Dillon Gabriel opens up on what went wrong for Oklahoma after Texas win

Oklahoma’s win over Texas in this year’s Red River Rivalry was a significant moment for the Sooners as it put them right in the mix for the College Football Playoff. However, from there, the potentially crowning moment was tarnished by their next three matchups.

QB Dillon Gabriel spoke about that specific skid by the Sooners during a recent interview with SoonerScoop. In a close call against UCF and a pair of losses at Kansas and Oklahoma State, he said the fact of the matter is that they did not play their best following their season’s best win.

“I just think, collectively, we didn’t play our best games,” said Gabriel. “We had our chances. We did and we just didn’t execute.

Missing on those opportunities was so frustrating that, even with his career in Norman now over, it was a trio of outcomes that still bothers Gabriel with the season now over.

“I still think about those,” Gabriel admitted. “Like, that was probably on my mind the most once the season ended.”

Oklahoma and Texas both arrived at the Cotton Bowl with undefeated records. After a back and forth game, the Sooners were able to pull ahead with a touchdown in the final seconds to hand the Longhorns their lone loss of the year.

After that, Oklahoma entered the top-six and suddenly had expectations on them. They became a favorite in the Big 12 and as a contender to make the College Football Playoff. That was before the games that came over their next month of football.

In their next time out, OU had to hold off UCF on their home field and only won by two. Then, in their next two contests, they lost by five to Kansas in Lawrence for their first defeat of the season before dropping a second straight in Stillwater to Oklahoma State in the final edition of Bedlam.

By the end of the regular season, those would be the only two losses for Oklahoma. Even so, they was enough to knock them out of the conference race and, obviously, out of playoff contention.

Only a handful of teams can say that they were in a similar position as Oklahoma this year. They earned themselves a clear shot into the four-team field at the halfway point of the campaign.

Instead, they botched that chance and did so in a way that Gabriel won’t soon be able to shake.