Oklahoma Football Rewind: Takeaways From the Track Meet at Texas Tech
By Chip Rouse
Is it possible to score 66 points in a win and not feel good about it? In basketball, maybe, but not if you’re the Oklahoma football team that allowed 59 points in barely escaping Texas Tech on Saturday night.
Records fell by the wayside right and left in a black out in West Texas on Saturday night that apparently left both defensive teams blind and grasping at air in a game that gave new meaning to the term “shootout.”
To put into perspective how spectacular the two offenses were in this game, and conversely how incredibly inept the defensive play was, each team only punted twice in the entire game, two by each team, and Oklahoma did not punt at all after halftime.
By halftime, the Sooners and Red Raiders had combined for 862 total yards, and they finished with an NCAA record 1,708 offensive yards. Nearly 1,300 of those yards were of the aerial variety. Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes, showing no ill effects from the shoulder injury he suffered a couple of games earlier, unleashed an unworldly 88 pass attempts, and the Red Raiders ran off 109 offensive plays.
Not to be outdone, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield completed 75 percent of his passes for a career-high 545 yards and a program-record seven touchdown throws. Dede Westbrook hauled in two of the seven TD passes and had another phenomenal day receiving with nine catches for over 200 yards.
And then there was Mr. Do-It-All Joe Mixon. The uber-versatile redshirt sophomore running back scored the first and final of the Sooners’ nine touchdowns on the night, putting together 267 yards rushing and another 114 receiving and a combined five touchdowns.
What can you say. It was just an incredible offensive display and a pitiful defensive performance. The two defenses would have done just as well remaining on the sidelines.
If you would have missed the game and just caught the score afterwards, it would have been easy to misconstrue it as a basketball score. On the other hand, if you were one of the tens of thousands who witnessed it first hand in person or on television, it seemed more like engaging in a video game.
As you would imagine, there is plenty to take away from this ambivalent display of football execution at its finest and worst. Here is my take:
Defensive Debacle
There is no other way to describe the Sooners defensive performance than just plain awful. Even against a highly predictable offense that ran the ball just 20 percent of the time – and most of that was on scrambles or designed runs by quarterback Patrick Mahomes – the OU defenders could not get prevent pass completions or get off the field on third down.
Mahomes had all night to find open receivers, and when the Sooners did put pressure on him, the Texas Tech quarterback would simply step up in the pocket or sidestep the oncoming rush and fire strikes to multiple sure-handed receiving targets. For most of the night, it was just a game of pitch and catch, but the same could also be said when the Sooners had the ball.
The scariest part was that all night long the Tech wide receivers were beating the Sooner secondary deep. Were it not for several overthrown or misthrown deep balls by Mahomes, the outcome of this game might have been different.
The Red Raiders were an incredible 20 of 25 in third-down conversions, an inordinate number of which came on third-and-long plays. Tech also converted two fourth-down possessions, which tells you how much respect the Red Raiders had for OU’s ability to stop them. This is something that just can’t happen.
One of the five third-down stops the Sooners did get, on the Red Raiders’ opening possession of the second half, may have saved the victory. That was the only Tech possession in the second 30 minutes in which it did not put together a touchdown drive.
This may be the worst defense in Bob Stoops’ 18 seasons at Oklahoma, and that doesn’t provide much comfort going forward, especially against the likes of Baylor and West Virginia, the two teams the Sooners are chasing for the conference crown, both of whom can run and throw the ball with high effectiveness.
Just when it appeared things were getting better defensively for the Sooners, they go out and fall flat on their collective face. This has to have the Stoops brothers pulling their hair out. They might not have any hair left by the end of the season.
The OU Offense Is Riding on the Red Line
As bad as both defenses were in this game, fortunately the Sooner offense was a shade better than the home team. Baker Mayfield and Co. scored a touchdown in the closing seconds of the first half to regain the lead and go into halftime with a six-point advantage, 30-24. The Sooners followed that up by reaching the end zone in all of its second-half possessions, except for the final one when they took a knee to run out the clock.
When Mayfield wasn’t gashing the Texas Tech secondary with precision aerial strikes, averaging 20 yards per completion, Joe Mixon was breaking into the Red Raiders’ back line of defense for huge gains on the ground. It didn’t seem to matter that the Sooners were without the injured Samaje Perine. Mixon more than shouldered the rushing load, and Mayfield spread the ball around to nine different receivers in piling up 545 of Oklahoma’s 854 total offensive yards.
Not only could the Red Raiders not get Mixon to the ground, they also failed to keep the ball out of Dede Westbrook’s hands. Westbrook was on the receiving end of nine of Mayfield’s passes, totaling 202 yards and two more touchdowns, giving the Sooner wide receiver 10 TD catches in the past four games.
Believe it or not, the 854 yards of offense was not an Oklahoma record. The Sooners produced 875 yards in a 1980 win over Colorado.
Turnover Free
Bob Stoops preaches the importance of ball security and protecting the football. With the exception of giving up 60 yards in penalties, the Sooners played error-free football in the win over Texas Tech. Oklahoma ran 76 plays in the game (40 runs and 36 passes) and did not cough up the ball once.
The Sooner defense forced two Texas Tech turnovers, including the second OU pass interception of the season. A year ago, Oklahoma was second in the Big 12 with 20 picks.
Missed Extra Point
The Sooners marched 75 yards in just five plays, capped by a 56-yard touchdown pass from Baker Mayfield to Joe Mixon, to open the scoring. Austin Seibert’s extra-point attempt, however, was no good. A couple of other point-after kicks were hooked slightly right, but made it through.
It could be the center snap, the hold or even the defensive pressure, but it appears to me that the OU extra-point efforts have been a little sloppy at times this season.
The failed point-after try on the opening score could have come back to bite the Sooners, especially in a close, high-scoring game like the one Saturday night. Oklahoma did negate the missed kick later, however, with a two-point conversion following a fourth-quarter score.