Insight Bowl not Oklahoma’s goal, but Sooners make best of it

Tweet

The Oklahoma Sooners may not have had the best game in the world, but they still pulled off a victory against the Iowa Hawkeyes on Friday in the Insight Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz.

This game, won by the Sooners 31-14, concluded a very painful year for Oklahoma that included a death of a teammate and national title aspirations being crushed.

Although the Sooners didn’t dominate this game in any way, they did score a touchdown in each of the first three quarters, while holding Iowa to zero points until the fourth quarter.

Going into the final frame, the Hawkeyes got back into the game by scoring two touchdowns, which cut the lead to just seven points.

However, with just a little under five minutes left in the game, the Sooners kicked a field goal that just about sealed the game. With less than a minute left, running back Blake Bell ran for his third touchdown of the game to completely put this game out of reach.

QB Landry Jones didn’t play like the typical Landry Jones, who puts up big numbers game after game. Jones finished with 161 yards, wth one touchdown and one interception.

QB James Vandenberg gave Iowa some life with two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, but those tosses and his 216 passing yards were just not enough.

This game snapped Iowa’s three-game bowl win streak, which was a school record. Although the Hawkeyes have to be disappointed about losing this game, they should be counting their blessings from an overhead camera falling and not hurting receiver Marvin McNutt.

There is no way that the Sooners thought they would be playing in the Insight Bowl at the beginning of the season, but thanks to some key injuries and two losses down the stretch, Oklahoma not only found itself on the outside looking in at the BCS National Championship game, but not even making a BCS bowl game altogether.

Tweet