Oklahoma football: One player, one problem and one big prediction

The 19th-ranked Kansas Jayhawks comes to Norman on Saturday to take on the unranked Oklahoma football Sooners. The last time a ranked Kansas team beat an unranked Sooner squad? Never happened.

A ranked Kansas team has beaten a ranked Oklahoma team, however — and in Norman, none the less.

That occurred in 1995 in Howard Schnellenberger’s one and only season coaching the Oklahoma football team. Kansas was ranked 7th that season, eight spots higher than a Sooner team that was ranked 15th with a 4-1-1 record. The Jayhawks won that game 38-17 and triggered a 1-4 finish for Oklahoma over the remainder of the season, costing Schnellenberger his job.

The good news for downtrodden Oklahoma fans is that unranked teams have pulled upsets in the 112 previous games played between these two longtime conference foes. An unranked Kansas team beat a No. 2-ranked Sooner team twice in the Barry Switzer era (1975 and 1984).

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The handicappers have Oklahoma as an 8.5-point favorite as of Friday morning, but most national prognosticators have Kansas winning this year’s game and hanging a fourth consecutive conference defeat on the Sooners. Something is going to have to give on Saturday, and here are some of the key factors that will decide the outcome:

Player(s)

All eyes will be on OU quarterback Dillon Gabriel, assuming that he returns for the Kansas game. When Gabriel is in rhythm, he is one of the best quarterbacks in the Big 12 and possibly in the country. But he has not played for a couple of weeks, which begs the question, how much rust will he have returning to the lineup on Saturday. He was experiencing some accuracy issues before he was knocked out of the TCU game.

Gabriel is at his best, like most quarterbacks, when he has time to work through his progressions. The Sooner offensive line has had its ups and downs this season, but that unit is going to have to play much better against a good Kansas pass rush. The Jayhawks are tied for 25th in the country with 16 sacks through six games.

While OU will have its starting quarterback back, Kansas will be without its starting signal caller. The Kansas backup QB, Jason Bean, is a former starter, though, so that might not be as big an advantage for the Sooners as some may think.

Problem

With Gabriel back at quarterback and the Sooners back at home, the offense should be able to move the ball and generate points against a Kansas defense that allows close to 400 yards per game and ranks 115th in the country in pass defense. The big question, especially after the abysmal defensive performance in the past two Oklahoma games, is can the Sooners get enough stops to allow Gabriel and the OU offense to win the game?

That has not been the case the past three weeks, and as a result, the Sooners have allowed an average of 46 points a game. Over the same time frame, the Oklahoma offense has averaged an anemic 17 points a game. Therein lies the heart of the problem.

Prediction

The strength of both OU and Kansas is the offense. The Jayhawks, however, will be without their starting quarterback, Jalon Daniels, who suffered a shoulder injury in the loss last week to TCU. Kansas should still be able to move the ball and score against a Sooner defense that is really struggling this season. It is almost a hold-your-breath affair every time the opponent takes an offensive snap this season, and the Sooners’ third-down defense has been atrocious.

Despite all of this, I continue to believe that Oklahoma is better than what it has shown the past two games, and at home against Kansas, the Sooners will put together a more complete game.

Oklahoma 38, Kansas 27