College Football Old School Game of the Week: Sooners Clinch Big 8 Title in Top 3 Showdown with Cowboys

 

Oklahoma tight end Keith Jackson scored the first touchdown of the 1984 "Bedlam Series" meeting.

Of the 118 times the Oklahoma Sooners and the Oklahoma State Cowboys met in the annual "Bedlam Series" perhaps no meeting was bigger than the one in 1984 when the #2 Sooners faced the #3 Cowboys in Norman with the Big 8 conference championship on the line.

Oklahoma came into the game with a 8-1-1 record under head coach Barry Switzer, who was in his 12th season as the head coach of the Sooners, in the hunt to return to the Orange Bowl for the first time in four years after going 23-12-1 from 1981-1983 after an eight-year run where Oklahoma won at least 10 games in every season but one and two national championships.

The Sooners offense was its classic wishbone option led by quarterback Danny Bradley and a backfield which featured Steve Sewell and Spencer Tillman to go along with a defense led by All-American defensive tackle Tony Casellias and freshman linebacker Brian Bosworth.

 While the Sooners were returning to the nation's elite, the Cowboys were having a season for the ages as they came into the 1984 edition of "Bedlam" with a 9-1 record, one win from the school's first ever 10-win season.

Oklahoma State was led by first-year head coach Pat Jones, who had taken over the head coaching job in Stillwater after his predecessor, Jimmy Johnson, left to become the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes.

The Cowboys used a pro-style attack for their offense which was led by quarterback Rusty Hilger and running back Thurman Thomas while the defense was led by All-American defensive end Leslie O' Neal.

Both teams came into the game with identical 5-1 conference records as the Cowboys' lone loss had been to the Nebraska Cornhuskers while the Sooners' loss came at the hands of the Kansas Jayhawks(their tie came against the Texas Longhorns in a non-conference game).

If the Sooners won the game, they would share the Big 8 championship with Nebraska, who was idle with a 6-1 conference record, with the tiebreaker going to Oklahoma as they had defeated the Cornhuskers the week before by the score of 17-7.

If the Cowboys won or the game finished in a tie, the Cornhuskers would go the Orange Bowl for the fourth year in a row though Oklahoma State would receive an invitation to a New Year's Day bowl game if they could knock off the Sooners.

The Sooners got the ball to start the game as it took them seven plays to drive 42 yards to the Oklahoma State 38-yard-line until the Cowboys' defense rose up and pushed the Sooners back 15 yards to their 47-yard-line where Oklahoma would punt the ball back to Oklahoma State.

Just like the Sooners did on their opening possession, the Cowboys would drive into Oklahoma territory as they drove 23 yards in five plays to the Sooners' 48-yard-line until the drive stalled and Oklahoma State was forced to punt the ball back to Oklahoma.

After another exchange of punts, the Sooners had the ball at their 28-yard-line when they put together a nine-play, 72-yard drive that would result in the game's first touchdown.

The drive would begin with a 10-yard run by Tillman followed by a 11-yard run by Damon Stell to give the Sooners a 1st down at their 49-yard-line.

Following another run that went for three yards, Bradley went to the air as he completed a 24-yard pass to tight end Keith Jackson to give the Sooners a fresh set of downs at the Cowboys' 24-yard-line.

The Sooners would eventually drive to the Cowboys' six-yard-line when Bradley fired a pass for Jackson who was wide open in the left corner of the end zone.

Jackson would make the catch for the six-yard touchdown on the first play of the second quarter to give Oklahoma a 7-0 lead.

Oklahoma State quarterback Rusty Hilger would throw for 202 yards and two touchdowns.

From there, the game would turn into a defensive stalemate as both teams traded punts until late in the second quarter when the Cowboys forced the game's first turnover as defensive tackle Rodney Harding deflected a Bradley pass which fell into the hands of Oklahoma State defensive end Warren Thompson to give the Cowboys the ball at the Sooners' 30-yard-line with 1:23 left before halftime.

Eight plays later, the Cowboys were at the Sooners' one-yard-line with 17 seconds left and no timeouts remaining when Hilger handed the ball off to Thomas who was stopped for no gain.

As Hilger tried to get the Oklahoma State offense to line up so he could stop the clock, the Oklahoma defenders took their time as they slowly took their time in getting up as they hope time would run out in the first half.

But the Cowboys would get a reprieve as the officials briefly stopped the clock which allowed Oklahoma State to get one play off before the end of the first half as Hilger would loft a pass for Jamie Harris in the right corner of the end zone, who outleapt Sooners safety Tony Rayburn to grab the one-yard touchdown as time expired in the first half with the game tied at 7.

Oklahoma State would get the ball to start the second half as they began their initial possession of the half at their 20-yard-line with two plays that gained three yards to set up 3rd & 7.

That is when Hilger, who fumbled the snap from center, was able to pick up the football, scramble around, and then fire a pass for Malcolm Lewis, who made a juggling catch at around the Sooners' 30-yard-line and then outran the Oklahoma defense for a shocking 77-yard touchdown to give Oklahoma State a 14-7 into the second half.

The Sooners would respond with a 14-play, 72-yard drive which featured Oklhoama converting on four straight 3rd down situations and did not end until Tillman took a pitch from Bradley and took around the left side for a three-yard touchdown that with the extra point tied the game at 14 midway through the third quarter.

The Cowboys would get the ball back at their 24-yard-line as their ensuing possession began with a 20-yard pass from Hilger to tight end Barry Hanna to put Oklahoma State at its 44-yard-line when disaster struck as the Cowboys botched the handoff between Hilger and fullback Kelly Cook, leading to a fumble recovery by Sooners linebacker Dante Jones at the Oklahoma State 45-yard-line.

From there, the Sooners would drive 35 yards in nine plays to set up a 27-yard field goal by Tim Lashar to give Oklahoma a 17-14 lead with 2:58 left in the third quarter.

The score would remain 17-14 until early in the fourth quarter when the Cowboys' Bobby Riley muffed a punt that was recovered by Oklahoma linebacker Kert Kasper to give the Sooners the ball at the Oklahoma State 25-yard-line.

After one play which picked up five yards to set up 2nd & 5, Bradley pitched the ball out to Tillman, who ran down the left sideline untouched for a 20-yard touchdown to push the Sooners' lead to 24-14 with 13:22 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Oklahoma running back Spencer Tillman carried the ball 25 times for 102 yards and scored two TDs.

Tillman's second touchdown would prove to be the back-breaker for the Cowboys as they could no further than their 41-yard-line on their remaining possessions of the game as the Sooners would come away with the 24-14 victory to clinch the Big 8 title and send the Sooners to the Orange Bowl.

The Cowboys would end up accepting an invitation to play in the Gator Bowl where a 25-yard touchdown pass from Hilger to Hanna with a little over a minute left in the game would give Oklahoma State a 21-14 victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks as the Cowboys would finish the 1984 season with a 10-2 record and #5 ranking in the final coaches poll and #7 ranking the final AP poll.

As for the Sooners, they would lose in the Orange Bowl to the Washington Huskies 28-17 thanks in large part to the infamous Sooner Schooner incident as Oklahoma would finish the season with a 9-2-1 record and #6 final ranking in both the AP and the coaches poll.