Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va.  – This was the shootout everyone anticipated.
 
Sixth-ranked Oklahoma used 478 yards of total offense from quarterback Kyler Murray, an 11-catch, 243-yard receiving effort from wide receiver Marquise Brown, 182 yards rushing from Kennedy Brooks and a pair of fumble returns to outlast 12^th-ranked West Virginia, 59-56 on a wild and not-so wonderful Friday night at Milan Puskar Stadium.
 
"(Murray and Brown) are the quickest kids I've ever seen … ever," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. "They're special players and special talents. I didn't think they could top, offensively, what they did last year ... but they're pretty good."
 
This game had a little bit of everything, including an unusual personal foul penalty called on West Virginia wide receiver T.J. Simmons during Kennedy McKoy's 73-yard run to the Oklahoma 2 that turned out to be one of the critical plays in a game full of critical plays.
 
At the time, the Mountaineers were trailing the Sooners, 52-49, and were looking to retake the lead when McKoy took a handoff from quarterback Will Grier at the WVU 25, angled toward the near sideline and ran untouched all the way down to the Sooner 2 where he was knocked out of bounds.
 
But behind the play, Simmons continued blocking Oklahoma's Tre Brown completely out of bounds, drawing a personal foul penalty from one of the trailing officials who deemed it excessive and unnecessary.
 
So, instead of having the football first and goal at the Oklahoma 2 it was walked back to the OU 42.
 
Ironically, Simmons, Dominique Maiden and true freshman Sam James were getting all of the No. 3 wide receiver reps when regular third receiver Marcus Simms was knocked out of the game in the first quarter on a helmet-to-helmet hit by OU safety Robert Barnes, who played the entire game and was credited with eight tackles.
 
"He got his bell rung pretty good," Holgorsen said. "I didn't see it. They said they reviewed it, and it wasn't targeting."
 
Two plays after the Simmons penalty, Grier was hit from behind by OU's Kenneth Mann and his fumble was picked up by Curtis Bolton and returned 48 yards for a touchdown. 
 
That scoop and score and Austin Seibert's conversion kick put the Sooners ahead 59-49.
 
Late in the second quarter, Grier lost another fumble when he was sacked from behind by Caleb Kelly at the Oklahoma 10 and Kelly was able to pick up the football and walk it into the end zone.
 
That's 14 extra points for an Oklahoma offense that averaged a staggering 10.3 yards every time it snapped the football tonight.
 
"As well as we played offensively, to give them 14 points is inexcusable," Holgorsen said. "It was the difference in the game. Then to have two touchdowns taken off the board, which is a shame that happens. I don't get it. I don't understand it and never will."
 
The other nullified touchdown Holgorsen referenced happened in the second quarter when David Sills V was called for offensive pass interference on Grier's 8-yard touchdown pass to Gary Jennings Jr. in the corner of the end zone.
 
The 15-yard walk-off moved the ball back to the OU 23 and the Mountaineers eventually lost it on downs when Grier's fourth-down pass to Jovani Haskins fell incomplete.
 
Holgorsen opted to go for it there to try and match Oklahoma touchdown-for-touchdown instead of kicking the field goal.
 
Adding those two missed touchdowns with the two gift-wrapped to Oklahoma and that's a whopping 28 points the Mountaineers either left on the table or lost tonight.
 
West Virginia (8-3, 6-3) scored on the game's opening possession, and the two teams exchanged leads five times before the Sooners finally took control of things early in the fourth quarter after Bolton's fumble return.
 
The biggest lead by either team was OU's 14-point advantage late in the second quarter when Kelly's fumble return made it 35-21.
 
But West Virginia responded by marching 81 yards in 13 plays, using nearly all of the three minutes remaining in the first half.
 
Grier's fourth-and-four pass to Jennings for 12 yards gave the Mountaineers a fresh set of downs at the OU 32, and 30-yard pass down the near sideline to Maiden set up McKoy's 1-yard touchdown run.
 
His score made it a seven-point game at halftime.
 
"It's a shame we played so good on offense and then gave them 14 points," Holgorsen remarked.
 
The West Virginia defense came up with one of its two turnovers to begin the third quarter when safety Kenny Robinson intercepted Murray's third-down pass in the end zone.
 
The Mountaineers immediately turned that miscue into points when Grier hit Jennings in stride down the seam for a 57-yard touchdown. 
 
The WVU defense was able to hold Oklahoma to a field goal on its next possession, and then West Virginia retook the lead when Grier capped an 11-play, 75-yard drive by scoring from the 1. 
 
Setting up the touchdown was Grier's third-and-18 pass to Jennings for 52 yards to the Sooner 2. Staley's conversion kick put the Mountaineers ahead 42-38. West Virginia's final lead came at 49-45 with 17 seconds left in the third quarter.
 
Following Martell Pettaway's 17-yard touchdown run that trimmed Oklahoma's lead to 59-56, and the Mountaineers' unsuccessful onside kick try, the Sooners needed to convert a fourth-and-five play at the WVU 40 with 2:36 remaining to put West Virginia away.
 
WVU opted to drop back into coverage and Murray, scanning the entire field from the pocket, eventually hit CeeDee Lamb on the near side of the field for an eight-yard gain to move the sticks.
 
The Mountaineers could only stop the clock once and Oklahoma was able to run out the clock.

"It felt like the right thing to do (to go for it)," Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley explained afterward. "There was enough time, and with us having three timeouts, just the way the game was going I didn't want to give them the ball back."
 
Grier and Jennings had career nights for WVU, the senior quarterback completing 32 of his 49 pass attempts for 539 yards and four touchdowns and the senior wide receiver catching seven of them for 225 yards and two touchdowns.
 
Sills also contributed eight catches for 131 yards and two scores.
 
"A lot of these guys played their tails off," Holgorsen said of his 17-player senior class. "They've left their mark on this program and we'll be better moving forward because they were a part of it."
 
Tonight's combined 115 points and 1,372 total yards came close to approaching West Virginia's 70-63 victory over Baylor in 2012 when the two teams combined for 1,507 total yards.
 
Oklahoma's 668 total yards consisted of 304 yards rushing and 364 yards passing while West Virginia's 704 yards predominantly came from Grier's 539 yards through the air.
 
"We knew going in it was going to be this kind of game," Holgorsen said. "I talked about it all week. How many of these games have been in the 40s? All of them. This one happened to be in the 50s."
 
"What a college football game," Riley said. "I think it lived up to its billing. Give a lot of credit to coach Holgorsen and his team. That was a really, really good football team that we just beat."
 
A sellout crowd of 60,713 was announced for tonight's game.
 
Oklahoma's victory gives the Sooners their fourth-straight Big 12 regular season title and a spot in next weekend's championship game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, against Texas, which outlasted Kansas earlier today in Lawrence.
 
With back-to-back losses to Oklahoma State and Oklahoma, the Mountaineers drop to third with games still to be played on Saturday and they will have to wait a week before learning their bowl destination, West Virginia's seventh bowl trip in the last eight years under Holgorsen. 
 
"We did not make our goal of going to the Big 12 championship game and it's a damned shame," he said. "I think everybody understands we're close. We beat one of them and we almost beat the other one."
 
Oklahoma has won all seven games against West Virginia since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 in 2012.