Ryan Welton

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3:06 am - October 27, 2019 -

3 reasons why the Oklahoma Sooners fell flat against Kansas State

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The last time the Sooner Schooner tipped over, Oklahoma lost. To Kansas State.

Deja vu.

And the Sooners totally deserved it. The final was 48-41, but I’m here to tell you that this was a butt-kicking. I thought Oklahoma was out-coached and out-classed in every department.

The defense was obviously terrible.

Special teams couldn’t figure out pooch kicks.

And the offense had zero spark.

My wife asked me what I thought went wrong, and the first thing I thought was that the Sooners just aren’t nearly as good as we thought. I didn’t think they were that great against Houston, and it appears that both Texas Tech, West Virginia and Houston are beyond terrible.

But I came up with three specifics:

  1. The Sooners defense has suddenly lost depth. The injury to Jon-Michael Terry apparently cannot be understated. Where was the rush today? Where was the aggressiveness? And then Parnell Motley lost his mind and kicked a Kansas State player, getting himself disqualified.

    I don’t believe these are the only injury issues on the team either. My understanding though is that, today, OU had a whole bunch of second- and third-teamers playing.

  2. Oklahoma abandoned the run game. This one is baffling to me, and it’s 100 percent Lincoln Riley’s fault. The innovative play-caller was anything but today. Check out this box score:

    a. Jalen Hurts: 19 for 96 yards
    b. Trey Sermon: 3 for 9 yards
    c. Kennedy Brooks: 3 for 2 yards

    Riley is well-known for being able to memorize all his play calls and cite them on his radio show. Well, he should forget today’s batch because they were John Blake-era trash.

    I’ve read some folks comparing Jalen to Vince Young. I can see it a little bit in terms of his running style, but I can also see why he ended up second-string at Alabama. The drop-off from Baker and Kyler to Jalen, to me, is pretty significant.

    That Kennedy Brooks only ran three times, and that Rhamondre Stevenson didn’t even touch the ball is baffling. Unexplainable.

  3. Grant Calcaterra’s absence.

    Going back to the start of the Bob Stoops era at OU, the tight end has been a huge part of Oklahoma’s success.

    No tight end caught a pass today for the Sooners.

    Calcaterra has been out for three weeks with an “undisclosed injury,” and his absence today was killer. No tight end? No running game?

    Anyway, them’s my thoughts. The good news is that Oklahoma has been very resilient after losses in years past, and they lost at a good time of year.

    Win out, and the Sooners will be in the playoffs.

    My hunch though is that this team has 1-2 more losses in them.

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
3:38 am - August 20, 2019 -

Jalen Hurts Named Sooners’ Starter, But D’Eriq King Is The QB Oklahoma Needs To Worry About

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The Oklahoma Sooners named Jalen Hurts starting quarterback on Monday in breaking news that nobody doubted. The Alabama graduate transfer was a shoo-in for the job, it seemed, over the underrated Tanner Mordecai and the future superstar Spencer Rattler.

Hurts has played in three national championship games and helped the Crimson Tide win the 2017 natty.

But come September 1, Hurts might not be the best QB on Owen Field.

D’Eriq King is coming to town, and he’s got a Dana Holgorsen offense in tow.

Everybody who thinks that Week 1 versus the University of Houston is going to be a cakewalk is grossly mistaken. New defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and the Sooners D will get a stiff test in Week 1 against a proven offensive system and a QB who has a puncher’s chance at a Heisman Trophy in 2019.

Deadly serious.

King was leading the nation in touchdowns last November when a torn meniscus sidelined him for the rest of the year.

The website underdogdynasty.com, which covers football in Conference USA, the Sun Belt, the AAC and Independent college football, ranks D’Eriq King as its No. 1 player in the AAC.

They write:
We’ve said it for a while and we’ll say it again: D’Eriq King is the best player in this conference, no question. He was robbed for Conference Player of the Year last year, and deserves more respect from all of college football.

King was one of three players to account for 50 or more touchdowns last year. He did that in 11 games, and might have led all of college football in touchdowns if he didn’t get hurt. Dana Holgorsen’s staff gives him yet another playbook, but that won’t slow him down at all. Holgorsen said he won’t run King as much this year, so his passing numbers should improve. Regardless of what happens, King’s talent is too good to ignore, and we need to give him the respect he deserves.

