Oklahoma vs. West Virginia: Sooners squeak out victory despite woeful defensive performance

Despite what can only be described as an abysmal defensive performance, the Oklahoma Sooners (8-2, 6-1 Big 12) escaped with a 50-49 win over the host West Virginia Mountaineers (5-5, 2-5) on Saturday, thanks to a Landry Jones' 5-yard touchdown pass with 24 seconds left in the game. Jones broke his own school record by passing for 554 yards, and he tied his own mark with six TD passes in the contest.

The gang over at SB Nation's Oklahoma blog Crimson and Cream Machine were not enthused by the play of the Sooners' defense:

How bad was Oklahoma's offensive performance in Morgantown Saturday night? So bad that the Mountaineers gained 454 rushing yards...on the ground. For the second weekend in a row the Sooners played to stop a potent passing attack and instead surrendered an unbelievable number of rushing yards. Clearly its a defensive alignment that needs to be scrapped and never brought up again, ever. To even further this point, the Mountaineers came into this game ranked 96th nationally in rushing offense (132.7 YPG) and Tevon Austin, who recorded 345 of WVU's rushing yards all on his own, had only rushed for a total of 103 yards the entire season coming into the night.

The two teams combined for 1,440 yards of offense. Oklahoma gave up 778 yards to West Virginia, the most yards allowed in school history, easily surpassing the previous total of 616 yards to Baylor and Robert Griffin III last season.

The Oklahoma win and Kansas State upset loss to Baylor means the Sooners still have a shot at the Big 12 conference title. Oklahoma would need to defeat both Oklahoma State and TCU to end the year, with Kansas State losing to Texas, for the Sooners to grab the Big 12 crown.