Oklahoma football: Defending the OU defense much easier now

There’s no mistaking that the Oklahoma football defense is better than it was two years ago.

Defensive coordinator Alex Grinch joined Lincoln Riley and the OU coaching staff prior to the 2019 season. He joined a team that posted a 12-2 record the year before, won a fourth consecutive Big 12 championship and appeared in a second straight College Football Playoff.

An ideal coaching assignment, right? Except that Grinch inherited a defense that was among the worst in college football.

The year before Grinch came to Oklahoma — replacing Mike Stoops, who had directed the OU defense over two different stints extending 12 seasons — the Sooners ranked 114th out of 129 FBS teams in total defense (453.8 yards allowed per game) and dead last in passing yards allowed. (294.0). The OU defense also was 101st in scoring defense and 118th in third-down conversion defense.

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Candidly, the Sooners had to make sure they outscored everybody they played that season in order to win as many as 12 games. And that is hardly the winning formula of a championship- caliber team.

Before coming to OU, Grinch spent three seasons as defensive coordinator for Mike Leach at Washington State, where he turned around an inept defense like the one he inherited at Oklahoma. In 2018, he served as co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State.

Grinch is an ardent believer that the primary goal of football defense is to get the ball back for the offense without giving up any points. The two things he wanted to see more of at Oklahoma was more aggressiveness in playing the ball and more takeaways.

The aggressive defensive play came immediately, but takeaways remain a work in progress, although getting better in the last couple of Sooner games.

Improved defensive play was noticeably evident last season, and it continues to improve this season, especially in the defensive line, which is largely responsible for getting pressure on the opposing quarterback and stopping the run.

In the last four games alone, all Oklahoma wins, the defense has recorded 20 sacks and intercepted multiple passes in three of the four games. That compares with two sacks combined in the first two conference games and just one interception in the first three games of the season.

You see the improvement from game to game, and the statistical comparison between the 2018 season and this year bears that out even more vividly.

Through seven games this season, the Sooner rank 27th in the nation in total defense (338.1 ypg) and 41st in scoring defense (24.4). That compares with 114th and 101st, respectively, in those two categories in 2018.

In addition, Grinch’s defense ranks 14th nationally in run defense (59th in 2018), 68th in pass defense (129th in 2018) and 10th in third-down defense (118th in 2018).

So the Sooners are definitely getting better on the defensive side of the ball, and they’re going to need that in the next two weeks when they go up against two very good offensive teams in Oklahoma State and West Virginia.