Oklahoma Overcomes Slow Start, Overwhelms Kent State

The Sooners were nearly shut out in the first half, and then erupted in the third quarter as they move to 2-0 ahead of next week's game at Nebraska.

NORMAN — On a college football Saturday filled with memorable upsets, Kent State figured maybe they could be next.

With 20 seconds left before halftime, the Golden Flashes — a 33.5-point underdog — were in position to deliver a shocker.

Instead, No. 7-ranked Oklahoma narrowly avoided the first-half shutout, then put together a complete second half in a 33-3 victory over the Flashes at Memorial Stadium.

"Good win for us," said coach Brent Venables. "We got to 2-0." 

Things got offensively ugly in the first half — so much so after four straight ineffective possessions that Sooner Nation began raining down some verbal discontent.

"We faced some good adversity tonight," Venables said.

But offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who signed here as a player and worked these sidelines as a young coach, didn’t seem bothered by the booing.

Instead, he and quarterback Dillon Gabriel schemed to get the football to star receiver Marvin Mims on five straight plays: pass completions of 14, 13 and 36 yards to end the first half — the latter was a face-saving and momentum-shifting touchdown — and 7 yards to start the second half before a 15-yard pass interference penalty on a deep ball.

"You just have to make the necessary adjustments," Gabriel said. "You have to find ways to be more efficient, of course. And just find momentum."

Mims’ TD finally got OU on the scoreboard with 18 seconds left in the first half and finished off the Sooners’ most impressive possession of the night: 76 yards on just five plays and 52 seconds.

"That score before half," Gabriel said, "was really important."

That one completion was 47 percent of the Sooners’ previous passing total: 77 yards as the Sooners nearly were shut out at halftime. 

"I'm really proud of our team, our coaches and our players," Venables said. "I told them at halftime, there's nothing less important than the score at halftime." 

Kent State — which brought back seven starters from last year’s team that ranked 116th nationally in pass defense, 116th in run defense and 124th in both scoring defense and total defense — held the Sooners to 158 total yards in the first half, including just seven yards rushing.

Eric Gray led the Sooners in rushing at halftime with just nine yards on four carries.

Gabriel seemed hesitant throughout the first half, unsure where to put the football, and although he competed 12-of-15 passes, he had just 77 yards before the final drive of the half.

"We were one block away, one move away from a lot of chunk plays, explosive plays," Gabriel said. "We weren’t moving it how we wanted to. You have to run the ball really well when they drop eight and be dominant on the perimeter just to continue to move the chains. It all starts with me, the little mistakes that we had, the pre-snap penalties and negative penalties, those are natural drive killers. You just can’t let that happen."

But things cleared up for him in the second half as he resolved to get the football to the Sooners’ best player.

"He’s an explosive player," Gabriel said. "I trust Marv. I know what he can do with the football in his hands. You know special things can happen when that happens."

Mims’ day — which also included a 42-yard punt return — consisted of a seven catches for 163 yards (both career highs) and two touchdowns. His second-half score was a 58-yard bomb from Gabriel, an easy pitch and catch on which he was almost 10 yards behind the defense.

“I was really excited," Mims said. "I was just hoping DG didn't try to put all his arm into it or anything. I'm just grateful he put it on me. Easy touchdown. ... You're just thinking like, ‘Oh, don't drop it. Don't drop.’ " 

Meanwhile, the run game picked up as well, as Gray busted a 44-yard run and finished with 71 yards, and Marcus Major got things going between the tackles with a handful of powerful runs and ended up with 38 yards.

The OU defense was led by linebacker Danny Stutsman (career-high 12 tackles). Justin Broiles and Billy Bowman each had 11 stops, and Bowman added a fumble recovery, while David Ugwoegbu got credit for a safety when he forced Kent State QB Collin Schlee to step out of bounds. Cheetah linebacker Justin Harrington had a late interception. 

The Sooners had 13 tackles for loss and four quarterback sacks and held the high-flying Flashes for 295 yards total offense.

"There’s going to be adversity," Harrington said, "but if you’re holding offenses to three points, that’s a good day in the office."

"Well, you know, Murphy’s Law is 'Whatever can happen will happen,' " said defensive end Reggie Grimes, who had another 1.5 quarterback sacks to raise his season total to four. "I think today we fought Murphy. And that’s fine. That’s the way things are gonna go, which is OK. Winning is hard, OK? But if you just go back and look at it, man ... we allowed three points."

OU (2-0) now turns its attention to next week’s showdown with Nebraska in Lincoln. After losing to Northwestern in Ireland and struggling to put away FCS North Dakota last week, the Cornhuskers (1-2) on Saturday were beaten 45-42 at home by Georgia Southern.

"Yeah, just watched that before we came in here," Grimes said. "So whatever they did today has no bearing on our game with them. We’re gonna have to go out and play off the best of our ability, and I’m confident in how we’ll prepare."