Oklahoma football: One game is not a valid defensive measure

If you watched in person or viewed the network broadcast of the Oklahoma football game on Saturday, its was fairly obvious that the Sooner defensive unit had it all together and played impressively.

It was certainly a better overall defensive outing than we witnessed throughout much of last season, when OU had trouble late putting opponents away, despite owning the nation’s best offense.

Outside of Florida Atlantic’s opening possession, in which the Owls recorded three first downs and moved the ball all the way to the Oklahoma 33-yard line before a 15-yard personal foul penalty thwarted their opening drive. After that, the Sooners allowed the FAU offense just a little over 100 total yards the remainder of the first half.

The game was effectively over by halftime, with Oklahoma holding Florida Atlantic to 133 yards of offense in the opening two quarters and taking a 42-0 lead into the locker room at the intermission.

FAU managed to score 14 points against the Sooners, but with a good number of the defensive starters only playing sparingly, if at all, after halftime.

Florida Atlantic gained just 324 yards for the game and averaged under 5.0 yards per play. Only four times last season did the Sooners hold an opponent to fewer offensive yards.

Both head coach Lincoln Riley and defensive coordinator Mike Stoops were pleased with the performance by the Oklahoma defense on Saturday. In his Big 12 Teleconference on Monday, Riley said it’s never as good as you think it was after you review the game tape, but it was a good, sound effort and definitely something they can build upon.

"“Structurally, I thought we were pretty good,” Stoops said in the postgame interview session on Saturday. “Tackling was just kind of so-so, (but) that can happen in the first game. Overall, (I’m) pleased with our effort against a pretty good offensive football team.”"

It’s obvious that the Sooner defensive coordinator didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself and make more out of the OU defensive effort in the opening game than should be expected after just one game.

It’s still way too early to hang a blue ribbon on the 2018 Oklahoma defensive unit, but the early signs are there that this could be a better season on the defensive side of the ball than we’ve seen the past few years. And with as prolific as the Sooner offense appears again this season, that could be a definite difference maker in Oklahoma’s quest for an unprecedented fourth consecutive Big 12 title and a return trip to the College Football Playoff.

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One game does not make a season, though. It will be more telling to see how the Sooners perform defensively after a couple more games, and even more meaningful once they reach Big 12 play, where they will face some of the better offensive teams in the country.

Last season, Oklahoma allowed just 167 total yards of offense in its season-opening win over UTEP. The next two outings — at No. 2 Ohio State and at home against Tulane — the Sooners held their opponents under 350 yards. Against the high-powered Big 12 offenses, however, the roof collapsed. Only Kansas (155) and West Virginia (387 behind a backup QB) were held under 400 yards, and Baylor totaled 523 and Oklahoma State rolled up 661.

For the most part on Saturday, the young Oklahoma secondary covered well against the FAU receivers. There were at least three long throws, however, in which the Florida Atlantic receiver had separation on the OU deep defender, only to have the quarterback overthrow his target. With a better throw, those plays could easily have resulted in huge yardage gains, if not touchdowns.

Sometimes luck triumphs over good, and the Sooners were on the right side of luck several times on defense against FAU.

Part of OU’s success defensively was “being able to shut down the run and part of it was our (defensive backs) did a good job and our young safeties did a nice job communicating and also handling (Florida Atlantic’s) temp,” Riley said in his postgame comments.

The Sooners had trouble stopping the run and in pass coverage last season, so the indicators are positive, at least through Week 1.

You also have to factor in the effects of playing before a passionate home crowd, which the OU has the good fortune to do six more times this season.

"“I thought the (home) atmosphere the entire first half was really, really good, really electric,” Riley said. “Our guys fed off them, they fed off our guys, and that’s how it should be at a place like Oklahoma.”"

The Sooners face another offensive-minded head coach in UCLA’s Chip Kelly, who brings the Pac-12 Bruins to Owen Field on Saturday. It will be another good test for the young and improving Oklahoma defense, and we’ll see if they can replicate their strong performance in the season opener.

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