The gist
- Final: Oklahoma 25, South Carolina 42 at Owen Field. The Sooners fall to 4-4, right back to even on the season.
- LaNorris Sellers was the game. 19 of 24 for 301 yards and three passing scores, plus 96 rushing and two more on the ground. Five touchdowns, one quarterback.
- We won the turnover battle 3-0 and lost by 17. 521 yards allowed, including an 84-yard touchdown in the second quarter and a 79-yarder in the fourth. Explosive plays made the margin.
- Up next: at Florida on Nov. 7.
A pick-six, then a flood
South Carolina scored on its opening possession when LaNorris Sellers walked into the end zone from 15 yards out. Oklahoma answered in a hurry. On the first snap of the second quarter, Kip Lewis read Sellers, jumped the route, and took it 30 yards back the other way to tie it at 7. For a few minutes it looked like a game.
It wasn’t. South Carolina scored on its next three possessions. Christian Clark punched one in from a yard out. Then Sellers hit DJ Black for an 84-yard touchdown. Then Sellers found Nyck Harbor from eight yards out with sixteen seconds left in the half. A Tate Sandell 52-yarder was the only thing keeping it from being a laugher at the break. We walked to the locker room down 28-10.
Sellers kept it moving in the third. An 11-yard scoring run made it 35-10. John Mateer and Ivan Carreon connected for a 34-yard touchdown to open the fourth, but the two-point try failed. Mazeo Bennett Jr. then caught a 79-yard score from Sellers on the very next possession to make it 42-16, and the game was effectively over. Sandell added a 34-yard field goal, and a late 10-yard Mateer-to-Carreon score (another failed two-point try) made the final 42-25.
The ugly part of the box score
South Carolina gained 521 yards. That is not a typo. Sellers alone had 301 passing on 24 attempts (12.5 per throw) plus 96 on the ground. Bennett’s four catches went for 107 yards. Oklahoma put up 359 of its own, won the turnover margin 3-0 (two Sellers interceptions and a fumble), and had more first downs. None of it mattered.
| Category | OU | SC |
|---|---|---|
| Total yards | 359 | 521 |
| Passing | 244 | 309 |
| Rushing | 115 | 212 |
| First downs | 24 | 22 |
| 3rd down | 7-16 | 8-14 |
| Turnovers | 0 | 3 |
| Time of possession | 27:46 | 32:14 |
Mateer went 26 of 43 for 244 and two scores. Carreon was the one Sooner who really moved the needle, with both touchdowns and 88 yards on five grabs. Tory Blaylock led the backs at 32 yards on six carries, which tells you how often we were in a shootout script we did not pick. Owen Heinecke’s ten tackles led the defense; Kip Lewis had the pick-six and a half-sack to show for his afternoon.
What people are saying
The Yahoo takeaway framed it bluntly: Oklahoma scored seven of its 25 on the Lewis pick-six and another seven in what the writer called garbage time, and South Carolina’s defense held the Sooner offense to 10 points through three quarters. The ESPN box tells the same story in different units: three Gamecock scoring plays of 15, 79 and 84 yards, and a Sellers line that read like a video game.
Our take
A week ago we wrote “Defense Chokes Out Third Down” after Starkville. South Carolina went 8 of 14 on third down and gained 521 yards. That thesis is dead on arrival. The honest read is that the Mississippi State game was the outlier, not the identity. The defense that walked into Owen Field on Saturday was the one that got hung with 41 by Georgia and now 42 by South Carolina, not the one that choked out the Bulldogs.
You can win the turnover battle 3-0, outgain the other side on nothing explosive, and lose by 17. We just did.
Second: this is twice in four weeks Mateer has had to drop back 40-plus times chasing a scoreboard that got away early. 26 of 43 is not awful, but it is not the version of this offense that beat Texas in a track meet. When the defense gives up two explosive touchdowns of 79 and 84 yards, no version of the offense bails you out. The ceiling sits in front of the quarterback, not behind him.
Third: 4-4 at the midpoint, 176 for and 166 against. Point differential is barely positive, and three of the four losses have been by double digits. This team is who the record says it is right now.
Next up
Oklahoma travels to Gainesville to face the Florida Gators on Nov. 7. Here is the gradeable marker for next week: if this defense gives up more than 30 points at The Swamp, we lose that game, and the Mississippi State recap officially becomes the only outlier this unit produced in October. Not “might lose.” Will.
If you’d rather back your reads than just shout them, that is literally the game.