Check out this pass. This is the type of stuff that killed the Sooners time and time again the past few years, especially against teams that had taller receivers (think Texas and Iowa State):

Let’s check the roster. I’ve got some good news, Oklahoma. Houston doesn’t have any upper-classmen taller than 6’2″ and their one 6’3″ receiver is a freshman.

But to be brutally honest, this YouTube video should scare the devil out of Oklahoma fans. King is a fantastic passer, and Sooners fans know darned well that Oklahoma’s defense of the past two seasons wasn’t really any better than any of the teams you just watched in that video.

There are zero guarantees Oklahoma wins Game 1. The battle versus Houston in Norman on Sept. 1 is basically a Big 12 game from the past couple of years. Winning is surely expected, but by no means should anybody fail to understand how big a test this really is.

This could be a 55-48 type of game.

So, while Monday was all about getting the Jalen Hurts-as-starter news out of the way for the Sooners, OU fans should be getting to know D’Eriq King.

Dude could be the stuff of Oklahoma’s nightmares come Sept. 1.

Photo credit: University of Houston athletics

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners, sports Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
4:46 am - January 2, 2019 -

2018 Year in review: Just how close is Oklahoma to a national title?

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For most folks across the country, the thought of another Clemson vs. Alabama College Football Playoff game – a fourth – is pretty dull unless you’re in Alabama or South Carolina. But for those of us in Oklahoma, we get what it’s like. We have our own version of Clemson vs. Alabama.

It’s called Jenks-Union.

And for 21 seasons or so between 1995 and 2016, either the Jenks Trojans or the Union Redskins won the state’s top football class. Year after year it happened until Owasso broke through two seasons ago and Broken Arrow last season. Yet Oklahoma’s top flight of high school football is still relatively boring given its lack of parity. It took everything the Rams and Tigers had to win one game against the state’s best.

I’d still lay all my dollars on either Jenks or Union next year.

That’s what we have in college football right now, with no reason to believe that next year’s championship game won’t be Clemson-Alabama.

Despite the fantastic seasons Oklahoma has had the past four years, having gone to the CFP in three of them, the Sooners are more like Owasso or Broken Arrow pre-2016 than they are Jenks or Union. The breakthrough is going to come, but we’re going to have to be patient and wait out Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa.

The 2018 season got awfully frustrating at times until Mike Stoops was dismissed. We got two weeks of decent defensive play, and then the bottom dropped out. Oklahoma gave up 46 to Texas Tech and 47 to Oklahoma State and 40 to Kansas.

Yet we won every one of those games in a stretch of pure grit we haven’t seen since last season when the Sooners did the same thing.

I totally get it. Oklahoma has to get more physical. The Sooners have to get bigger. OU’s focus has to be on defense.

But with the hindsight that the end of the season gives us, can we muster some appreciation for the resiliency this team has shown for two consecutive seasons? It’s actually amazing that despite periods where it seemed as if none of the Sooners players even knew how to tackle that this squad pulled out win after win after win.

It speaks to the bond they have as brothers. It also speaks volumes about their head coach, Lincoln Riley, and his predecessor Bob Stoops, who was equally known for his gritty teams.

Riley got an extension and some more coin today, deservedly so. He’s running a great program, making tough decisions when the need arises and appears to be as aboveboard as it gets in the sometimes nasty world of college sports.

The truth is: Oklahoma might come in third or fourth the next five, six years in a row.

However, the Sooners are also THIS close to becoming the next Alabama.

I think Lincoln Riley is going to be obsessed with defense this offseason. While we might have to wait a couple years for it all to come together, the 2020-22 seasons look prime for at least one and likely multiple national championships.

Categories: college football, football, Sooners, sports Tags: , , , , , , ,
5:17 am - December 27, 2018 -

Hallelujah & Hollywood: Marquise Brown practiced today for Sooners

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We’re three days from college football’s playoffs, a pair of semifinal matches stuffed in between relatively meaningless bowl games.

Oklahoma fans learned today that Heisman winner Kyler Murray wasn’t feeling well and missed media time. They also learned that Marquise Brown practiced.

“Thank the good Lord,” it was proclaimed even by the most agnostic football fans in the Sooner state.

Hollywood! And Hallelujah.

If only it were that easy. If dressing out for practice meant anything for sure. If Marquise’s injury was to his shoulder and not a lower extremity.

I’m not overly confident that Marquise Brown is going to be close to full-strength come Saturday night versus Alabama in the Orange Bowl.

But he doesn’t have to be to help Oklahoma. Mostly, he needs to be on the field and drawing Alabama’s best coverage. He’ll be the deadliest decoy in the sport, for one night.

