By ROBERT CESSNA
Two plays before the Texas A&M football team scored its final touchdown Saturday, the cannon was fired. It was that kind of afternoon for the misfiring Aggies as the sixth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners rolled to 66-28 victory.
It was a somber Senior Day for 14 scholarship seniors and the partisan crowd of 85,603. The Aggies lost their fifth home game in a season for the first time in school history, allowing a Kyle Field record for points scored in a game by an opponent.
"I apologized to the [the seniors] for the fact that we lost," A&M head coach Mike Sherman said. "We really wanted to have a great showing today for them."
Instead, it was Oklahoma with another great showing. The Sooners beat the Aggies for the sixth straight time, and head coach Bob Stoops improved to 9-1 against A&M.
"Oklahoma's at a level right now in their program where we want to be," said Sherman, who is in his first year at A&M. "And we'll get there at some point."
Oklahoma moved closer to another Big 12 championship game, and possibly a national title tilt.
OU scored the first 28 points in breezing to its fourth straight Big 12 victory. The Sooners (9-1, 5-1) snapped A&M's modest two-game winning streak by dominating the line of scrimmage, and just about everything else.
"Overall, we were complete," Stoops said. "Our guys were great against the run, coverage, everything was really solid. We got good pressure and we came up with big turnovers."
A&M's offense sputtered while OU rolled up 653 yards, the most by an Aggie opponent since Tech had 669 in a 59-28 loss in 2003. A&M had four turnovers, 12 penalties and gained more than 31 yards on only two of 17 possessions.
"We should have played a lot better than we did," Sherman said. "We did a lot of things to self-destruct. We just couldn't get anything going offensively."
A&M (4-6, 2-4) rushed for only 26 yards, with its longest run just 9 yards among 18 carries by the running backs.
"Their D-line was very good," said A&M freshman running back Cyrus Gray, who had a team-best 24 yards rushing on five carries. "They had a lot of momentum and push on our O-line and I had to create my own holes."
It was much simpler for the Sooner backs, as 6-foot-8, 337-pound senior tackle Phil Loadholt and 6-5, 335-pound senior guard Duke Robinson were part of a line opening huge holes.
"That left tackle, gosh, there's a shadow looming on the other side of that guy," said Sherman, a former offensive line coach. "He's huge. I thought the offensive line coming into the game was a very physical group. Obviously, the rushing yards speak for itself."
OU rushed for a season-high 328 yards, averaging a whopping 8.6 yards per carry. The Sooners broke off several long runs on straight-ahead base plays.
"It's really, as far as the structure of the game, probably one of the most simple running attacks we've faced all year," A&M defensive coordinator Joe Kines said. "They do it well. Any time you do something really well with good people, you're going to have great success."
OU had a pair of 100-yard rushers in DeMarco Murray (7 carries, 123 yards) and Chris Brown (13-117, 3 TDs). The two combined to lose only 3 yards on the ground.
OU's running game set the tone with 90 yards on the first four rushes for a 7-0 lead. Murray had a 70-yard run that set up quarterback Sam Bradford's scramble for an easy 15-yard touchdown.
OU scored on its next two possessions as A&M couldn't pick up a first down. Murray caught a 5-yard touchdown pass and Brown scored on a 22-yard run as the Sooners rolled, facing only two third downs while taking a 21-0 lead.
"With the big ol' linemen they have, it's hard to move those guys and that's what football is all about," A&M linebacker Matt Featherston said. "You got to whop somebody to make a tackle."
A&M's special teams helped out the offense with Gray's 67-yard kickoff return in the second quarter. A&M needed only three plays to go 25 yards with tight end Jamie McCoy catching a 20-yard touchdown to make it 28-7.
A&M was missing wide receiver Jeff Fuller. The freshman, who had initially pledged to play at OU, couldn't go Saturday because of a quad injury. The speedy Fuller had scored a touchdown in every Aggie victory.
Fellow freshman Ryan Tannehill picked up the slack on A&M's second touchdown drive with a clutch 55-yard catch on fourth down from the Aggie 42. Johnson scrambled in from the 2 on fourth down to make it 28-14 with 5 minutes, 11 seconds left in the first half.
That was too much time for OU.
Brown scored on a 5-yard run with 2:51 left, then OU was able to tack on a field goal when Johnson was sacked on fourth down.
Juaquin Iglesias caught a 20-yard pass and Bradford scrambled for 9 yards to set up Jimmy Stevens' 42-yard field goal, making it 38-14 at the half.
A&M failed to pick up a first down to open the second half, and OU pushed its lead to 45-14 on Ryan Broyles' 23-yard touchdown catch from Bradford, who threw for 320 yards and four touchdowns.
A&M's bright spots in the second half were Gray's 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and senior quarterback Stephen McGee seeing his first extended action since reinjuring his throwing shoulder against Army. McGee completed 10 of 19 passes for 82 yards.