Five Takeaways From the Sooner Football Loss to Texas

Oct 10, 2015; Dallas, TX, USA; Texas Longhorns running back D

Defense Fails to Adjust

The contrast between Texas’ passing and rushing game during the 2015 Red River tussle was stark: the Longhorns passed for 55 yards, connecting on 9 of 12 attempts, and rushed for 313 yards.  You read that correctly: Texas had nearly six times has many yards rushing as it did passing. Those are Wishbone offensive numbers.

A question today among the Sooner faithful is why didn’t Oklahoma’s defensive coaches adjust when it became clear that Texas was going to stick with the run? No matter how much Texas ran the ball, Oklahoma stuck with a two-down-linemen defense better suited to defending a pass-heavy attack. Naturally, Texas took what Oklahoma gave them defensively, to the tune of an epic torrent of rushing yards.

Exacerbating what was perhaps a wrong-headed scheme was an awful tackling day for the Sooner defense. On Texas’ first score, a short shovel pass to Marcus Johnson, four Sooner defenders failed to make the tackle as Johnson ran for 24 yards into the end zone. It didn’t get much better as the day progressed, especially when Texas running back D’Onta Foreman rumbled for 81 yards in the third quarter as three Sooners failed to make the stop. And, to top off the woeful tackling, the Sooner defense did not come up with any turnovers and only managed two sacks the entire day.

If Oklahoma is to have any hope of competing with the Big 12’s upper echelon this season, fixing the defensive lapses must be priority number one. Otherwise, the misery that began in the Cotton Bowl may be just beginning.

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