Oklahoma 17 LSU 14
Imagine a drunken sailor behind the wheel of a beat-up pick up held together with bailing wire — and then watch him win the Daytona 500.
I don’t know what else to say about this Oklahoma Sooners football team, the team that came from behind and defeated LSU tonight 17-14 to punch its ticket to the College Football Playoffs.
It was a crazy ending to an improbable 10-win regular season.
The Sooners were behind 13-10 with only 4:13 left in the game, when QB John Mateer found Isaiah Sategna wide open downfield — as if the LSU secondary had a shock of dementia after an unexpected fireworks show from OU Ruf/Neks at the close of the third quarter and forgot to shadow the Sooners’ best player — and heaved an arching pass his way.
Sategna caught it, then scampered untouched to the end zone to give Oklahoma a 17-14 lead in the waning minutes of the game.
The stellar Oklahoma defense, which had done its usual suffocating job on the Tigers most of the night, closed out LSU’s last possession on downs, batting away Tiger QB Michael Van Burn Jr.’s last chance pass and allowing the OU “victory” formation to end the game.
The Sooners’ win, which appeared in doubt for almost the entire game, was as improbable as the season.
Who back in August would have thought the Sooners would win 10 games of a schedule that national college football pundits always characterized as a “gauntlet” (defined by Websters as “a military punishment of receiving blows while running between two rows of men with sticks.”)?
Well, I can answer that. It was the same people who thought the Sooners were going to score in the waning minutes of this game and win. In other words, every player on the Oklahoma team.
“Just a group full of misfits. And they believe, and they’re kinda grimy, and they like it,” Coach Brent Venables said after the game
There is something different about this bunch wearing crimson and cream.
While fans, frozen by the norther that swooped across the prairie earlier, were resigning themselves to a post season game in the Poulan Weed Eater bowl if the Sooners lost to LSU, there did not appear to be any doubt coming from the Sooners players.
Maybe it is because they have grown accustomed to winning unlikely victories in improbable ways. It happened against Tennessee. It happened at Alabama.
In fact, this win over LSU was the first time the Sooners have outgained an opponent (393 to 198 yards) in four straight wins.
I just wish they would do it without an offense that resembles a beat up ’58 Chevy with transmission problems. I’d be satisfied with a ’90 Buick Regal with new tires.
The Sooners offense could not run, could not throw, could not catch and could not avoid penalties for most of the night.
Oklahoma rushed for only 75 yards. Mateer ended up 23 of 38 for 318 passing yards, but it was his three interceptions that put the Sooners win at risk.
Of course the defense was like the prince at the ball. They were great. They held LSU to 198 total yards. LSU converted only two of 14 third downs.
But, eventually, Mateer and his offense put on a Cinderella slipper and became the post-game talk of the ball, with Mateer throwing a brilliant tunnel screen pass to Deion Burks for a 45 yard TD that tied the game 10-10 in the third quarter, and then making the game-winning pass to Sategna late in the fourth.
Sategna now has 65 catches for 948 yards and seven TDs for the season.
At halftime, linebacker Kip Lewis had called out Mateer and told him he had to will the Sooners to a win.
“He hit me in the chest and said, ‘you gotta do it.’ When Kip says something, you listen,” Mateer said.
I left the stadium scratching my head wondering what on earth I had just seen. Not just this November day, but this entire season.
Does Oklahoma belong in the college football playoffs, with a feeble offense that manages to look spectacular only three plays out of every 30? Probably not.
But who the heck cares about probabilities any more? The Sooners don’t.
And yes, I know it has become a cliche, but if at any time Saturday night the words “Sooner Magic” crossed your mind, then welcome to the masses.
“There’s not a whole lot to really write about on the stat sheet, other than that score,” Venables said.
Well, in the end (as Bob Stoops would say), that’s all that matters.
Meanwhile, the Sooners will patch the tire, fill up with gas and head to the next race in the College Football Playoffs.
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