Oklahoma Sooners Outlast West Virginia Mountaineers In Defense Optional Showdown

In what ended up one of the craziest time slots college football had seen in a long time, the Oklahoma Sooners survived a 50-49 win in Morgantown against the West Virginia Mountaineers. At the beginning of the season, this game was hyped up as one of the biggest the Big XII would see this season. It ended up being that and then some.

Two players stand out as being the only highlights from Saturday night and if you missed it, you missed out: Oklahoma’s QB Landry Jones and Mountaineers RB Tavon Austin. He isn’t a RB you say? Could have fooled me, Austin had 344 yards on the ground on just 21 carries with two rushing touchdowns. Austin also had almost 100 yards receiving.

Head ‘Eers coach Dana Holgorsen clearly paid attention to the game film from the Oklahoma game the week before and saw how poorly the rush defense played. Moving one of the best WR on the roster to RB and completely shredding the Sooners defense? Completely genius move.

Some are saying the Tavon Austin is the best WR in the country and if you watched his performance last night, it would be hard to argue that he was actually not the best PLAYER in the country.

A lot of Sooner fans have been all over QB Landry Jones all season, complaining that he has been the problem all year long. In case you haven’t noticed, Jones hasn’t had a terrible game in weeks. He had 554 yards, five touchdowns and one interception Saturday night.

The defense not being able to stop the run has been the issue, Jones doesn’t play defense so let’s get away from putting blame on him. If you have watched Jones for any amount of time in his career, you should expect a couple hiccup-plays every game. It’s in his DNA, that’s just the QB he is: a very good QB with flaws. Jones stepped up Saturday night, especially that last play of the game. Oklahoma won because of him. It’s time for some people to point their fingers elsewhere.

Both teams combined had 1440 yards, and Oklahoma allowed 778. This is the most the program has ever allowed. This game came down to the Mountaineers not being able to stop Jones and the Sooners not being able to stop Austin. Oklahoma just came out on top.

The Sooners are now in Bedlam week, facing a team that is chomping at the bit to let their stud running back run all over that Oklahoma’s defense.

To see a Mountaineer perspective on Saturday night’s showdown, continue reading the reaction here.