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The Oklahoma Sooners and West Virginia Mountaineers played a close Big 12 opener on Saturday night that left more questions on the field for the Sooners than answers. Despite the questions, the Oklahoma Sooners came away with a 16-13 win over the Mountaineers on Saturday evening.

In a matchup of two of the best defenses in the country, the Oklahoma Sooners were able to come away with a win in a game they never led. Spencer Rattler bounced back from a game where he and the offense struggled and executed a game-winning drive that started on the Oklahoma Sooners eight-yard line.

Spencer Rattler was 6-of-6 for 54 yards on the 14-play drive that led to Gabe Brkic’s game-winning 30-yard field goal as time expired.

After the two sides traded opening drive touchdowns in the first quarter, Oklahoma and West Virginia got into a kicking battle. Both kickers were perfect on the day, but the defenses didn’t provide many opportunities to get into scoring position.

Mistakes on West Virginia’s side were a huge part of the outcome of this one. A false start from the one-yard line pushed the Mountaineers back to the six, and after a short run, they were forced to throw on third down, and Jarret Doege couldn’t connect with his wide receiver in the back of the end zone.

As the Mountaineers were attempting to drive into scoring position, the West Virginia center and Doege had a miscommunication on the snap that pushed them out of field goal range. They were eventually forced to punt, which set up the Oklahoma Sooners game-winning drive.

Both defensive fronts controlled the line of scrimmage on the night, and there wasn’t much room to run for either side. Oklahoma averaged just 2 yards per rushing attempt while the Sooners defense held West Virginia to 2.3 yards per attempt.

The Sooners still have some issues to work out, namely along the offensive line. Though he was under pressure for a lot of the night, Spencer Rattler still struggled at times with accuracy.

It wasn’t a clean game, but the Oklahoma Sooners did just enough to overcome a tough Mountaineers team at home to move to 4-0 on the season.

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