Welcome to the SEC: OU-Tennessee set for night kickoff in Norman
There have been so many times OU fans thought they were destined for a night kickoff only to be told it would be 11 a.m.
The move to the Southeastern Conference was expected to change that. And it has. OU is going to begin its SEC journey against Tennessee at 6:30 p.m. next Saturday on ABC.
The game originally had a bunch of time windows, going from mid-afternoon to evening. Now we know it’ll be at night.
Josh Heupel coming back to Norman. Tennessee, most likely a top-10 team, and playing as well as anybody in the country in the first two weeks.
Same cannot be said for OU. The Sooners struggled mightily against Houston last week, squeaking out a 16-12 victory last Saturday in Norman.
It will be the first matchup of the two teams since the OU sweep in 2014-15. The Sooners won in Norman, also in a night contest, in 2014. And then the legend of Baker Mayfield began on that night in Knoxville in 2015.
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The Vols are coming off a 51-10 whipping of North Carolina State. Expected to be one of the better games of the weekend, Tennessee sent the statement.
Halton earns honor
A lot went wrong for OU, but there was some good. Especially with the defensive line. Gracen Halton was named one of the SEC Defensive Linemen of the Week for his efforts.
Halton had a sack and came up with arguably the biggest play of the game when he forced a safety with 1:42 left in the game to make it 16-12.
Halton has been one of the pleasant surprises for the Sooners in the initial two weeks.
“Gracen has grown up right before our eyes in the last — since January,” head coach Brent Venables said. “He’s made a decision. He wants to — he’s gonna do something. Really proud of him and all the work he’s put in. And what a big-time play. They didn’t just gift-wrap that. We didn’t have a whole lot of tackles for loss, but man, that one was a huge one. A game-changer right there.”
