Ron Jenkins / Associated Press
The drought in Lincoln Riley’s bowl ended explosively.
The Oklahoma coach finally got his first postseason victory on his fourth attempt, when No. 6 Sooners defeated a No. 7 Florida shorthanded team, 55-20, at the Cotton Bowl Classic in Arlington, Texas, on Wednesday market.
OR (9-2) has won at least nine games in each of Riley’s first four seasons.
The Gators (8-4) played without its four main pass-catchers. Wideouts Trevon Grimes and Kadarius Toney chose to prepare for the NFL draft. Tight team Kyle Pitts also refused to participate, while receiver Jacob Copeland was unable to play after testing positive for COVID-19.
The quartet combined 2,778 yards and 34 touchdowns this year. This gave Florida quarterback and Heisman Trophy finalist Kyle Trask the opportunity to showcase his skill set with a new crop of recipients, but it was not enough to produce victory.
It is the first time that UF has failed to win its bowling game under coach Dan Mullen.
Notable Artists
Spencer Rattler, QB, Oklahoma Sooners: 14 of 23, 247 yards, 3 touchdowns
Rhamondre Stevenson, RB, Oklahoma Sooners: 18 loaded, 186 yards, 1 touchdown
Charleston Rambo, WR, Oklahoma Sooners: 2 receptions, 45 yards, 1 touchdown
Kyle Trask, QB, Florida Gators: 16 of 28, 158 yards, 3 interceptions
Emory Jones, QB, Florida Gators: 8 out of 16, 86 yards; 10 loaded, 60 yards, 1 touchdown
Florida cannot match the level of the first
A week before Oklahoma and Florida began, the Gators’ linebacker, James Houston, uttered a phrase that he probably wished he could remove.
“Oklahoma is a good match”, Houston told reporters. “But they are not at our level, they are not from the SEC, they are not the Florida Gators.”
Those words would be returned to him with 11 minutes remaining for the fourth time. With OU at 41-13, the overwhelming pro-Oklahoma crowd started shouting “SEC” back to the Gators. The Sooners scored again moments later to make it 47-13.
Whatever mystique the Southeast Conference carried when it entered the Cotton Bowl, it was as soon as Oklahoma entered the field. Instead, it was OU quarterback Spencer Rattler who looked like one of the best players in the country, leading nine goals in 14 possessions.
The Sooners accumulated 249 passing yards, 435 running yards, 61 attack and a bag.
It was the highest number of points allowed by Florida in a bowl game since Steve Spurrier’s team in 1995 lost 62-24 to Nebraska at the Fiesta Bowl. It also happened to be the second game in a row that the Gators lost more than 50 points after Alabama drew 52 in the SEC Championship.
It got to the point where OU was getting ready to give Riley the traditional Gatorade bath with more than four minutes left.
Only one team looked elite on Wednesday. It wasn’t the club that boasted about it.
Shaky Start Sinks Gators
Whatever Mullen considered the worst scenario to open the Cotton Bowl before the game, the reality turned out to be much worse.
A confusion of twists, injuries and missed passes limited what was already a weak attack. Oklahoma’s ability to quickly turn that bad luck into points put the UF in an almost impossible to recover hole. And a quarterback whose next stop is the Heisman Trophy ceremony looked anything but a competitor.
Trask was intercepted in consecutive attempts to start the game after the Sooners had already made their way through the Gators’ defense for a touchdown in the first possession of the game, which consumed just two minutes of the clock.
ESPN Stats & Info @ESPNStatsInfo
Florida had a total of 2 turnovers in the first quarter of this season in 11 games. They had 3 in the first room tonight. The last time a team had 3 interceptions in the first quarter of a bowl game was in Utah at the 2015 Las Vegas Bowl vs BYU. https://t.co/VwoeNrWrCm
The first choice that Trask launched was taken back for a touchdown. The second led to an OU field goal. The third, somehow, returned to Florida after the defense recovered an OU fumble – but that may have been the most disheartening move of the half in one of the wildest moves in the game.
Second-year reserve quarterback Emory Jones came into the game when Mullen gave Trask an extra moment to regain his composure after missing his target on the first descent. Jones and Trask continued to hang up in the huddle, shaking OU’s defense. After finally reaching the Sooners’ 10-yard line, Trask was caught in the end zone, killing any momentum UF had mustered.
After launching five choices throughout the season, the senior quarterback turned the ball three times on Wednesday.
Trask seemed prepared to face the rest of the game on the back lines after Jones pushed into the end zone for the Gators’ first game. touchdown the night before the break, but he fell ill as he ran off the field, requiring Trask to return.
Jones was healthy enough to return in the second half, when Trask’s college career ended as brutally as possible. After accumulating 4,125 passing yards and 43 touchdowns in the lead of the NCAA, his time at UF ended in disgust.
What is the next?
Florida enters the off-season with a lot of momentum on the recruitment trail. According 247 Sports, the Gators got 5th grade at the SEC in 2021, ranking 10th in the country. The Sooners, in turn, occupy the top of the Big 12 ranking with a recruit 5 stars and 12 4 stars. This puts the OU in 9th place in the country.