Maybe Hollywood plays dead for a quarter and then busts out in the second. Maybe the third. Or the fourth.

Or maybe Marquise is good for a few possession catches and to free up other Oklahoma receivers. That’s a damned big deal if so.

Hollywood could finish the Alabama game with only a catch or two and have a major impact on the Sooners’ success.

But from one Sooner fan to another, can I give you some news that has me even more fired up?

Trey Sermon is healthy.

Remember when we lost Rodney Anderson for the season, and we thought all was lost relative to Oklahoma’s ground game?

All I have to say is: Trey Sermon + Kennedy Brooks. Oklahoma is going to have a full-strength running game.

Sermon brings the thunder, and Brooks flashes lightning. They’re both effective tools for the Oklahoma passing game.

And if Hollywood is out there drawing double-teams, whether he’s full-strength or as gimpy as Kerri Strug, he’ll be making opportunities for CeeDee Lamb and Grant Calcaterra and Myles Tease, Lee Morris, Sermon and Brooks.

So, will Hollywood Brown be ready to go at full-strength?

Don’t know.

But it sure looks as if, with three sleeps before kickoff, that Hollywood Brown intends to play.

And that is huge for the Sooners.

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, OU, Sooners Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
4:04 am - December 2, 2018 -

Marquise Brown injury: ‘Hollywood’ ending still possible for Sooners, with or without star WR

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The question on everybody’s mind is: Will Oklahoma make the College Football Playoff with Alabama beating Georgia Saturday hours after the Sooners took care of Texas, 39-27, in Dallas?

The answer is almost certainly will Oklahoma be in as a four-seed at worst, third at best.

The question on my mind is: how is Marquise “Hollywood” Brown? He left the game in the second half with a foot injury and not only didn’t return for Oklahoma, he was carted off and returned in a boot and on crutches. Hollywood is one of the best receivers in Oklahoma history, and definitely the most explosive. He’s ‘Little Joe’ explosive.

In a national title game situation, he’s an X factor — against anybody.

To be honest, the injury appears to be a foot injury, not an ankle injury. My fear is that he broke his foot on the top of it or along the midfoot, also known as a Lisfranc injury. That makes me sound smart, but I’m not. I got the idea from a tweet:

I thought, “That’s a very specific proclamation,” so I looked it up. It fit what I was seeing in how the trainers were looking at Hollywood’s foot. For what it’s worth, head coach Lincoln Riley had nothing to say about it other than stating the obvious: Brown suffered a lower-body injury, and they’d examine him further. Multiple reports indicate that Brown seemed to tell his coach that he’d be OK although that could just be him saying it’s out of his hands and not to worry about him.

Without Brown, the Sooners are much less lethal on offense. With him, Oklahoma has a chance to win the whole thing.

Eventually they’re gonna win it all, you know.

And with or without him, what Saturday’s 39-27 win over the Longhorns showed is Oklahoma’s resiliency. This is the second season in a row in which the Sooners lost midway through the year and still made the playoff. Or so we think. I think it would be the third in four, too. To be able to come back and win out in each instance is highly impressive and speaks to a team’s mental fortitude as much as anything else.

Yes, I hate that the team’s defense was non-existent for much of the season.

Yes, I’m over those 59-56 games. That’s not good football.

These Sooners had every reason to throw in the towel or let up after the Texas loss. They had every reason to cave after getting blistered on social and in the press for a defense that gave up 47 to OSU or 40 to Kansas. Yuck! It’s not like they didn’t have it coming; they weren’t really improving.

However, they just took care of business, won games and waited for the moment the defensive side of the ball would step up.

They stepped up today.

That resiliency is proof positive that Oklahoma fans don’t need to sweat too much the loss of Marquise Brown. Hollywood will be back if he can, and if he’s not available for a Dec. 29 national semifinal, these Sooners of all Sooners are well equipped to figure it out.

Not because it wouldn’t hurt losing a player the caliber of Hollywood Brown.

But because this team, even though they’ve made us crazy for much of the season, might just be the most resilient Sooners of them all.

Resiliency is a winning quality. Winners are resilient.

Well done, men.

Heck of an example to the rest of us.

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners Tags: , , , , , , ,
4:19 am - November 28, 2018 -

Horns Down? The NFL has figured out what college hasn’t

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A few years ago, you wouldn’t have ever heard me say that the NFL was more fun to watch than college football.

