Oklahoma (5-5, 1-5 SEC) lost to Missouri (7-2, 3-2 SEC) on Saturday night in Columbia, Missouri.

Here’s what head coach Brent Venables said after the Sooners’ loss:

About the implementation in the fourth quarter:

“Heartbreaking loss. I feel so bad for our players. They did everything we asked of them, they went above and beyond to put us in a position to win the game here tonight.”

“In the second half I thought our guys just fought with everything they had and it wasn’t good enough. We need to do a better job helping them. (Missouri) converted way too many third downs against us on defense, and obviously we were outscored 21-7 and nothing affects the game like that. We have to take better care of football. I’m just incredibly grateful and proud of our guys, and I and the rest of the staff have to help them better somehow.

About Xavier Robinson’s performance:

‘He’s fantastic. I built on what he showed last week…he ran through the bin, had good instincts, ran well behind his pads, broke a lot of tackles and really helped us move the ball downfield and score there late.

On ball security issues at quarterback:

‘He has to get better. It’s a shame, you never like it, it affects everything you do. You have to get better at taking care of the ball. It’s just the basics, it’s nothing earth-shattering. We have to get better at it.”

On special teams improvement from last year:

“From the special teams efficiency a year ago, we had four fumbles and missed several kicks. That affects everything you do, so you know you’re not going to be as good. We just got better. Luke Elzinga was fantastic. Zach Schmidt and Tyler Keltner were really good. And then we have several players who are in their second and third years playing in those units… The players have really matured in the mentality of winning the hidden yardage and being aggressive with what we want on special teams.

On the final ride:

“We really thought we could take the ball up the field and have a chance… Our two minutes all year were especially really good. You don’t see them all, but we went one-on-one in practice and really felt like we had a good plan for that. We were able to get a few completions there, with the timeouts we had in our back pocket we were able to get the ball past midfield. And we really felt like Zach could kick it about 62, 63 yards. With the time we had on the clock, we wanted to do that.”