Contentious ending aside, Baylor defense dominant as No. 8 Oklahoma exits CFP race

WACO, Texas — No. 13 Baylor limited No. 8 Oklahoma to 260 total yards Saturday in a 27-14 victory at McLane Stadium that dropped more cookies than a dozen Facebooks. There will be lasting effects from this game in the Heisman race, the Big 12 Conference, the College Football Playoff and, thanks to a last-second field goal, maybe in the relationship between coaches Dave Aranda of the Bears and Lincoln Riley of the Sooners.

The Bears not only ended the Sooners’ 17-game winning streak, Baylor limited the Sooners to the fewest points they have scored in Riley’s five seasons. Caleb Williams, Oklahoma’s true freshman quarterback, needed not even half a season to thrust himself into the Heisman race. Four starts into his stardom, Williams discovered what it is like to play a ranked team on a windy day before a hostile crowd. It’s no fun.

Before the third quarter ended, Williams stood on the sideline, replaced by Spencer Rattler, the other Sooners quarterback who used to be a Heisman candidate. Rattler didn’t make anything happen, either.

Baylor dominated the fourth quarter, breaking open a close game with 17 points as a Sooners defense that spent 35:19 on the field broke down. Bears kicker Isaiah Hankins kicked a 41-yard field goal with 1:32 to play to extend the lead to 27-14. But the Sooners’ Andrew Raym roughed long snapper Theo Rodoni. You might think that never has a coach so happily taken three points off the board. Aranda accepted the penalty. Oklahoma had no timeouts. Baylor could run out the clock, take its 10-point victory and go home. But Aranda had other plans.

Instead of taking a delay-of-game penalty when the 40-second play clock expired at :03, Aranda called a timeout, moments after Bears fans began to rush the field. It took several minutes to convince them to leave. Then it took a few more minutes for Riley to chew out referee Kevin Mar.

“How the officials didn’t enforce a 15-yard penalty when you got 5,000 people on the field is unbelievable to me,” Riley said. “I don’t agree with it.”

Meanwhile, someone had to call Oklahoma’s defense out of the locker room, where Riley had sent them to get away from the mob on the field. He considered not bringing the defense back at all.

“I did tell them (the officials) that,” Riley said. “Maybe I should have done it. I don’t believe that situation was handled well by a lot of people. Doing it with class is important to me. At the end of the day, we brought them back even though I damn sure didn’t want to.”

At that point, no one off the Bears’ sideline knew Aranda intended to kick the field goal. It did seem strange that, during the time it took to clear the field, Hankins practiced his kicking form and Rodoni his snaps.

Sure enough, Baylor’s coach disproved the old chestnut about every coach’s favorite formation being the victory formation — you know, the one where the backfield surrounds the quarterback as he takes a knee. Aranda wanted those three points.

Aranda said he chose to kick because of the Big 12 tiebreaker. If more than two teams are tied for the conference championship, point differential among the teams in head-to-head competition is the third tiebreaker. Coaches train themselves to think of every scenario. But the third tiebreaker in a three-team tie is caution to a fault, like wearing a face mask while driving alone.

Rubbing an opponent’s nose in loss is the kind of thing that used to draw scowls and now draws shrugs. Not from Riley, who let his displeasure be known after the game.

“I know why Dave tried to get the field goal,” Riley said. “I don’t agree with it. There’s a code of sportsmanship you have to follow. I still believe in it. I wouldn’t have done it.”

Riley watched Hankins kick the field goal from inside the hashes at the Sooners’ 45, proving he hadn’t thought of the point-differential tiebreaker; if the Sooners had blocked the kick and returned it for a touchdown, he would have been flagged for being on the field.

Instead, Riley headed over to Aranda and shook his hand quickly, barely taking the time to square his shoulders before he left for the visiting team tunnel in the southeast corner of the stadium.

“I think he was upset,” Aranda said. “I can understand why. For me, that was something I wanted to explain to him. … It’s emotion. It’s an emotional game. I consider Lincoln a friend. I imagine we’ll talk pretty quick.”

Aranda, one of the leaders in teaching and coaching defense, didn’t draw up any magical Xs and Os, but the efficient manner in which the Bears tackled and stuck to their assignments forced Williams and the Sooners to work hard for every yard. Whatever ailed Williams didn’t look as if it could be fixed by an assistant coach with a whiteboard. You can’t draw up experience.

Sooners fans saw a lot of football they don’t normally see, none of it good. The most obvious is the 14 points, the fewest OU has scored in 63 games under Riley. That’s the third time this season that the Sooners have lowered that floor. It began the season at 27 points. Oklahoma scored 23 against Nebraska and 16 against West Virginia, but they won those games. On Saturday, the bar in this Scoreboard Limbo lowered again, too low for the Sooners to bend beneath and win.

Senior kicker Gabe Brkic, as reliable as the Oklahoma wind, missed two field goals for the first time in his three seasons as a starter. It’s a good bet that Riley never has had a fourth-and-40, which he did in the third quarter Saturday. The Sooners punted four times, twice their average this season.

Williams finished 10-of-19 for 146 yards and two interceptions. He ran for 17 yards and a touchdown. His Heisman candidacy, like the Sooners’ chance to make the playoff for the fifth time, is pretty much kaput.

The Sooners (9-1, 6-1) still lead the Big 12. Maybe Baylor (8-2, 4-2) will qualify for the Big 12 Championship Game, and the Bears and Sooners will play again. That would be interesting.