NORMAN — No matter how many times he breaks wide open behind the defense, no matter how often he scores a long touchdown, it’s likely that nothing Marvin Mims does will ever top his amazing touchdown last year against Texas.
And he barely remembers it — only pieces, really. Most of what he recalls are images from television.
“Honestly, sometimes it will pop up in my feed and I'm like, 'That's pretty cool,' ” Mims said after practice Monday. “Now, when I remember the play, I don't remember it from my point of view. I just remember it from the video's point of view.”
The Sooners had nearly completed an improbable comeback, from down 28-7 to within 41-33 with 7 1/2 minutes to play. From the OU 48-yard line, Caleb Williams stepped up away from the pass rush and launched an absolute miracle.
But the real miracle was Mims’ catch — bending, twisting, defended ardently by UT’s Darion Dunn, ultimately horizontal, in bounds by the width of a shoelace and just inside the end zone pylon.
The score cut Texas’ lead to 41-39, and Spencer Rattler came off the bench to throw a tying 2-point conversion to Drake Stoops with 7:25 to play.
“I remember running, seeing Caleb set up in the pocket, seeing the ball in the air, and then falling and the pylon being there,” Mims recalled. “It was kind of surreal. I didn't know where I was. It was one heck of a play.”
So with his eyes on the ball, Mims somehow saw the location of the pylon and the sideline?
“Not a chance,” he said. “I was half in the game, half out of the game. I was dead tired. It was a touchdown. That was cool.”
Mims’ family is from Baton Rouge, LA, so he grew up an LSU fan. But his high school years in Frisco, TX, alerted him to the magnitude of the OU-Texas rivalry. Now that he’s written his own chapter, he has a bit of a different perspective on the game, which renews at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Cotton Bowl.
Beyond the rivalry itself, the Sooners are 0-2 in Big 12 play and could get a season-turning victory against the Longhorns.
“If you're scared, if you don't want to go out there, don't go out there,” Mims said. “This game maybe means more to me, being a kid from Texas. This is a game that you sign up for. You have it circled every year. You go to OU, you go to Texas, you know you are going to play OU-Texas. You know what it means, being in the state fair, all that stuff. At the end of the day, if you're not fired up to play this game, you don't love football. You don't want to play football.”
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