeastern Conference West title.
“Credit them”, Spencer said.
Oklahoma made its final case with a huge offensive night, with Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon combining to rush for 267 yards and four touchdowns, a solid performance by quarterback Baker Mayfield and 10 catches – one for a touchdown – by receiver Sterling Shepard.
-Perine had a carry in the 4th quarter that put him over 3,000 rushing yards for his career in only 472 attempts, making him the fastest among any running back in Stoops era (Peterson next with 550). When you go up by nearly 30 in the second quarter, the run game pretty much comes off the menu.
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NOTES: Ben Grogan’s first-quarter field goal was the first since October 10 for Oklahoma State’s kicker. Since that increasingly head-scratching October 10 loss to Texas, the Sooners have beaten opponents by an average margin of 32.6 points.
