NORMAN, Okla. — Sam Bradford jumped around as he took a victory lap at Owen Field, handing out high-fives along the way to a line of adoring fans that had yet another reason to love him.
Bradford has the Oklahoma Sooners surging in the national championship race, raising his own Heisman stock as he goes. And, oh, what a mighty fall it was for Texas Tech.
Bradford threw for 304 yards and four touchdowns, and DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown combined to run for five more scores as the fifth-ranked Sooners brought an unceremonious end to No. 2 Texas Tech’s run toward perfection in a 65-21 blowout Saturday night.
“I can’t remember a game where I even had near as much fun,” Bradford said.
The question now is this: Did the Sooners (10-1, 6-1 Big 12) do enough to make up for that loss to Texas?
The Longhorns have held a trump card since the annual Red River Rivalry game in October, having beaten Oklahoma 45-35 on a neutral field at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
But the Sooners came up with as resounding a statement as they could by stifling Graham Harrell, who came into Norman as the Heisman Trophy favorite but might have relinquished that title to Bradford.
“Obviously, now we’re in the mix with everybody,” Sooners coach Bob Stoops said.
Harrell was 33-for-55 for 361 yards and three touchdowns.
Michael Crabtree, who leads the nation with 18 touchdown catches but, was kept out of the end zone.
Neither one came out to talk to reporters afterward. Only running back Baron Batch and linebacker Brian Duncan joined coach Mike Leach in the interview room.
“We really wanted to do well, and we went out there and over-tried instead of doing routine things,” Leach said.
The Red Raiders (10-1, 6-1) fell into a three-way tie atop the Big 12 South with Texas and Oklahoma, with only one week left in the regular season.
If the three finished tied, the BCS standings would determine which team plays No. 12 Missouri in the Big 12 championship game in Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 6.
So the Bowl Championship Series controversy could come early this season, a week before the pairings are even set.
The Big 12 South race isn’t over yet, though. There’s still the matter of the Bedlam rivalry, and this time it’s Oklahoma’s turn to go on the road to face No. 11 Oklahoma State.
The Longhorns will face their in-state rival, too, and will need to break a two-game losing streak against Texas A&M on Thanksgiving Day.
Texas Tech finishes its regular season against Baylor, and could still sneak into the Big 12 title game with an Oklahoma State upset.
Oklahoma will have to deal with that next week. This week was all about dominance.
The suddenly stingy Sooners held Tech scoreless on five straight possessions for the first time this season, and got to Harrell — who’d been sacked only five times all season — on back-to-back plays in the first quarter while the nation’s highest-scoring offense kept on clicking.
Juaquin Iglesias put Oklahoma up 28-0 when he zipped across the middle to catch a pass from Bradford and then stopped in his tracks at the 15 to juke a pair of defenders and clear his way to the end zone for a 28-yard score.
Desperate to make something happen, Harrell made matters worse in the final minute before halftime. His pass across the middle was right at Travis Lewis, who intercepted it and ran it back to the doorstep. Murray punched it in with a 1-yard dive, and the Sooners’ lead reached 42-7.
“It’s no fun, but it’s something you have to learn from,” Batch said.
Bradford’s four passes pushed him past the school record of 40 in a season, set by Jason White in his 2003 Heisman season.
The Sooners have won 24 straight games — the longest home winning streak in the country and one away from the school record.
