NORMAN — If Oklahoma and West Virginia played Xbox football a year ago, Saturday night was 5-year-old twin brothers wrestling over possession of the console.
The Sooners, trying to break in a different way of offense with a struggling freshman quarterback, stumbled around Owen Field. Trevor Knight threw back-to-back interceptions and lost a fumble. OU turned the ball over four times.
It got so bad that Blake Bell replaced Knight for the fourth quarter to protect the Sooners’ slim margin. That mostly meant handing to Brennan Clay on a night the senior setback rushed for a career-high 170 yards.
The Mountaineers, one year after Tavon Austin, Geno Smith and Stedman Bailey, were even worse offensively. It was easy tackling for OU’s defense after one early poor play.
And so the margin held up. OU prevailed 16-7 to go 2-0 on the season and 1-0 in the Big 12 Conference. The Sooners host Tulsa next Saturday, then take a week off before playing Notre Dame, TCU and Texas on consecutive Saturdays.
They might be undefeated looking back, but have obvious issues moving forward, starting at quarterback.
Knight was 10-of-20 for 119 yards overall, but had more interceptions (2) than completions (1) in the third quarter. The decision to yank him?
“I was talking to Josh (Heupel, OU’s offensive coordinator),” coach Bob Stoops said. “This was a tight competition. I just feel things weren’t quite as good as they need to be in the throwing game, so we wanted to give (Bell) his chance.”
That sort of happened. Bell threw just one pass, missing Clay on a screen.
“At that point of the game, the clock is the enemy,” Stoops said of the conservative play calls. ”You don’t mess with the football gods.”
Did Bell do enough to warrant a permanent change?
“That’ll be something we discuss,” Stoops said. “I’m not gonna detail it, but that’ll be something we need to talk through.”
Could Kendal Thompson, the sophomore injured at the start of OU’s preseason camp, reenter the race, assuming it’s on again?
“He was running around throwing the ball this week, but not in full uniform,” Stoops said. “He’s getting closer. I’m gonna say hopefully maybe after the off week (which would be the week of the Notre Dame game). The trainers may scold me for saying that. I’m not sure on that.”
Until the quarterback position becomes more certain, regardless of who plays it, the Sooners will take whatever help they can get. West Virginia (1-1, 0-1) provided quite a bit Saturday night.
The Mountaineers made one play reminiscent of last year’s 49-point outburst against OU, when Dreamius Smith took a mid-first quarter hand off, broke three tackles and outran the pursuit for a 75-yard touchdown.
From there, the Sooners tightened up defensively. West Virginia fouled up on both offense and special teams.
The Mountaineers roughed OU punter Jed Barnett to set up Michael Hunnicutt’s 44-yard field goal, bringing the Sooners within 7-3 with 4:22 left in the first quarter.
The Mountaineers muffed another Barnett punt, allowing Trey Franks a recovery and the struggling OU offense a short field early in the second quarter. Knight capped the 32-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown pass to the sliding Trey Millard, and OU was up 10-7.
West Virginia quarterback Paul Millard (21-of-41 for 218 yards, 1 interception) noodle-armed a third-down pass, giving the Sooners possession late in the first half. Knight found Jalen Saunders three times along an 83-yard drive to Hunnicutt’s 21-yard field goal. It was 13-7 at the half, but about to get ugly for Knight and his offense.
The Sooners went three-and-out on their first series of the third quarter. Then Knight threw interceptions to kill drives at the West Virginia 20- and 15-yard lines. At that point, OU tied his arm behind his back and tried to grind out the game with Bell on in reserve.
That allowed OU to pile up 316 rushing yards. Damien Williams ran 21 times for 95 yards. Bell added 21 yards, even, on a pair of runs. Hunnicutt added a 32-yard field goal with 10:16 to play, before missing from 35 with just over a minute remaining.
The Mountaineers’ second half possessions, in order: three-and-out, interception, fumble, three-and-out, three-and-out, turnover on downs and end of game.
QUARTER BREAKDOWN
First quarter
West Virginia 7 — 7
Oklahoma 3 — 3
Key play: Dreamius Smith forced a lot of missed tackles to put the Mountaineers on the scoreboard first. His 75-yard run was the longest surrendered by the Sooners since West Virginia’s Tavon Austin had a 74-yard run in the 2012 game.
Key stat: 33. Percentage of first-quarter passes completed by Trevor Knight (3-of-9 for 24 yards).
Number to know: 2. West Virginia had two critical special teams miscues to give the Sooners momentum. The first was a roughing-the-punter penalty that extended a scoring drive that ended with a field goal. The second was a muffed punt that set OU up at the West Virginia 32.
Second quarter
West Virginia 7 0 — 7
Oklahoma 3 10 — 13
Key play: Trevor Knight completed the longest pass of his career — a 32-yard completion to Lacoltan Bester — but the play ended with Bester’s fumble and Mountaineers recovery at the WVU 18.
Key stat: 5. The Mountaineers only had five first downs in the first half against the OU defense.
Number to know: 93.6. Percentage of games won by Oklahoma when leading at halftime (133-9).
Third quarter
West Virginia 7 0 0 — 7
Oklahoma 3 10 0 — 13
Key play: The Sooners waste 60 rushing yards by Brennan Clay on one drive when Trevor Knight throws an interception in the end zone on first-and-goal from the 5-yard line.
Key stat: Trevor Knight was only 1-of-5 passing for six yards in the third quarter.
Number to know: 4. Oklahoma and West Virginia have eight combined turnovers, which was the most in an OU football game since the 2011 Iowa State game when the Sooners and Cyclones had four turnovers each.
Fourth quarter
West Virginia 7 0 0 0 — 7
Oklahoma 3 10 0 3 — 16
Key play: Blake Bell, looking to provide a lift for the offense, entered the game in the fourth quarter and scrambled 15 yards for a first down.
Key stat: Brennan Clay raced for a career-high 170 yards for the Sooners, anchoring a rushing attack that finished with 316 yards.
Number to know: 3. Third-down conversions by West Virginia. The Mountaineers finished 3-of-13, one week after Louisiana-Monroe was 2-of-16.
OU
The final two games are May 16 and 17 at ONEOK Field in Tulsa. Each of the Tulsa starts are at 7 p.m.
