Caleb Williams saves the day as No. 3 Oklahoma survives Kansas

Thanks to true freshman quarterback Caleb Williams, No. 3 Oklahoma kept its College Football Playoff hopes alive Saturday with a closer-than-the-score-would-indicate 35-23 victory at Kansas.

Williams rallied the Sooners, who scored all their points in the second half. He accounted for three touchdowns in the second half, but they were overshadowed by a play with just under four minutes left. On fourth-and 1 from OU’s 46, the Sooners’ Kennedy Brooks was stood up behind the line of scrimmage. Williams simply ripped the ball away from Brooks and ran 5 yards for the first down.

The Sooners (8-0 overall, 5-0 in the Big 12) were a 38.5-point favorite, and in the first half, it appeared the Sooners truly were in danger of being on the wrong end of one of the biggest upsets in college football history. Kansas (1-6, 0-4) led 10-0 at halftime by limiting the Sooners to three first-half possessions.

But Williams, who was the top prospect in the 2021 recruiting cycle for On3, threw two TD passes in the third quarter and ran for a score in the fourth period to lift OU to its 16^th consecutive victory. His TD run was  40-yarder with 7:53 left for a 28-17 lead. OU’s final TD came on a 4-yard run with 42 seconds left.

Oklahoma plays for the ninth consecutive week next Saturday against Texas Tech, then gets an off week before finishing the regular season against Baylor, Iowa State and Oklahoma State; only the game against the Cyclones is at home.

Saturday’s game continued a disturbing pattern for OU of playing up or down to its opponent. The Sooners have played seven FBS opponents; five have been one-score games, which also would’ve been the outcome Saturday had OU not scored the garbage-time TD. Last week, there was a bigger margin: 52-31 against TCU. But that was skewed a bit, too, by a TD with 1:09 left.

Oklahoma managed just 398 total yards, the lowest total (by 40 yards) against Kansas by a Power 5 team this season. Three teams (Baylor, Duke and Iowa State) rolled up more than 560 yards against Kansas.