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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
NORMAN, Okla. — Two weeks after becoming a prime playoff contender with a 34-30 win over No. 3 Texas, No. 6 Oklahoma nearly stumbled in its first game back after a bye week.
The Sooners were taken to the brink Saturday by UCF, a 17-point underdog, but linebacker Danny Stutsman stopped Knights receiver Xavier Townsend on a 2-point conversion attempt with 1 minute, 16 seconds left to preserve a 31-29 win.
“We were fortunate to win the game,” Sooners coach Brent Venables said. “We made enough mistakes today to lose, Captain Obvious here, but we’re able to overcome it.”
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Oklahoma had trailed for about 12 minutes all season entering Saturday’s game, the fewest in the country. On Saturday, UCF led for 21:09 before the Sooners took the lead for good with 9:16 left in the fourth quarter on Drake Stoops’ 11-yard touchdown catch from Dillon Gabriel.
“I love going in on Monday after winning and I get to yell at some guys,” Venables joked. “We’ve got a lot of yelling to do.”
Venables has plenty of reasons to be frustrated. Sooners kicker Zach Schmit missed two first-quarter field goals, from 38 and 43 yards. Until the second quarter, UCF had the ball for 6:40 and had just 22 yards to show for it. Then Knights running back RJ Harvey broke loose on a 54-yard run, down to the Oklahoma goal line, where the Sooners stuffed UCF on three plays — similar to a big stand the Sooners had against Texas.
But Sooners linebacker Jared Kanak was called for taunting, giving the Knights a first down. Quarterback John Rhys Plumlee scored from 1 yard out on the next play, tying the score at 7-7.
Of UCF’s 232 first-half yards, 163 came on three plays: Harvey’s 54-yard run, a 23-yard pass to Kobe Hudson and an 86-yard touchdown pass from Plumlee to Javon Baker in which Baker blew a kiss to the Oklahoma sideline during his run.
“It had all the makings of being a dominant performance on defense,” Venables said. “And it wasn’t. So we got punished for making some mistakes.”
Dillon Gabriel, who played at UCF for three seasons before transferring to Oklahoma last year, finished 25-of-38 for 253 yards with three touchdowns and an interception. But the Sooners leaned on the run game late. They threw for just 84 yards in the second half while running for 132, an average of 4.9 yards per carry, as they methodically took back the game.
The Oklahoma defense finished with seven quarterback hurries and 13 tackles for loss, including Stutsman’s tackle on the 2-point conversion to seal the win.
It was the first time in Venables’ tenure as head coach that the Sooners won after trailing at halftime (they were 0-4 last season in such games).
“As the game wore on, to me, our competitive depth showed up, just a little bit,” Venables said.
Venables said he has been on plenty of championship teams that had to gut out games like these, adding that the ugly wins aren’t often remembered at the end of the season.
“If you go in there and think things are going to be easy, or you go there and you try to play to a certain level of expectations or to a point spread, to an opinion of others, you’re going to be in for a rude awakening,” he said.