Big 12 Championship: In their own words

Oklahoma Sooners coaches and players describe the scene after their 27-21 victory over Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship Game

ARLINGTON, TX — Credit Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley with having his guys ready to run trick plays.

It wasn’t much of a conventional “trick,” but having starting quarterback Spencer Rattler “limp” off the field with an injury and bringing on speedy freshman Chandler Morris to finish off Oklahoma’s first drive of the day was gutsy.

Morris’ 2-yard sprint staked the Sooners to a 7-0 lead, gave them early momentum, and was the difference in a 27-21 victory over Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship Game. Riley described the setup.

“It was a big moment. You never know if … you’ll even have an opportunity, and then here we go, all of a sudden right there on the first drive we, you know, we get it in a good spot to run it.”

The key was Rattler’s performance.

“It was a play where I’m supposed to fake limp off, just kinda mess with the defense, I guess. And then Chandler runs in there and runs the play. I told coach Riley I’m fast enough to get it in, but I guess ... I knew Chandler was a little quicker but nah, he had a good run. It was a good play call and a big play for us to start the game.

“I didn't sell it. I was laughing. Somebody said they saw me laughing when I was coming off the field. I gotta work on my acting, I guess.”

Riley shared a little perspective on what has been a rotten year for pretty much everyone. Winning is fun, sure, but it means even more in a year like this.

“I would just encourage everybody to think of their own personal hardships that they have had during this pandemic. This pandemic, obviously it wasn't just bad for us, it's been challenging for each and every one of us.

“Everybody's talked about how negative that 2020 has been and just it's almost kind of become a catchphrase now. And I do think though the adversity also provides an unbelievable opportunity to do something special and that's how we have tried to look at it this entire time through anything that came up was how awesome would it be to come back and everybody will remember.”

OU scored 27 points for the second consecutive game. That doesn’t sound bad at all, but considering that under Riley, OU had scored at least 28 in every game he’s been the head coach — that’s 60 games in a row — scoring 27 in back-to-back games feels like the OU offense is in a slump.

That was underscored Saturday against the Cyclones by the fact that Reeves Mundschau punted a season-high seven times, and by the Sooner offense converting a miserable 1-of-11 third downs. Riley is never happy when the offense bogs down, but he took Saturday’s frustrations in stride.

“Well, the biggest problem was most of them were long yardage, so we didn’t put ourselves in very many great situations there. A combination of things. We had a couple of times where we had some stuff open and didn’t protect good. Had a couple of competitive plays that we thought we had real opportunities to make that we didn’t make. Couple of times I had bad calls. I mean, I don’t know. I’ll answer that one tomorrow. I’m going to enjoy being the champ today.”

One guy who didn’t carry much of the burden for the offensive woes on Saturday was the offensive trigger man. Riley said he was very pleased with the way Spencer Rattler played.

“I thought he probably played his best game of the year today. I thought he was poised. I thought he did a great job in the scramble situations, threw some elite throws. I thought he made good decisions with the ball, really. I mean, he was in the right place a lot. I mean he, his eyes were where he was supposed to be. He went where he was supposed to go (for) really, a big, big portion of the day.”

Rattler showed an understanding of how the offense performed as a whole and an appreciation for how the defense played.

“Our defense played amazing today. They saved our butts a couple of times when we couldn’t get the ball moving like we wanted to. Shoutout to the defense, for sure. They played a hell of a game.”

For his part, Rattler acknowledged that he continues to see plenty of development within his own game. In Ames 2 1/2 months ago, he looked impatient when he threw an interception on what might have been the game-tying drive. That’s no longer there.

“Yeah, I think my growth has been something I’ve, of course, worked on. But I think it just comes with time. We played them our third game of the season and I was still new to it, kinda just feeling it out. Just night and day, that's how I kinda describe it. I feel like I’m at a new level, a different level now. I just gotta keep going up.:

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