The Oklahoma Sooners were able to do what almost no one else has in 2025, despite the ugly win over the Missouri Tigers
The Sooners stopped Missouri running back Ahmad Hardy.
Winning is hard in 2025, especially in the SEC. No conference win has come easy for the Oklahoma Sooners, outside maybe their win over the South Carolina Gamecocks, but even that game had some tough moments. You can’t say the same about any other conference.
The Sooners won ugly against the Missouri Tigers on Saturday, but they did what really no one else has – stop Tigers running back Ahmad Hardy.
Sooners’ defense shut down Missouri running back Ahmad Hardy
“Right after the first drive, they made adjustments. They were gonna get some,” Brent Venables told reporters after the game. “And we started soft. You can’t load the box every single play. You don’t always know until you get on gameday. Sometimes it’s a cat-and-mouse game. Then you start figuring out what your matchups are. A lot of their games early, teams have given up rushing yards to them early in the game. Thankfully, we started knocking the pile backwards a little more often.”
The Sooners have the best defense in the country. Some would argue that the Ohio State Buckeyes have the best defense, but they simply are not playing the talent and coaches that OU is every week. On Saturday, Oklahoma shut down Missouri, allowing just six points via two field goals. That’s not the only thing they shut down, though, ask the nation’s leading rusher, Hardy.
Oklahoma has only allowed one team to rush for over 100 yards this season, and that was the Michigan Wolverines, who wouldn’t have hit over 100 yards if they didn’t have the busted play in that game. Hardy is the nation’s leading rusher, with 1,300 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns. On Saturday, he looked like just another guy.
The Sooners held Hardy to 57 rushing yards on 17 rushing attempts. That’s not good at all, and if the color analyst and play-by-play guys in the booth didn’t mention it 37 times, you wouldn’t have known Hardy is the best back in the country. David Stone Jr., Jayden Jackson, Dominic Williams, Gracen Halton, Taylor Wein, Owen Heinecke, and pretty much everyone else on the defense played a huge part in the run game.
The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers are the only teams that shut down Hardy. Bama allowed him to rush for 52 yards on 12 attempts, while Auburn gave up 58 rushing yards on 24 attempts. Bama and Auburn gave up 23 points, and OU gave up 6. That’s the biggest difference between the other two games Hardy played.
The Sooners’ defense continues to be Oklahoma football’s savior. The offense couldn’t put the game away, while the defense continued to show everything down. When it shut down the run, it could sell out in the pass rush and bring Missouri QB Beau Pribula down over and over again.
This team just doesn’t die.
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