milesl
9/13/2015, 11:22 AM
http://newsok.com/tramel-sooners-stun-tennessee-in-victory-stoops-calls-maybe-my-favorite/article/5446561
Watch the video from the above url. Barry Tramel always looks like he has been hitting the bong throughout the game.
http://cdn2.newsok.biz/cache/w620-n_61942bddf20e475a35ca58d803b8f8b2.jpg
U head coach Bob Stoops celebrates with Joe Mixon (25) and Samaje Perine (32) after the college football game between the Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015. OU won 31-24 in double overtime. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Bob Stoops hugged Baker Mayfield. Joe Castiglione hugged Trevor Knight. Everyone in crimson hugged each other. Here on the Tennessee River and back home, where the win didn't come sweeping down anywhere.
Oklahoma beat Tennessee 31-24 Saturday night in overtime, and this win scratched and clung and clawed and gritted and fought. The Sooners won this game not because they refused to lose, but because they refused to quit.
In a victory that spawned a celebration that trumps anything I remember since the Florida State Orange Bowl, the Sooners found something that was missing in 2014. Toughness. Out and out toughness.
Tennessee dominated three quarters of this game, led 17-3 and Neyland Stadium was ready to explode. The old stadium, packed to the brim with 102,455, was roaring all night as the Volunteers anticipated their first monumental win in years.
The Sooners seemed dead. Doornail dead. Not only merely dead but really most sincerely dead. But things are not always as they seem.
Down 17-3 at halftime, the Sooners didn't so much as make a first down in the third quarter. But the defense hung in, then the offense found life in the fourth quarter. Touchdown drives of 15 and 13 plays, both of which took between five and six minutes. OU converted eight third downs on those two drives alone.
Mayfield wasn't efficient but was as gritty as any Sooner quarterback has ever been. He was under siege all night by Tennessee's defense but scrambled like Fran Tarkenton and ran like Tim Tebow. Mayfield's toughness was the primary reason the Sooners stayed alive.
Then in overtime, OU kept scoring. A fourth-down keeper by Mayfield to force a second overtime, an 18-yard Mayfield-to-Sterling Shepard score and a Zach Sanchez interception. And as the air went out of Neyland Stadium, its ancient turf was engulfed with celebrating Sooners.
Stoops called it “maybe my favorite” of his all many victories. “A little Sooner Magic came out. Like we were back at (Texas) A&M in 2000, when we made some plays. I felt that way tonight.”
Stoops told his players the same in the locker room, “and that's saying something,” said center Ty Darlington.
And suddenly, 2014 seems far away. That OU team that appeared to quit against Baylor and Clemson, was not the OU team that refused to quit against Tennessee.
“The biggest thing coming off last year was mindset,” said tailback Samaje Perine, who ran tougher the longer the game went and made a nifty third-down catch for the touchdown that finally got the OU floodgates opened. Perine admitted the '14 Sooners gave up at times, and “we wanted to start a new identity, that it was very important to stay in the game. We just stuck around and kept at it.”
Stuck around, and things came around. And now the Sooners have time to grow and work on all the things that went wrong in Neyland Stadium, knowing they can always rely on the thing that went right.
Berry Tramel:
Watch the video from the above url. Barry Tramel always looks like he has been hitting the bong throughout the game.
http://cdn2.newsok.biz/cache/w620-n_61942bddf20e475a35ca58d803b8f8b2.jpg
U head coach Bob Stoops celebrates with Joe Mixon (25) and Samaje Perine (32) after the college football game between the Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015. OU won 31-24 in double overtime. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Bob Stoops hugged Baker Mayfield. Joe Castiglione hugged Trevor Knight. Everyone in crimson hugged each other. Here on the Tennessee River and back home, where the win didn't come sweeping down anywhere.
Oklahoma beat Tennessee 31-24 Saturday night in overtime, and this win scratched and clung and clawed and gritted and fought. The Sooners won this game not because they refused to lose, but because they refused to quit.
In a victory that spawned a celebration that trumps anything I remember since the Florida State Orange Bowl, the Sooners found something that was missing in 2014. Toughness. Out and out toughness.
Tennessee dominated three quarters of this game, led 17-3 and Neyland Stadium was ready to explode. The old stadium, packed to the brim with 102,455, was roaring all night as the Volunteers anticipated their first monumental win in years.
The Sooners seemed dead. Doornail dead. Not only merely dead but really most sincerely dead. But things are not always as they seem.
Down 17-3 at halftime, the Sooners didn't so much as make a first down in the third quarter. But the defense hung in, then the offense found life in the fourth quarter. Touchdown drives of 15 and 13 plays, both of which took between five and six minutes. OU converted eight third downs on those two drives alone.
Mayfield wasn't efficient but was as gritty as any Sooner quarterback has ever been. He was under siege all night by Tennessee's defense but scrambled like Fran Tarkenton and ran like Tim Tebow. Mayfield's toughness was the primary reason the Sooners stayed alive.
Then in overtime, OU kept scoring. A fourth-down keeper by Mayfield to force a second overtime, an 18-yard Mayfield-to-Sterling Shepard score and a Zach Sanchez interception. And as the air went out of Neyland Stadium, its ancient turf was engulfed with celebrating Sooners.
Stoops called it “maybe my favorite” of his all many victories. “A little Sooner Magic came out. Like we were back at (Texas) A&M in 2000, when we made some plays. I felt that way tonight.”
Stoops told his players the same in the locker room, “and that's saying something,” said center Ty Darlington.
And suddenly, 2014 seems far away. That OU team that appeared to quit against Baylor and Clemson, was not the OU team that refused to quit against Tennessee.
“The biggest thing coming off last year was mindset,” said tailback Samaje Perine, who ran tougher the longer the game went and made a nifty third-down catch for the touchdown that finally got the OU floodgates opened. Perine admitted the '14 Sooners gave up at times, and “we wanted to start a new identity, that it was very important to stay in the game. We just stuck around and kept at it.”
Stuck around, and things came around. And now the Sooners have time to grow and work on all the things that went wrong in Neyland Stadium, knowing they can always rely on the thing that went right.
Berry Tramel: