Oklahoma football: This team much different than one ISU defeated

A lot has happened since Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma football team, ranked No. 18 at the time, lost at Iowa State.

The Sooners, who began the 2020 season as the country’s third-ranked team in both major polls, suffered one of their too-frequent, early season fourth-quarter collapses in game number three of the season, yielding 14 unanswered points over the final eight minutes in a 37-30 loss at Iowa State.

Oklahoma had not lost at Iowa State in 60 years. Before the game on Oct. 3, the Sooners had won 76 of 84 total games in the all-time series and were 15-1 against Iowa State in the Big 12 era. Under five-year head coach Matt Campbell, however, the Cyclones have now split their last four games with mighty Oklahoma.

The week following OU’s loss to Iowa State, which left the Sooners with a 1-2 record and a highly uncharacteristic back-to-back conference losses, Oklahoma dropped out of the national rankings, replaced by the Cyclones, who checked in at 24 in both the Associated Press Top 25 and the Coaches Poll. Since then, Iowa State has made a steady upward climb in the national polls.

The most recent national rankings have Iowa State on the edge of College Football Playoff consideration at No. 7, the highest football ranking in the school’s history. The Cyclones are No. 8 in the latest AP and Coaches polls.

The Iowa State contest was the first of four consecutive games away from home for the Sooners. The next weekend, Oklahoma headed to the Lone Star State and its annual Red River rivalry game with Texas. Forced to an extra session when Texas scored 14 points in the final four minutes of regulation to tie the game, the Sooners managed to pull out the win, 53-45, in double overtime.

That hard-fought emotional victory over the archrival Longhorns seemed to be the spark that kicked Oklahoma into another gear. The Sooners rolled over their next five opponents by an average score of 45-16, and have held each of the last three opponents to an average of 260 yards of offense.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Spencer Rattler was starting just his third collegiate game when the Sooners played at Iowa State. His numbers weren’t bad against the Cyclones (25 of 36 passing for 300 yards, two touchdowns and an interception). He also collected 20 yards rushing, including a rushing touchdown.

Oklahoma football is 2-1 all-time going against a team it lost two earlier in the same season

Rattler has played six more games since then, and after a first-half benching in the Texas game, has played extremely well. In the last five games, Rattler has been really sharp and has demonstrated better understanding of defense and a better command of the offense. Over that 5-game span, Rattler is averaging 245 passing yards and has a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 11 to 2.

The biggest difference in this Oklahoma team since its earlier game with Iowa State is the addition of arguably two of the Sooners best players overall.

The OU run game has improved dramatically since running back Rhamondre Stevenson returned to the lineup from a six-game suspension for failing a drug test.

In his four games since returning, Stevenson has collected 382 rushing yards, including two games over 100 yards, and averaged of 95.5 yards per game. That would place him third among Big 12 rushing leaders in terms of average rushing yards after just four games. Stevenson also has six rushing touchdowns as well as 14 pass receptions for 175 yards, displaying his versatility.

The Sooners are definitely more dangerous offensively with the addition of Stevenson.

Alex Grinch’s OU defense has gotten better every week this season, and is playing at a much higher level now than it has at any point in Grinch’s two seasons as defensive coordinator. A big reason for that is the addition of All-Big 12 defensive end Ronnie Perkins, who was suspended for the first five games this season for the same reason as Stevenson.

Perkins is the heart and soul of the Oklahoma defense, and his presence has been emphatically felt in all four of his games since returning. In OU’s last three games, and with Perkins in the lineup, the Sooners lead the nation in sacks per game (5.3), passing yards per attempt (4.4) and passing efficiency defense (82.3). They rank second nationally over that time in rushing yards per game (66.0), rushing yards per carry (2.1) pass completion percentage (45.0) and third-down conversion rate (22.2).

There is little question that the additions of Stevenson and Perkins has made the Sooners better on both sides of the ball.

This may be Iowa State’s first trip to the Big 12 Championship, but there is no mistaking that the Cyclones are a very good team and most deserving of what they have achieved this season.

The Sooners are assuredly a different team than they were in early October, but it is safe to say that Iowa State is not the same as it was three games into the 2020 season.

If anything, the Cyclones have gained boatloads of confidence from their first eight-win season in program history and also overcoming all the on-the-field and off-the-field adversity that has come with the pandemic year of 2020.

This will be only the fifth time in the all-time series between Oklahoma and Iowa State that the Cyclones have been ranked at the time the game was played, and it is the first time they have been ranked higher than the Sooners.

Despite this, Oklahoma is a 5 1/2-point favorite. But OU was also a double-digit favorite in the earlier game this season.