The tailgating. The atmosphere. The tradition.

But now, between 74-72 football games and conference rules stifling even the most modest of player celebrations, I find myself at the end of the college football season eagerly awaiting its end — and it’s been like that for at least the past five years. Mind you, when the Sooners make the College Football Playoff, I’ll be gung-ho if but for one more day.

Today’s decision by the Big 12 Conference to penalize Oklahoma if a Sooner player, or coach presumably, makes a “horns down” gesture just cements the conference among a sea of snowflakes in an over-sensitive universe. Of course, the rule-follower that I am, I’m not overtly among those who are suggesting the Sooners as a team do it at the beginning of the game — but the conference has practically begged for it, and I bet we see something a la Georgia-Florida a few years ago.

Lol, this was awesome, btw.

Georgia went on to win 42-30, fwiw.

This isn’t even an OU vs. Texas issue. We both agree.

Are we going to ask Longhorns fans not to chant, “OU Sucks!”? Never. If I don’t hear “OU Sucks,” how am I to even believe it’s Texas?

It’s part of the game. Heck, does anybody remember that once upon a time, Longhorns and Sooners would line up along Commerce and basically drunkenly yell at each other for hours?

My capacity for caring about this topic hasn’t even lasted as long as the writing of this post, except to say this: The NFL figured it out. In desperate need of a PR boost in the wake of Anthem Kneeling ’17, the league decided to let their players have fun again.

They allowed them to celebrate touchdowns.

The horror.

And, trust me: there is plenty of shade being thrown in some of these celebrations. It just takes a little sleuthing.

But besides it being the right thing to do, it’s smart marketing. If we’re going to have to sit through a four-hour 59-56 game, let’s see these guys bring their best celebrations. Heck, get the audience in on it and have a vote for the celebration of the game in the fourth quarter for $25,000 to a worthy charity?

Lighten the heck up already.

Cover photo is from soonersports.com.

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners, sports Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
7:37 pm - November 18, 2018 -

Can we agree that Lincoln Riley owns the Oklahoma defense next year?

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They allowed Kansas 544 yards of total offense including 405 yards on the ground.

On the ground, they allowed the Jayhawks 8.3 yards per carry.

The ‘they’ I’m referring to is 1-10 Rutgers, one of the worst teams in all of college football.

It could have as easily been Oklahoma. The Sooners, despite a 55-40 win, allowed Kansas 524 total yards, 348 on the ground and at a 9.7-yards-per-carry clip. Oklahoma’s pass defense was also on par with Rutgers’, given the common opponent.

Oklahoma is 10-1, and Rutgers is 1-10.

Thank God for the Sooners offense because this team — without Kyler Murray and a brilliant offensive mind in Lincoln Riley — could as easily be 3-9.

The downward spiral of the Oklahoma defense absolutely started with Bob Stoops, the third best coach in the history of Oklahoma football. The man has a national championship to his name, and he brought the Sooners an entire era of winning. However, the move toward the spread offense went from 1999 gimmick to plague for the entire Big 12 conference, whose teams never bothered to learn how to defend against it.

And in the past five seasons, Oklahoma has gone from a modicum of aggressiveness to playing a permanent prevent defense against virtually every team, per the strategy of Bob’s brother, Mike and a full staff of coaches who have supported him, including current interim defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill.

So, what’s the big deal, you ask? We’ll just out-score everybody.

You’re right, but that becomes tougher when you play teams out of conference, especially teams from the SEC, Big 10 or an Independent team like Army. The Black Knights, in a 28-21 loss, held the potent Oklahoma offense to 355 yards and four scores, and they did it with ball control.

Where this philosophical discussion becomes tougher to argue is in discussing Alabama. If you were to poll 1,000 pretty knowledgeable college football fans, I think they’d say (aside from Clemson), the two teams that stand the best chance against the Crimson Tide would be Michigan (because of its awesome defense) and Oklahoma (because of our unstoppable offense).

I firmly believe Oklahoma could beat Alabama under close-to-perfect circumstances, but that score would probably look like 52-49. Maybe as many as three or four out of 10 times.

But Oklahoma could also, potentially, lose to virtually any team in Division I on a close-to-perfect day.

The Sooners are an injured quarterback away, a head coaching change away from reverting back to the Blake years. I think it’s super naive not to see that, and it’s not the end of the world if that were to happen. Makes you appreciate the great years, right?

I’m of the firm belief that Lincoln Riley is at once an offensive genius and quite possibly woefully incomplete as a head coach. But he’s got the opportunity to right that side of the ball.

