OU Football Point After: Offense on Fire, but Defense Sparks Big Concerns

Saturday’s OU football victory over cross-state rival Tulsa played out like a video game, with high-powered offenses ruling the day, and overmatched defenses struggling to put up much resistance.

The Sooners amassed 773 yards of total offense against the Golden Hurricane in winning their third game of the 2015 season, the fourth highest total in program history and the most in 27 seasons.

As euphoric as it was to watch quarterback Baker Mayfield and the OU offense mix and match run and pass plays and march up and down the field somewhat at will, that emotional surge was quickly brought down to earth by witnessing the same offensive display put on by the other side.

Sep 19, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; Tulsa Golden Hurricane wide receiver Bishop Louie (7) runs the ball against Oklahoma Sooners safety Steven Parker (10) during the third quarter at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

The rush to judgment after last week’s big win at Tennessee that the Sooner defense was again a force to be reckoned with turned to fool’s gold on Saturday as Tulsa junior quarterback Dane Evans repeatedly torched OU with pinpoint passing and an aerial attack that closely compared with what the Sooners are going to see when they go up against Baylor and the other spread offenses they will face on the Big 12 schedule.

One painful lesson the Sooners have learned over the years is that they cannot rely on a high-scoring offenses alone to win big games against big-time opponents. A strong defensive presence is also a must. And after outlasting American Athletic Conference opponent Tulsa on the scoreboard for the ninth consecutive time under Bob Stoops, it is blatantly apparent that the problems that plagued the OU defense in the disappointing 2014 season are still present.

Oklahoma is unable to stop good spread-formation offenses, and that is a huge problem going forward in the 2015 season. Yes, the Sooner “D” played exceptionally well – particularly in the second half – at Tennessee, but the Volunteers don’t pose the same Air Raid challenge as Tulsa, which came into the game with Oklahoma as the 10th-best passing offense in the country, and the Golden Hurricane more than lived up to that claim, burning the OU secondary time after time on Saturday.

One of the key matchups coming into the Tulsa game was the revitalized OU defense, which had proved up to the test against a good Tennessee team the week before, against the prolific offense of the Golden Hurricane.

Knowing that Tulsa is under the leadership this season of first-year head coach Phillip Montgomery, who was the offensive coordinator at Baylor the past three years, the Sooners had a good idea of what they would be facing from the Tulsa offense, which had averaged 609 yards of offense and 372 passing yards in its first two games of 2015 against admittedly lessor opponents.

Sep 19, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; Tulsa Golden Hurricane quarterback Dane Evans (9) passes the ball against the Oklahoma Sooners in the fist quarter at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Oklahoma’s pass defense against Akron and Tennessee was among the best in the nation, allowing a paltry 106.5 yards per game. The Sooners had allowed an average of just 240 yards of total offense in their opening two wins, 10th best in the nation, leaving OU fans rejoicing in the notion that stifling “D” was back in vogue in Norman.

The idea that Oklahoma had effectively plugged the leaks that fueled much of the Sooners troubles last season was quickly blown up, however, over a 10-minute period in the second quarter of Saturday’s game. Tulsa mounted a 92-yard drive early in the second period, mostly set up by passing yards, to make the score 24-10 in favor of the Sooners.

OU countered with a three-play, 78-yard scoring drive of its own, stretching the lead to 31-10 with 3:14 remaining in the half. The Golden Hurricane converted a fumble by the Sooners’ Joe Mixon on the Tulsa 20-yard line into an 80-yard touchdown drive, capped off by a 28-yard scoring pass from Evans to wide receiver Keevan Lucas to cut OU’s 21-point advantage t0 31-17.

On the ensuing kickoff, Tulsa caught the Sooners’ special-teams unit sleeping, recovering an on-side kick at the OU 43-yard line. Just nine seconds remained on the game clock at that point, so about all the Golden Hurricane offense had time for in an attempt to put more first-half points on the board was a Hail Mary-type throw to the end zone. That’s exactly what they did and, again, the Oklahoma defense was apparently caught napping.

“We had coverages that should have stopped them. That’s what’s frustrating.” —Mike Stoops, OU Defensive Coordinator

There were more Tulsa receivers in the end zone than Sooner defenders attempting to break up the play, and Tulsa’s Keyarris Garrett came down with the 43-yard bomb, one of the 14 receptions he had on the day, to pull the Golden Hurricane within a touchdown of OU at the break.

