DON'T BLAME RILEY
Officiating could have let Riley off the hook against Texas
Berry Tramel writes that the OU coach shouldn't have ordered a third-down pass at the end of Saturday's game, but he had his reasons
Lincoln Riley didn't want to give Sam Ehlinger the ball again Saturday. We can all understand that.
The Texas quarterback had engineered a miracle comeback at Texas Tech and seemed quite intent on doing the same Saturday in the Cotton Bowl.
So with little more than two minutes left in the game, Texas out of timeouts and OU up by seven points while facing a third-and-9 near midfield, Riley tried to win the game on the spot.
Riley screwed up. You can't give up the kind of clock advantage he gave up. The best defense late in games is the clock.
But you can't blame Riley too much. It's only common sense that you'd put your fate in the hands of the Sooner offense, as opposed to the Sooner defense. And Riley is coming off five straight years of elite quarterbacking. Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts each completed 69 percent of their Oklahoma passes.
Rattler is not quite there yet.
“I didn't want to put it back in Sam's hands, to be completely honest,” Riley said. “He's just been a part of so many of these, and we saw what they did in Lubbock just a few weeks ago.”
So Riley ordered a pass, Spencer Rattler threw slightly behind Austin Stogner, the ball fell incomplete and the Longhorns were gifted 40 seconds with
2:04 left in the game. OU punted and gave Ehlinger an eternity to tie the game.
Run the ball, and Riley could have guaranteed Ehlinger no more than 75 seconds or so.
Ehlinger indeed did what Riley feared, taking the `Horns the length of the field to tie the game with 14 seconds left. The Sooners eventually won 53-45 in four overtimes, but it was hairy for the longest of times.
It also was unnecessary. Those 40 seconds of extra time weren't the only bonus time for Texas. A couple of drives earlier, an officiating error gave the Longhorns an extra 39 seconds, at least.
With Texas down 31-17, Ehlinger scrambled for an apparent first down at his 20-yard line, running out of bounds with 5:57 left in the game. With 5:50 left and UT about to snap the ball, officials blew the whistle and said the play was under review.
Sure enough, Ehlinger was deemed a half yard shy of the first down, and referee Brandon Cruse ordered the clock reset to 6:36.
From where Cruse got 6:36, no one knows. When the clock hit 6:36, Texas had just snapped the ball on its second-down play. The clock should have been reset to 5:57. And Riley knew it.
Riley has a coach in the press box assigned to pay attention to clock issues, but the Sooner sideline knew something was amiss anyway.
“Several of us right away, when they came over the loudspeaker and said 6:36, we obviously knew that wasn't correct,” Riley said. “I thought we made a fairly good argument on the sideline, but the officials were pretty convinced that it was right. We had to get on with the game.”
The Sooner coaching staff was not happy. For many reasons.
Starting with this. Holding, spotting the ball on out-of-bounds plays, hits on the quarterback? Officials have to make many bang-bang calls in the heat of action, and we have to cut them slack. It's a difficult job.
But there is nothing difficult about getting the time right, apparently from the replay coordinator in the booth. Nothing abstract about that. If you can't get the time right, what can you get right? Just watch the replay that you're already watching.
Maybe if Texas hadn't been given those extra 39 seconds, the Longhorns would have made up the time some other way. Clearly, Ehlinger would have been in a bigger hurry. But he was in a rather large hurry, anyway.
And it's not like Texas has a pro-style offense, built upon precision. The Longhorns play sandlot football; hike the ball to the quarterback and let him do something.
You take away 39 seconds, and suddenly OU is facing third-and-9 with 1:32 left in the game. Riley's decision is a lot easier. A running play, followed by the 40-second play clock, and you're punting to Texas with less than a minute left on the clock.
Turns out, that officiating gaffe didn't save Texas just 39 seconds. It saved the Longhorns about 79 seconds.
“I can't promise what I would've done, but it certainly would've had an impact on the decision, no question,” Riley said, though we can promise. If Riley had thrown with 1:30something on the clock, he would have been decommissioned as an offensive savant.
Oh well. The Sooners won, and Riley's decision-making — including a second-down field-goal attempt in the third overtime — can be questioned with good humor, instead of pitchforks and torches.
After the game, but before knowing of the 39-second scandal, Riley said he would throw again under the same circumstances.
“You complete one pass, you win the game,” Riley said. “I felt like where we were at, we'd gotten some good field position there. Even if you don't, you have a chance to pin them and they have to drive the whole way.”
The 2019 OU-Texas game is memorable, among other things, for referee Mike Defee's pregame admonishing, of Sooners and Longhorns trying to rumble. “Are we clear?!” Defee declared in a line that will live long in Cotton Bowl lore.
Now Defee is retired, and the 2020 OU-Texas game is memorable, among other things, for a ridiculous officiating error that eventually prompted Riley to forget that the clock is a defense's best friend.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.