No. 11 Oklahoma (7-2, 6-2 in the Big 12) took a big step toward their goal of a record-setting sixth straight Big 12 Championship with a hard-fought 27-14 win over Baylor Saturday night in Norman.

The win clinched a spot in the Big 12 Championship game for the Sooners, who will get a chance to avenge an early season loss to No. 9 Iowa State.

OU’s defense was dominating in a game where the offense was somewhat stymied by the Baylor defense. OU defensive coordinator Alex Grinch had a false positive test for the coronavirus earlier in the week but was cleared Thursday for the game. Three defensive starters — Nik Bonitto, Pat Fields and Brendan Radley-Hiles – could not play due to the pandemic protocols.

OU will travel to West Virginia for an 11 a.m. kickoff on ABC-TV on Saturday. West Virginia (5-4, 4-4), which had not played a game due to the virus in three weeks, lost to Iowa State 42-6 Saturday.

“It’s not going to get easier for us. We are going to see another great (team) next week,” said West Virginia coach Neal Brown.

OU coach Lincoln Riley said his team would take the West Virginia game seriously even though a loss wouldn’t keep them from the title game.

“We’ll get ready for West Virginia. I’ve seen how they’ve played. You study common opponents even when not playing them. They’re obviously playing very well,” Riley said. “Have a ton of respect for them. The players they have, the coaching staff, all that. They’ve done a great job. But this week will be about West Virginia, and then we’ll get on to that one after that.”

OU assistant offense coordinator Shane Beamer was named the new head coach for South Carolina Sunday. The Gamecocks (2-8) finished their season with a sixth consecutive loss, 41-18 at Kentucky on Saturday.

Against Baylor, OU quarterback Spencer Rattler threw two touchdown passes as the Sooners won their sixth game in a row. Rattler was 20 of 28 passing. He has at least two passing touchdowns in eight of OU’s nine games.

Running back Rhamonde Stevenson rushed for 98 yards and a touchdown. The Sooner offense gained only 269 – a season low and the fewest total yards since 2014 (232 vs. Texas) and the lowest total of the Riley era (previous low was 278 yards against Texas in 2015).

OU did not play the week before due to coronavirus problems.

“Obviously, offensively, I’m not very pleased with the way we played,” Riley said. “And honestly, I don’t think our guys were coached worth a (expletive) this week, to be completely honest. Not going to get too much in the weeds with it, but I don’t think us as offensive coaches did a very good job, putting our guys in position to succeed, just the way we set up practice.

“Then it was just kind of a game full of mistakes. We just weren’t very sharp, we weren’t crisp. We had some opportunities to make big plays, and we didn’t make ‘em. We had a lot of mental errors, we had a lot of bad play calls. More than any specific play, just did a bad job getting the offense ready to play this game.”

Rattler was impressed with the Baylor defense.

“That was one of the best defenses, if not the best defense I’ve seen all year,” Rattler said. “Personally I think that they had a great game plan. We saw some things that weren’t on film.”

“We handle adversity well. Just with this year being weird with COVID and all that stuff and then those early losses and these couple games we’ve been in where there’s been adversity. I think that’s helped us a lot to get us to this point now, and by any means we’re not there yet. We’ve got one in Morgantown next week. That’s what we’re focused on first. You know, we’re just going to prepare like we always do.”

The Sooner defense held Baylor (2-6, 2-6) to 288 yards, including 25 yards rushing.

“I’m excited about the way we played defensively, especially down the number of bodies that we were across the whole team and certainly there,” Riley said. “Another strong game defensively, considering the position changes and all we went through. I thought the guys handled it well.

“I was also proud from a special teams standpoint, when you have close to 20 players out, as a head coach, that’s one of your first primary concerns, is what do special teams look like? And I thought in large part, the guys executed there pretty well.”

OU kicker Gabe Brkic made field goals of 20 and 50 yards, and converted all three of his PAT attempts in the game. He is now 16 for 21 on field goal attempts and 40 for 40 on PATs this season. He is 33 of 38 on field goals and 92 of 92 on PATs in his career.

OU players expected to reach the Big 12 championship game despite a 0-2 start in the conference.

“We always had confidence in ourselves,” said defensive lineman Isaiah Thomas. “We always believed we had a chance to make it. When the chances for us making it to this Big 12 Championship Game didn’t look so great, we didn’t point the finger at anybody. We looked ourselves in the mirror and we took control of our own destiny instead of blaming each other or blaming these coaches. We never thought we were out of it. Obviously, the world did. We have a lot of critics out there believing that OU’s not the same … whenever we do great, everyone wants to pat you on the back. What we do is we just stay focused on the ones who truly support us and that’s the ones in the facility. We never felt like we were out of it.”