The No. 17 Sooners, returning to their friendly confines of Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, made quick work of the Mountaineers in a 59-20 victory on Saturday night before a crowd of 83,525.
“I didn’t do a good enough job of putting our guys in a position (to succeed),” WVU head coach Neal Brown said. “OU spread us out and made it a 1-on-1 game. We missed tackles on the second and third levels.”
While WVU won consecutive games over UCF and BYU to clinch its third bowl of the Brown Era, OU lost close road games – first to Kansas (its first setback against the Jayhawks in 26 years), followed by a bitter loss to cross-state rival Oklahoma State, to all but remove itself from College Football Playoff contention.
“We played our best football the past two weeks,” Brown said. “To win games like these, you have to make tough plays. We scored on our first drive, but we didn’t (really) get in their way on their opening drive.”
WVU (6-4, 4-3 Big 12) scored on its first possession for the third consecutive game on CJ Donaldson’s 10th touchdown run of the season. Donaldson finished with a team-high 79 yards. But the Sooners (8-2, 5-2) responded with 31 unanswered points en route to a 31-14 halftime lead.
After the Sooners went ahead 14-7 on the second of Dillon Gabriel’s school-record eight touchdowns, OU fumbled on a punt return, creating an opportunity for the Mountaineers.
WVU couldn’t capitalize, with Michael Hayes missing a 47-yard field goal. The momentum resulted in a 10-point swing. Instead of a potential 14-14 game, the Sooners led 17-7.
“That was disappointing,” Brown said. “That was kind of the night in a nutshell.”
The Mountaineers also took a fourth-and-two gamble at their own 46-yard line that ultimately led to a 3-yard touchdown pass from Gabriel to Austin Stogner.
Junior quarterback Garrett Greene remains on track to surpass 2,000 passing yards this season, and Donaldson moved up from 24th to 19th for WVU career rushing touchdowns with 18.
Greene connected on his 11th and 12 touchdown passes of the season to Kole Taylor (fourth touchdown) and Devin Carter (second touchdown), but he also threw his third interception of the season to OU’s Reggie Pearson. The pick came at a time when WVU was hoping to cut the Sooner lead to 10 or 11 points.
Instead, OU jumped out to a 52-20 lead after a pair of 9-yard touchdown passes from Gabriel to Drake Stoops, who finished with a career-high 10 receptions for 164 yards and three touchdowns.
OU has scored 50 or more points in seven of their 15 matchups against WVU. The Sooners scored 59 points for the third time in the series – their highest output against WVU. OU’s 39-point margin of victory was its highest against the Mountaineers since a 52-10 Sooner win in 1978.
The Mountaineers return to Morgantown for Senior Day on Saturday. They’ll host Cincinnati (3-7, 1-6), which earned its first Big 12 Conference victory on Saturday vs. fellow conference newcomer, Houston, 24-14.
This will be the first matchup between the Bearcats and Mountaineers since 2011 (a 24-21 WVU victory) when both teams were members of the Big East Conference. The Mountaineers lead the all-time series, 16-3-1.
BY MICHAEL SUDHALTER
