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OU DAILY
PHOTO COLLAGE BY CAITLYN EPES AND JORDAN MILLER/THE DAILY
Clockwise from left to right: Head coach Lincoln Riley and redshirt freshman Kennedy Brooks; redshirt junior quarterback Kyler Murray; junior wide receiver Marquise Brown; and sophomore running back Trey Sermon during the Bedlam game Nov. 10. The Sooners pulled off a 48-47 win against Oklahoma State.
Sooners keep playoff hopes alive after winning nerve-wracking Bedlam game by one point
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sigh of relief. That was Lincoln Riley’s reaction as the clock hit zero at O klahoma Memorial Stadium Saturday. He hugged his wife, picked up his daughter and walked off Owen Field victorious. But the Sooners’ 48-47 win over Oklahoma State didn’t feel like a win. Sooner Nation once again left Saturday’s game feeling lucky — lucky to still have its College Football Playoff hopes alive. For the second straight week, Oklahoma was favored by more than two touchdowns, but it yet again raised every Sooner fan’s heart rate with a lackluster performance. The defense helped Oklahoma State quarterback Taylor Cornelius look like Tom Brady in throwing for 501 yards and the offense — which entered Saturday’s game ranked No. 2 in total offense — couldn’t score to put the game away several times. But a win is a win, especially in Championship November. “Gutsy win,” Riley said in his postgame press conference for second straight week. “It’s still a little surreal, doing all that at this place on this field, winning a historic game in the fashion that we did, getting to do this job
GEORGE STOIA • @GEORGESTOIA I get to do every day and then celebrating with my family. It’s as good as it gets. I love it. “It’ll be fun for this team to continue to go forward. We’ve got some big goals in front of us, big games in front of us, but I think we still like what we have in that room without a doubt.” Riley is confident in his team, even if few others are. While Oklahoma sits at No. 6 in the country, its national perception is not that of a College Football Playoff team. National media and fans have concerns about the Sooner ’s defense, which entered Saturday ranked 65th in the nation and gave up 640 yards to Oklahoma State. OU’s offense is clearly at a national title level, but with a defense that continues to show multiple areas of vulnerability, Oklahoma’s playoffs hopes continue to take a hit. Oklahoma’s path to the playoff isn’t going to be easy, either. The Sooners are likely to blow by Kansas next week, but a trip to Morgantown looks ominous. And Oklahoma will need some help from others. With Alabama and Clemson more than likely to win out, the Sooners have to h o p e e i t h e r No t re Da m e or Michigan slip up along the
way. And then it comes down to the committee’s perception of Oklahoma. But Riley continues to praise
“It’ll be fun for this team to continue to go forward. We’ve got some big goals in front of us, big games in front of us, but I think we still like what we have in that room without a doubt.” LINCOLN RILEY, HEAD FOOTBALL COACH
his team, as he typically does. All he cares about is walking away with a “W.” “I just don’t listen to (the noise),” Riley said. “You just have to win. It’s about winning. It’s not about this team playing that team, this and that, it’s about your matchup on the field each and every Saturday, and at the end of the game you either win or you lose.”
Oklahoma’s defensive issues are not fixable overnight — just ask former defensive coordinator Mike Stoops. But it can improve and make easy fixes, and so far, it has. The glaring issues are still there: They can’t defend the deep ball and rarely get pressure on the quarterback. But when they’re needed most, they’ve come up with the biggest of plays — an interception against Army, a two-point conversion returned the distance against Texas Tech, and a fumble and two-point stop against Oklahoma State. “I don’t think we’re playing good enough defense (to make the playoff ) now,” redshirt senior linebacker Curtis Bolton said. “Do I think it’s gonna keep us out of the playoffs? No. I think we control our destiny ... We’ve just gotta play more consistent. I think there are certain stretches of the games that we play really well, but there are just too many times where we get lulled to sleep and it’s a big play over the top. The big plays are killing us on defense. Once we get that figured out, it’s gonna look a whole lot different.” That seems to be the story with the Sooner’s defense weekin and week-out — “Once we get
that figured out.” When will they figure it out? Maybe soon, maybe never. But as long as Oklahoma stays in the win column, coaches and players are confident the season will work itself out. “And November, what I’ve learned is you’ve just got to scrap,” interim defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill said. “And I know the last two weeks have been scraps and fights. Having been in it for a little while, I don’t ever take that lightly.” So Riley and his team, looking relieved to leave Saturday with a win, continue to survive and advance. “I feel great about them. That’s the team we’ve got. I think we know what they’re capable of, and so it’s looking at the whole team,” Riley said. “And I think the whole team, this team’s proven it can separate from some people, it’s proven that we can win tough games, it’s proven that we can handle adversity. Those are all things we have to do here at the end of the season.”
George Stoia
georgestoia@ou.edu
Campus landscapers ‘blindsided’ by layoffs Employees shocked by job terminations without warning DREW HUTCHINSON @drethegirl
Editor’s note: The two landscapers quoted in this stor y spoke to The Daily on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. OU landscaping employees were “blindsided” by layoffs from the OU administration earlier this month, raising questions about the future of campus beautification. Twenty-five people in the landscaping department were laid
off Nov. 1 as part of OU President James Gallogly’s reduction in workforce, according to a statement from OU Public Affairs. Gallogly laid off approximately 50 employees during this time, including workers from three research offices and the One University store. Two OU landscapers, one current and one former, said the department had no idea the layoffs were coming. “It was just unexpected,” said a landscaper who lost his job as part of the layoffs. “Three folks came into the shop and called us into the back room and sat us down and basically said, ‘Today is your last day of work’ ... Like I said, we were just blindsided.”
The former landscaper said he and the other terminated workers will be paid until Dec. 31, but he said he worries about feeding his four kids in the current job market after his severance pay ends. “We’re all parents,” the former worker said. “We all have families. We live here in Norman. We have bills to pay and things like that, and they (could) have ... gave us some kind of notice this would happen. We could have started looking for other jobs or something.” A current landscaper, who said he believes his 20 years of service to OU helped him keep his job, told The Daily that things around the landscaping department weren’t going well, but that it was
too early to calculate the longterm consequences. He said the situation was worrisome, especially because the workers were caught off-guard with the news. “Nobody knew that they were getting laid off,” the landscaper said. “It’s just, they showed up to work and had to go back home ... It’s terrible when people lose their job, especially some of them who needed them.” In 2015, College Values Online ranked OU as the 10th most impressive historic college campus in the nation, an honor heavily based on green space and flora, according to an OU press release. Entertainment and travel website Thrillist also put OU in the top 25 most beautiful campuses
nationwide in 2014. The former landscaper said he believes Gallogly running OU “like a corporation” will have negative consequences, such as a decline in the university’s noted beauty. “With landscape, OU was one of the top 10 universities in the country, considered a beautiful campus,” the former employee said. “And (Gallogly is) firing all of the landscapers. They are cutting people without realizing the implications they’ll have later on.” The laid-off worker also said he was told OU had plans to privatize its landscaping by bringing in private contractors to do the work of See LANDSCAPING page 5