This year, the terrible defense is on Mike Stoops and, largely, too, Ruffin McNeill.

But next year, can we agree that Lincoln Riley owns this?

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners, sports Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
5:18 am - September 23, 2018 -

OU 28, Army 21: Mike Stoops’ defense doesn’t look any better on radio either

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When I was 10 or 11 years old, I used to hide away in my room and listen to the radio.

My first memories were listening to WLS radio at night when the AM gods and frequencies allowed, and I listened to a lot of sports. I remembered listening to the 1980 Gator Bowl between Pittsburgh and South Carolina, and I listened to the 1980 Holiday Bowl between SMU and BYU, a veritable shootout by the standards of the day, a 46-45, Cougars win.

And I listened to the Orange Bowl that year, a 24-7 win for the Oklahoma Sooners over the Florida State Seminoles.

I wasn’t being deceptive about it, but Dad didn’t watch sports, and back in those days, parents controlled the remotes. This was the year before Mom and Dad bought me a TV, I believe, so I was huddled in bed with my transistor listening to John Brooks call the game for Oklahoma, his “Jiminy Christmas” the signal that good had come to the Sooners.

Some 38 years later, I’m at it again, listening to Oklahoma football on the radio, a 28-21 overtime nail-biter over the Army Black Knights. The very capable Toby Rowland was on the call, and it was a delight to hear in lieu of a $50 pay-per-view bill. The reason we have a PPV game every year is because of the Big 12 and its contracts with the networks.

They don’t have to do this, but they do — and I think it’s fan extortion. I didn’t buy it, even though I love both the Oklahoma Sooners and the Army Black Knights. CBS Sports Network shows all of Army’s games, so I started following Jeff Monken’s bunch a couple of years ago and kind of fell in love with their style and effort.

They sure as heck didn’t disappoint tonight.

Neither did the radio broadcast. Toby Rowland, Teddy Lehman, Gabe Ikard, Coach Merv Johnson and the highly under-recognized Chris Plank are fantastic. One of my News 9 colleagues, Michael Dean, makes an appearance on these broadcasts, too. Radio is still a glorious medium because it is theatre of the imagination.

But there was no imagining the nightmare that was the Army option game against an unprepared, undisciplined Oklahoma defense. Mike Stoops’ bunch can’t stop a competent passing team, and they can’t stop a competent running team. They need an opponent to stop themselves, truly.

At some point, repeating the same effort and mistakes over and over and over, game after game after game is insanity.

Or Coach Stoops has compromising photos of former President David Boren.

Something.

Coaches often respond to criticism by saying things like, “Geez, I didn’t know I had to teach college ball players how to tackle.”

And I say, “That’s exactly what you should be doing.”

If it were me, I’d obsess over why they weren’t tackling and then work with each player ad nauseam until they figured it out. There would be laps or stair runs for missed tackles, too. Whatever you can get away with in 2018.

But shame on us for saying anything about the obvious, right?

It’d be 1,000 times more acceptable if Mike Stoops showed any kind of emotion that evoked a little empathy, but he doesn’t. Thank God his crew finally got inspired in overtime, or any chance at a playoff in 2018 would be over.

Probably.

College football is a funny thing. A loss to Army might not have done the trick. Even though the Black Knights were a 30.5-point underdog, Army is actually good. They won a bowl game last year in exciting fashion, a 42-35 win over San Diego State. in which the Black Knights won with a 2-point conversion before a game-clinching interception return for a touchdown provided the final margin.

Army is disciplined, focused and prepared. Every game.

Oklahoma’s offense has long been the same way while the defense has been a step behind for years. The Sooners defense is like that co-worker who puts in a half-effort but turns it on, maybe, when the boss yells or when it’s crunch time, doing just enough to not get fired when you really just wish they would show up to work drunk out of their minds so the powers who be would have no choice but to make a move.

Nobody aspires to be a micro-manager, but this is an Oklahoma defense that begs for micro-management. If Mike doesn’t want to do it, let Ruffin McNeill or Calvin Thibodeaux handle it.

I’ll say this though: I don’t hate Mike Stoops; I just don’t think his defense is ever prepared well. Like ever ever.

It is what it is.

He’s a ******** of a coach, but he’s our *********.

The craziest part of this is that I didn’t have to see one second of the game to figure this out. Great radio will do that.

Tonight was a real treat.

We’ll live to curse Mike Stoops another day.