The Tulsa Air Raid continued in the second half, further exploiting the soft OU pass defense and serving notice that the Golden Hurricane were not the least bit intimidated by OU’s top-25 ranking and having to play the Sooners in Norman. Tulsa honestly believed it could beat Oklahoma, and had a couple more breaks gone the way of the Hurricane, the outcome of this game could easily have been different.

For example, had Tulsa’s Garrett not been called for offensive pass interference on a 39-yard pass completion that would have placed the ball at the OU 6-yard line early in the fourth quarter with the score then 45-31, the Hurricane likely would have scored. As a result of the interference call, however, a 2nd-and-7 possession became 2nd-and 22 and the ball was moved back to the Tulsa 40-yard line. Two plays later, Tulsa was forced to punt the ball back to Oklahoma.

Both teams would score one more time in the final quarter, but who knows what would have happened had Tulsa not been flagged for the interference call just three plays into the fourth quarter.

The Oklahoma defense allowed more passing yards than the Golden Hurricane produced in their season-opening victory over Florida Atlantic and 100 more passing yards than Tulsa had against New Mexico. Those stats are highly disturbing. You know the Sooners’ Big 12 opponents, starting with West Virginia two weekends from now, are going to go to school on the Tulsa game tape.

The Sooner secondary appears not to feel confident enough to play up closer to the line and play tight coverage on the wide receivers of good passing teams, ostensibly afraid that the receivers will get behind them. The irony of that is that the Tulsa receivers always seemed to have a step on the OU defenders and didn’t have any trouble running by them on deep throws. And when quarterback Dane Evans wasn’t looking long, his bubble screens to the flat and short passes on crossing routes were as simple as pitch and catch with the Sooner defenders playing off the receivers.

Oklahoma was playing on Saturday without the services of starting cornerback Jordan Thomas, who was scratched from the game for what was described as an “internal team matter.” I’m not sure that even Thomas’ presence would have mattered against the up-tempo Tulsa air and ground attack.

OU seemed visibly frustrated and out of sync defensively against the Hurricane fast pace. I find this a bit strange when you consider that the Sooners themselves like to play at a quickened pace at times, so the defense sees this and practices against it during the week.

“The tempo bothered us,” OU defensive coordinator Mike Stoops acknowledged in the postgame press conference. “We couldn’t get our fronts and coverages matched up. The speed went faster than they (Tulsa) have gone in the past, and we were just lethargic.

“We had coverages that should have stopped them. That’s what’s frustrating,” he said. “The swing pass with the slant…we didn’t play it right three times.”

Time and time again in the game, Tulsa targeted the apparent mismatch between Hurricane receiver Garrett against freshman OU corner P.J. Mbanasor, who was playing in just his third college game. Garrett was a one-man wrecking machine against the Sooners, catching 14 passes for a game-high 189 yards and a touchdown. His teammates Josh Atkinson and Keevan Lucas also enjoyed big days. Atkinson was on the receiving end of 10 completed passes from Evans totaling 104 yards and a touchdown, and Lucas had five receptions for 84 yards and two touchdowns.

Asked how the Tulsa game would help OU prepare for all the spread attacks the Sooners are going to see in the Big 12, especially what Baylor runs, Stoops said, “Baylor is going to be tough to beat. Baylor and Tulsa are a mirror image, they’re identical.”

The Oklahoma defensive coordinator has hit the nail right on the head. If Baylor is a mirror image of the Tulsa offense, the Sooners have a big problem. First, OU has to go to Waco to play the No. 5-ranked Bears, and second, Baylor has better talent and more of it than the Hurricane.

Fortunately, OU doesn’t play Baylor until the weekend of Nov. 14, so there is plenty of time to work on the defensive issues before meeting up with Baylor and TCU.

Unfortunately, though, the Sooners don’t have the luxury of taking that long to get things worked out on the defensive side of the ball. If they aren’t able to find quicker fixes for some of the breakdowns that were badly exposed on Saturday, they are going to experience plenty of rough going before they even get to the toughest part of their 2015 schedule.