After a marathon 4-overtime win against Texas in Dallas, Oklahoma had a week off before facing road games at TCU October 24 and Texas Tech on Halloween.

Oklahoma (2-2, 1-2 in the Big 12) will play TCU at 11 a.m. Saturday in Fort Worth. This is the third game this season with an 11 a.m. kickoff. And with road games against TCU and Texas Tech, Oklahoma won’t have a home game in the month of October.

OU is tied with TCU (1-2 overall and 1-2 in the Big 12) and Texas  for sixth place in the conference. OU leads the all-time series with TCU 15-5. The Sooners have won the last six meetings with TCU.

Both Oklahoma and TCU have beaten Texas and lost to Iowa State and Kansas State in league play. TCU fell to Kansas State, 14-21. The Horned Frogs were off last Saturday.

“Moving forward, especially in this conference, you need to have energy in every game,” said TCU linebacker Garrett Wallow. “We definitely lacked in that category (against KSU). Every game is a battle, every game is a fight, and every game is like a championship game in this league. We definitely need to come out with more energy. I think that it is something we need to improve on as a team, not just as an individual game.”

After the 53-45 win over Texas, Oklahoma’s T.J. Pledger was named Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week and teammate David Ugwoegbu was Special Teams Player of the Week. K-State senior AJ Parker was Defensive Player of the Week and true freshman Will Howard was Newcomer of the Week.

Pledger rushed 22 times for career highs of 131 yards and two touchdowns. He had a two receptions for 24 yards. His touchdowns came in the third quarter on 2- and 1-yard runs to give the Sooners a 31-17 cushion.

A blocked punt and recovery by Ugwoegbu deep in Texas territory helped the Sooners to a touchdown in the quadruple-overtime win over No. 22 Texas. It was OU’s first blocked punt or kick of any kind this season. He also registered a career-high six tackles, including two for loss, and a sack on defense.

OU also blocked a field goal attempt that was crucial.

“They were huge in this game,” OU coach Lincoln Riley said. “We talked a lot about it with our team the night before. There always seems to be special teams’ play in games like this and we need to be the ones making them.”

One play that could have been a disaster was aggravated by a clock mistake by officials during the Texas game in the crucial fourth quarter.

This week, Big 12 officials admitted the mistake when they arbitrarily added 40 seconds to the clock. Texas was out of timeouts and OU led 31-17. It was third down and Riley called a pass to the tight end that was dropped. Texas got the ball and scored twice to send the game into overtime. That might not have happened without those extra 40 seconds.

“We questioned the officials about it. I thought they were going to stop and talk about it but they didn’t,” Riley said. “We were not happy about it on our sideline. We didn’t a ton of explanation on it. The game was ongoing then.

“I think several of us, right away, when they came over the loudspeaker and said 6:36, we obviously knew that wasn’t correct,” Riley said. “I thought we made a fairly good argument on the sideline but the officials were pretty convinced that it was right and we had to get on with the game.”

Would Riley have called a run play to eat up time if there was under 6 minutes left?

 “I can’t promise what I would have done, but it certainly would have had an impact on the decision,” Riley said.

Riley said coaches planned on playing more players prior to the Texas game because they had been improving.

 “I thought (freshman) Woodi Washington came in and had a big impact on the game,” Riley said. “We needed to be able to play a few more guys. I thought those guys came in and did well.

“It’s what we’ve been seeing in practice. They’ve been improving and they needed this time. It was a time for us to put some of those guys into a game and we’ve got a couple of others who are right there close to being ready to take some snaps.”

Riley said the bye week was a good opportunity to get more practice for younger players.

Riley said UCLA junior offensive line transfer Chris Murray has been declared eligible for the 2020 season and could play against TCU.

Coronavirus update

NCAA Division I winter athletes have been granted an additional year of eligibility due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic and all football teams will be eligible to play in a bowl game.

This is a one-time exception due to the pandemic.

The NCAA’s Division I Council approved both measures in its annual meetings. Council chair Grace Calhoun, the athletic director at Penn, said the council wanted to provide flexibility to athletes because of the uncertainty this year in college sports.

In a normal year, college football teams need a .500 record to qualify for a postseason game. Calhoun said the council decided to drop that requirement in 2020 to “continue the theme of providing maximum flexibility.”