Jalen Saunders and Oklahoma barely escaped the jaws of defeat at West Virginia. (Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE)
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Oklahoma’s Landry Jones hit wide receiver Kenny Stills with his sixth touchdown pass of the game, and fourth to Stills, with 0:24 left to lift the Sooners to a thrilling 50-49 victory over West Virginia, overcoming one of the greatest all-around performances in Big 12 history by the Mountaineers’ Tavon Austin.
The nation’s leading receiver with 96 receptions entering the game, Austin was moved to running back by coach Dana Holgorsen in a surprise decision.
Displaying an amazing array of moves reminiscent of his high school days at Dunbar in Baltimore, Md., when he accounted for more than 9,000 all-purpose yards, Austin rushed for 344 yards, a WVU school record, while catching four passes for 82 yards and returning seven kicks for 142 yards.
That’s a Big 12 and school record 572 all-purpose yards but it wasn’t enough as Jones broke his own Oklahoma school record with 554 passing yards.
“Obviously, we weren’t ready for it. It did really mess us up what we were doing and how we needed to play. It’s something we’ll have to dissect tomorrow and see what our answers could be to make improvement — we need to,” Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said.
Early in the week, asked if he might consider moving Austin, Holgorsen hedged with his answer.
“I wish we could clone him and put three of him out there,” he said. “We have obviously felt like he is a pretty good inside receiver, and it has always been the thing on what can we do to get the ball in his hands.”
But when the game started, Austin, with 96 receptions for 968 yards, was at running back and put on a display of moves that mystified Oklahoma, which improved to 8-2 and 6-1 in the Big 12.
It was an unselfish move for Austin to move to running back, as he is a finalist for the Biletnikof Award, which goes to the nation’s top receiver.
“I had said a couple of things to Coach Holgorsen and the coaching staff about putting me back there a couple of times,” Austin said. “I didn’t think I was going to get it 21 times. I always told them that’s what I did in high school and I still have it a little bit.”
Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones had a spectacular game, completing 38 of 53 passes.
“He made great throws at important times and the receivers — again, I’m so pleased about them,” Stoops said.
In the end, WVU finished the game with 778 total yards … and another loss.
“They made one more play than we did,” said a distraught Holgorsen. “The kids played hard. How many losses like this do we have to go through? I don’t know. We’ve got two games left. Hopefully, we can get back out there and get to work and try to come up with a couple of wins. It’s a tough loss, but we have to regroup.”
The game came down to the fourth quarter, a spectacular finish that saw West Virginia score 19 points but give up 12, which were just enough to lose the game.
The shame was that quarterback Geno Smith, who had his struggles early, eventually found himself with three touchdown passes of 4, 8 and 33 yards to Stedman Bailey in that final period.
The last one, a beautiful pass and catch that covered 40 yards, put WVU up with 2:53 to go and needing only one stop.
Fat chance.
First the special teams melted down and allowed the Sooners to return the kickoff 46 yards to the OU 46. Jones then completed a pass to Stills for 6 yards, one to Justin Brown for 36, another to Brown for 10, and he then capped it with a 5-yard throw to Stills for the winning score with 24 seconds left.
WVU tried to recover but a Hail Mary pass from Smith to Ryan Nehlen as time ran out was incomplete.
NOTES: This was Oklahoma’s first trip to West Virginia … WVU coach Dana Holgorsen invited a number of former players to address his slumping team before the game, including former quarterback Pat White and former defensive end Bruce Irvin, a first-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks in last year’s NFL draft … Entering the Oklahoma game, WVU wide receivers Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey had accounted for more than 1,000 yards after the catch. Austin had 591 of his 968 yards after the catch and Bailey had 436 of his 1,055 yards after catching the ball … Oklahoma QB Landry Jones moved into second place in the Big 12 and fifth place in NCAA history as he went over 15,000 career passing yards … Jones also became the third QB in FBS history to throw for at least 3,000 yards in four straight seasons. The others were Timmy Chang of Hawaii and Kellen Moore of Boise State.