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners, sports Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4:45 am - September 16, 2018 -

Oklahoma escapes Iowa State with 37-27 win, but old (bad) habits reemerge

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Oklahoma is not going to win every game by 28 or 49, and so Sooner fans are grateful for Saturday’s 37-27 win over Iowa State in Ames, especially after last year’s 38-31 loss to the Cyclones in Norman. Saturday’s win was hard-fought and presented plenty of opportunities for confidence going forward as well as room for improvement.

Lots of room for improvement.

This football game had every opportunity to be a good old-fashioned blowout. The Sooners went on a 10-play, 74-yard drive to end the first half up 24-10 with possession ahead of them to start the second half. After picking up a first down, Oklahoma proceeded to lose yardage on two consecutive plays, setting up a third-and-17 from the Sooners’ 35.

Kyler Murray just missed Hollywood Brown.

And within :47 seconds, Iowa State was back within 7.

Oklahoma missed a chance to go for the kill.

The two things that happened today or that were exposed for Oklahoma should be correctable. First, the Sooners weren’t able to connect deep in the second half. Brown gained 189 yards on seven carries in the first half, 139 of those in the first quarter, an Oklahoma record.

The second half? Two catches, two yards. It looked on TV like Murray had trouble seeing downfield, possibly the result of Cyclone pressure. One exception was this beautiful 50/50 ball to fullback Carson Meier in the third quarter:

That was Murray’s longest completion of the second half by a lot, and note that Meier was in front of his defender, making him easier to see for Murray. When you have a home run threat the caliber of Hollywood Brown, he should be given a deep look at least once a quarter. It opens up the run, the short pass; it opens up everything.

When a receiver the caliber of CeeDee Lamb only catches three balls for 36 yards, you’re not using your best assets.

For the day, Murray finished with 348 yards on 21-of-29 passing, three TDs and a quarterback rating of 90.5. That’s his lowest rating of the season, but he’s consistently been over 90. On the other hand, Murray ran 15 times for 77 yards, his highest yardage of the season and his highest number of carries, by quite a bit. Against UCLA, Murray carried ten times for 69 yards, and he carried four times for 23 yards against Florida Atlantic.

When considering Murray’s feet, one can wonder whether they’re an attack weapon or a weapon of last resort. In other words, the more Murray is running, the more pressure he’s facing and the harder it is for him to find receivers. Credit to Iowa State for adjusting to Oklahoma’s deep threat after the first quarter, but the Sooners need to be able to find Hollywood deep in the third and fourth quarter of ball games on a consistent basis.

The other area for improvement for Oklahoma is on defense, all of it. It felt like Mike Stoops and the Sooner defense regressed this week, going back to old, bad habits such as not blitzing and sitting back on receivers by 10 to 15 yards.

Iowa State had a lot to do with that. Sophomore quarterback Zeb Noland was largely good, finishing with 360 yards on 25 of 36 passing. Receiver Hakeem Butler was terrific with 174 yards on five catches and two big scores that exposed all sorts of tackling issues.

That tied the game at 10, and I counted four missed tackles. Parnell Motley was the first to miss him. Kahlil Haughton was the second. Tre Norwood and Curtis Bolton both went whiff on Butler before he romped into the end zone.

On Butler’s second score, Parnell Motley got victimized again with Tre Norwood left to chase him into the end zone.

For what it’s worth, Motley had a bad day at the office. Got beat, missed tackles and, well, he saved the game.

Look at what that pressure off the end will buy you. Maybe Oklahoma tried to do that more in the second and third quarters and it wasn’t noticeable by the average football fan. To most folks following the game on social media, it sure seemed as if Mike Stoops had been spooked by Butler’s physicality, speed and his ability to break tackles so he decided to play off Cyclone receivers and lay off the blitzes.

I likened it to a new believer backsliding.

It’s correctable, but it’s got to get fixed if Oklahoma were to have any thoughts of winning a national title. Alabama’s 62-7 win over a decent Mississippi team after the Rebels scored on the first play from scrimmage should serve as a warning to the rest of college football and especially the Sooners that it would take an extraordinary season with a gutsy, go-for-it, aggressive defense to have any shot at a national title.

Or to beat TCU or OSU or West Virginia and win the Big 12.

Enjoy the win. Here’s hoping that the coaching staff recognizes these issues and fixes them posthaste.

The cover photo is from OU football’s Twitter feed.


 

Categories: college football, football, oklahoma, Sooners Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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