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Oklahoma football: What fans should know about OU’s wake-up call at TCU

By Chip Rouse

Oct 16, 2021; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma Sooners wide receiver Marvin Mims (17) and TCU Horned Frogs safety T.J. Carter (7) go for the ball during the game at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 16, 2021; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma Sooners wide receiver Marvin Mims (17) and TCU Horned Frogs safety T.J. Carter (7) go for the ball during the game at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports /
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Oklahoma football fans and the college football world alike are curious what Sooner team will show up at TCU on Saturday.

Will it be OU team went on the road a couple weeks ago and steamrolled Nebraska or the one that experienced issues on offense and defense and got beat at home — a place where the Sooners rarely lose — by a determined and highly disciplined Kansas State team?

We’ll have to wait until Saturday to find out the answer to that question, but it is clearly on the mind of every Sooner fan. Recent Oklahoma history suggests that the Sooners will respond and bounce back in a big way with a win. Only once since the 1999 season has OU lost back-to-back games in the regular season (in 2020).

It’s not going to be easy, though. TCU is 3-0 with nonconference wins over Colorado, Tarleton and SMU and an average margin of victory of 46-16. Saturday will be the Big 12 opener for the Horned Frogs. It will be the first Big 12 home opener for new TCU head coach Sonny Dykes and the first Big 12 road opener for OU’s Brent Venables.

The game is scheduled for an 11 a.m. CT kickoff at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth. It will be televised on ABC with Mark Jones Robert Griffin III and Quint Kessenich as the announce team.

This is the second road game of the season for Oklahoma (Nebraska on Sept. 17 was the other) and both times will have been an 11 a.m. start.

The Sooners have won 29 of the last 32 true road games and have scored at least 40 points in 37 of the last 38 true road contests. To help put that into perspective, Ohio State is the team with the next most 30-point games in its last 38 road games with 29.

Oklahoma enters the TCU game with a 3-1 record and ranked 18th in the country in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 (16th in the Coaches Poll).

This will be the 23rd game in the all-time series between the Sooners and TCU. OU is 17-5 overall in games against the Horned Frogs but is 10-1 vs. TCU as members of the Big 12. That one loss was at TCU in 2014. The Sooners are 4-1 in Fort Worth since TCU joined the Big 12 at the beginning of the 2012 season.

Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel has thrown 117 passes in four games without an interception. That is the most by a Sooner player to start his OU career. The previous record was 80 pass attempts by Jalen Hurts in 2019.

TCU quarterback Max Duggan leads the country in passing efficiency and is third in completion percentage at 77 percent.

What Brent Venables had to say about the TCU offense in his weekly press conference on Tuesday:

"“They’re really good at wide receiver…they’re fast…they have five different receivers with 7 or 8 catches…they can go up and get the deep ball and they can run by you.”"

The Sooners are a 3.5-point favorite over TCU on Saturday, according to the Las Vegas oddsmakers.

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