Oklahoma football: Kent State has Sooners’ number early
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football likes to run a fast-paced offense under new offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, but the Sooners found things slow going for nearly the entire first half against Kent State on Saturday.
The final score of 33-3 was not indicative of how mightily the Sooners struggled in the opening half.
With under two minutes to go in the opening half, Oklahoma had yet to score against the Group of Five Golden Flashes. Moreover, the Sooner ground game had been ground to a halt, managing just seven net yards rushing in the first 30 minutes.
Kent State led 3-0 with just over a half a minute remaining in the first half when OU quarterback Dillon Gabriel connected with Sooner star receiver Marvin Mims on three consecutive throws in 18 seconds, capped by a 36-yard touchdown strike to give OU a 7-3 lead going into halftime.
OU’s first four possessions in the game ended in four consecutive punts, a highly unusual. beginning for a team used to starting fast. In their first 21 plays in the game, the Sooners managed just 92 total yards. The second half was a completely different story.
Oklahoma scored on its first three possessions of the second half to pull away, while the aggressive Sooner defense held Kent State scoreless the rest of the game. OU ended with 430 yards of total offense, with 272 of that coming in the final 30 minutes.
Mims and linebacker Danny Stutsman both had career days in the Sooner win.
Here are a dozen compelling numbers that help tell the story of the game:
0 — Oklahoma’s net rushing yards in seven rushing attempts in the first quarter of Saturday’s game against Kent State.
3 — OU was just 3 of 12 on third-down conversions, a pitiful 25 percent success rate.
3 — The last time an Oklahoma defense held an opponent to as few as three points in a game was in 2017 against Kansas.
7 — You only have to go back one season to find the last time the Oklahoma offense was held to as few as seven rushing yards in the first half of a game. That was the Sooners’ total in the opening half at Kansas a year ago.
9/23 — Oklahoma’s number of sacks and tackles for loss in the first two games of the 2022 season.
12 — Time in minutes Kent State held over OU in time of possession in the game (36:19 to 23:41).
12 — Danny Stutsman was a defensive stopper in the game, credited with a career high 12 tackles and four tackles for loss.
64 — For the second straight week, the Sooners ran under 65 plays. A typical up-tempo offense would run 80-90 plays.
79 — Oklahoma has won 79 consecutive games when holding an opponent to 23 or fewer points.
142 — Saturday night’s game was the 142nd straight sellout of an originally scheduled Oklahoma home game since the beginning of the 1999 season (Bob Stoops first game as OU head coach).
203 — Marvin Mims set career highs with 203 all-purpose yards, 163 receiving yards and seven receptions.
236 — Oklahoma’s yards of offense in the third quarter after managing just 158 total yards in the first half.