The story of the night was Oklahoma's defense, not its offensive line. New Mexico managed just 69 rushing yards and 185 total yards, and the Lobos' only points came on two field goals instead of the kind of scoring drives that had them up 63 points on Central Michigan and Mercyhurst combined. Whatever patchwork answer Jason Eck had at quarterback between Luke Moga, Toa Fa'avae and James Laubstein never found room to operate behind that stat line.
New Mexico's own defense, which had forced 6 takeaways a week earlier, didn't repeat the trick here — Oklahoma's offense turned the ball over cleanly enough to let the defense close it out. That's the version of this game the spread priced from the jump: a ranked program controlling the line of scrimmage against a team still finding its quarterback room, even in a week Oklahoma's own passing attack stayed pedestrian.
The 92-degree heat in Norman didn't produce the track meet a total that high implied. Both offenses bogged down instead, with the game turning into exactly the field-position, low-scoring affair the pregame ledger flagged as a risk for New Mexico's turnover-heavy defense running into a wall it hadn't faced yet.
Oklahoma banks the win and turns to SEC play at No. 2 Georgia next week, still without a real answer on whether the offensive line is fixed or just got away with one against a lighter front. New Mexico heads home 2-1, its non-conference measuring stick having told it exactly what it needed to know: the defense that thrived on turnovers against overmatched teams has to find another way to create them against real competition.