MORGANTOWN — For its first nine years in the Big 12, West Virginia never knew what it was like to beat Oklahoma. However, now the shoe is on the other foot as second-year Sooners head coach Brent Venables has just one final chance to defeat the Mountaineers before OU moves to the SEC next season.
WVU won last year’s meeting 23-20 in Morgantown during Venables’ first season. They will meet again on Saturday in Norman (7 p.m./FOX) for the last time as conference foes.
“We’ve got a great challenge this week with West Virginia, who’s been playing great football the last several weeks,” Venables said.
The No. 17 Sooners (7-2, 4-2 Big 12) are in their coldest stretch of the season after suffering back-to-back losses to Kansas, 38-33, and Oklahoma State, 27-24, and barely surviving UCF the week before, 31-29.
They meet a WVU (6-3, 4-2) team that is coming off of its two best wins of the year, 41-28 over UCF and 37-7 over BYU.
“We’re going to have to play well and we’re certainly going to have to play complimentary and clean football,” Venables said.
One of the best rushing teams in the Big 12, West Virginia has run for over 600 yards in its last two games and is averaging 218 yards per game.
Venables attributes the success to WVU’s impressive offensive line.
“They’re physical,” he said. “They play with confidence and there’s really good cohesion and chemistry there. They work together well.”
WVU leads the nation with 12 straight games rushing for at least 140 yards. Oklahoma has given up at least 140 rushing yards in six straight games.
In addition to the rushing success, WVU is also second in the conference having only allowed nine sacks this season.
“They just don’t turn people loose and they do a great job protecting the passer,” Venables said. “Very few tackles for loss and disruptive plays there’s not a lot of leakage there.”
Oklahoma has the fourth-best rush defense in the conference allowing 134.2 yards per game
“I think that unit really takes the personality of their leader and that’s Coach Venables,” WVU coach Neal Brown said. “You can see they’re enjoying playing for him. One thing they’re going to do is constantly get hats to the football.”
Saturday will be WVU’s sixth primetime game of the season and its second-straight game broadcast on FOX.
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