Oklahoma football: Improve takeaways, you improve the defense

Take nothing away from new Oklahoma football defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, but that is something he wants to see the Sooners do more of in the coming season.

The object of football is to score more points than your opponent. That is generally the job of the offense, but the defensive can make a contribution as well by getting the ball back and creating offense out of defense. The more possessions a defensive unit can get for the offense, the more opportunities there are to score, and putting points on the board is the name of the game.

Oklahoma ranked 114th in the country (out of 129 teams) last season in total defense, allowing 454 yards per game. The year before, the Sooners were 68th, allowing 27 points per game. So things are definitely headed in the wrong direction on the defensive side of the ball.

Coach Lincoln Riley and the Sooners are hoping their new defensive coordinator can stop the hemorrhaging and get the Oklahoma defense back where it needs to be for a team that is as skilled and successful everywhere else as the Sooners.

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It’s not realistic to think that Grinch is going to be able to make massive improvement in the OU defensive unit in one season. He does have eight starters returning on the defensive side, but it is going to take some time for the players to become familiar and adjusted to a new coordinator and a new defensive system and for Grinch to get the right personnel in place in the right positions to operate his system.

Sooner fans should be able to see some incremental improvements, however, in the defensive play this coming season. They say you are either getting better or you’re getting worse. There is no standing still.

And continuing to regress on defense is not an option any longer for the Sooners.

The first thing to look for as Grinch begins to put his stamp on the Oklahoma D is a unit that is more aggressive and quick to the ball. At the top of his checklist in Year 1 as the Sooners’ new defensive coordinator, he wants to see the guys on that side of the ball generate more takeaways.

There is a large fraternity of coaches, Grinch included, who adamantly believe the team that wins the turnover battle will win the game.

Oklahoma ranked 120th among 129 FBS teams with just 11 takeaways a year ago (five fumble recoveries and six interceptions). That is the fewest number of turnovers gained in a single season in school history and 16 fewer than a Kansas team that has won just two Big 12 games in the last four seasons.

The Sooners’ interception totals have been going down in each of the last three seasons (9, 8 and , 6 in 2016, ’17 and ’18, respectively).

The season record for takeaways by an OU defense is 50, set three different times (1955, 1975 and 1978). The last time Oklahoma recorded as many as 30 takeaways in a season was 2010.

In a recent article, Jason Kersey, who covers Oklahoma for The Athletic, noted that although college football has changed seismically in the past half-century, one thing that hasn’t changed in the value of takeaways.

“Takeaways might be more valuable today,” Kersey writes, “as quarterbacks are more accurate and offenses, generally, are better at taking care of the ball.”

Grinch shared with Kersey that his research and analysis has led him to the general proposition that 24 takeaways equates to nine victories.

With the way Oklahoma plays offense, Grinch believes that even a doubling of OU’s record-low takeaway total from a year ago could make a dramatic difference in  the Sooners’ quest for a third consecutive College Football Playoff appearance and another run at an eighth national championship.