Deja vu all over again

After its Big 12 win, Oklahoma is likely to play in the National Championship.

By Lenny Goldman

Published Dec. 7, 2008

KANSAS CITY — With the national spotlight shining bright, Oklahoma entered Missouri’s home state and bullied the Tigers in the Big 12 Championship game.

The Sooners took much more than Missouri’s lunch money. This was a swirlee dunking, atomic wedgie-yanking and locker-jamming whalloping.

The 62-21 final score, however, hides the early moments of the game, when Missouri had two opportunities to take control.

The Missouri defense, which entered Saturday night’s game ranked No. 116 against the pass, forced Oklahoma’s No. 1 scoring offense to a field goal on its opening possession.

After moving down the field with energy, the Missouri offense was stopped on third down and forced to attempt a field goal of its own. Senior kicker Jeff Wolfert didn’t have the leg to hit the 47-yard attempt.

“The first drive we got the run game going and the pass game going, but we missed a field goal and that hurts because the offense is moving the ball we can’t get points out of it,” sophomore tailback Derrick Washington said.

But once again, the Missouri defense, which had been railed for its shaky performance against Kansas last week, came up huge and forced the Sooners to go three-and-out on its next possession.

Even with the help of a shanked punt and personal foul penalty, the Tiger offense failed yet again to put points up on the board and was forced to punt.

From that point on Oklahoma’s offense never looked back. The Sooners drove methodically down the field and took a 10-0 advantage when junior running back Chris Brown rushed in for a four-yard touchdown.

With its back against the wall Missouri responded with a touchdown drive of its own. Thanks to a little good fortune.

On third-and-2 from Oklahoma’s 22-yard line, the Tigers ran a trick play. They lined up with only a center and two guards. The rest of the line was offset wide to the right. Sophomore tailback Derrick Washington caught a screen pass and didn't convert the third down, but luckily for the Tigers, they were flagged for illegal formation.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops decided to accept the penalty and gave Missouri another third down opportunity. This time Daniel found sophomore wide receiver Jeremy Maclin for a 27-yard slant that he took to the house.

The Sooner’s offense continued to roll as sophomore quarterback Sam Bradford threw his first touchdown of the game to give Oklahoma a 17-7 advantage on the following drive.

At that point it became clear that Missouri would have to beat Oklahoma in a shoot out, but turnovers didn’t allow that to happen.

On the Tiger’s first play of the next drive Daniel scrambled for one yard before fumbling the ball for the second week in a row.

“We can’t turn the ball over against a great team like that,” Washington said. “They didn’t come out and have any turnovers. We turned the ball over and they put up 14 points from that and we couldn’t come back.”

The Tigers didn’t score again in the first half. In the meantime, Oklahoma made four more visits to the endzone giving it a 38-7 advantage at halftime.

“You got to obviously play better defense against the best offense I’ve ever seen,” coach Gary Pinkel said. “And certainly when we play these guys you got to match them score-wise.”

Both teams coasted through the second half. After an Oklahoma field goal, Missouri eventually reached the endzone again when Daniel hit senior wide receiver Tommy Saunders for a nine-yard touchdown pass. The strike was simply too little too late as the Tigers trailed 41-14 with just under four minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Oklahoma continued to strike, adding 21 more points until time ran out and rescued a bruised Missouri team.