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In retrospect, maybe that first half in Lawrence, Kan., was the warning sign. Still, even facing the best defense Oklahoma had faced all season, most didn’t forecast how pronounced the offensive struggles would play out for the Sooners on Saturday at Baylor.
Baylor entered the contest as the nation’s No. 27 scoring defense. The Bears looked every bit of that and then some.
Baylor held Oklahoma to its second-fewest total offensive yards this season, surrendering just 260 to the Sooners. In the process, OU recorded its lowest scoring output since the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl against Clemson when the Sooners could muster up just six points.
Oklahoma also saw its string of scoring at least 30 points in 35 consecutive true road games snapped.
Of course, the most important streaks that came to a close were the Sooners’ perfect start to the season, the program’s first November loss since the 2014 season and its 17-game winning streak overall, which had been the nation’s longest.
True freshman quarterback Caleb Williams was picked off twice and never settled into a rhythm, finishing 10-of-19 passing for 146 yards.
It was such a struggle that Oklahoma head football coach Lincoln Riley made a temporary switch at quarterback, bringing in Spencer Rattler for a pair of series.
“We were a little stale honestly and had a little stretch there in the second quarter and kind of beginning of the third quarter where we had a few things there that he missed that he just typically doesn’t miss. I was looking for a little bit of a spark. Spencer had had a good week. Again, I’ve told you guys. I feel like I’ve got a tremendous room there and so, yeah, I went with Spencer. And again, you know, you’ve got to make those decisions in the heat of the moment. In that moment, I felt like it was the right decision,” Riley said.
After the 27-14 loss, Riley discussed what exactly went wrong for Williams and the offense at McLane Stadium.
“He made a couple errors here and there. I think most of his frustration came from we felt like we had a lot of plays there that we for one reason or another didn’t make. We kind of took turns offensively. We played, you know…we had just kind of just key breakdowns at key times. It just never really timed out much for us. I think we had a lot of guys that fought their tail off, but it just wasn’t clean. A lot of mistakes. Again, we said it all along, when you play a good defensive football team like Baylor is, if you play clean, you’re going to have stuff there. If you don’t, they can take advantage of it. I think just some general frustration on not executing the way that we know we can and not making the plays that were there for the taking,” Riley said.
The leading receiver for Oklahoma was senior Michael Woods who finished with four grabs for 53 yards. Sophomore wide receiver Jadon Haselwood caught two passes for 51 yards and, after that, there really wasn’t much else in the receiving department to speak of for OU.
Junior running back Kennedy Brooks ran it well at times but finished with 13 carries and 51 yards. After TCU quarterback Chandler Morris ran it 11 times for 70 yards and a score last week against Baylor, Williams didn’t find the same success in the quarterback run game. Williams rushed it 10 times for 17 yards.
Oklahoma won the coin toss and elected to take the football first. The Sooners promptly lost ten yards combined on the game’s first two snaps and were forced to punt it away.
After a 13-play Baylor offensive series ended with a turnover on downs, Williams threw his first interception. Oklahoma’s defense held up on a short field and forced a Baylor field goal try which the Bears missed.
Oklahoma’s third drive of the game ended up with previously reliable redshirt junior kicker Gabe Brkic missing his own 51-yard field goal try. Riley lamented not taking advantage of the defensive stops his team delivered early.
“It wasn’t good. We didn’t execute plays there at the beginning, but defense, again, did a phenomenal job shutting it down there when we were giving them short fields. Just tremendous job defensively. And then, we got in a little bit of a rhythm there kind of midway through the half and started moving it. Again, kind of like the start to the first half…on the road, you love to be able to get those momentum builders and go. Is it the reason we lost the game? No, but it obviously did not help,” Riley said.
Asked how his offensive line performed and if Baylor threw defensive looks the Sooners weren’t expecting their way, Riley fought against that notion.
“No, not really. They’re multiple, but I don’t know that there was anything that necessarily was surprising. We just kind of like the whole team, we had times on the O-line where we played well and he had all day and then we had times where we didn’t catch a ball or didn’t make a play. And then kind of the flip side, a couple times we had some things really there and we didn’t quite have the protection for it. I don’t know that it was anything mental with our guys. We gave up some push, got beat physically a couple of times, but, again, just weren’t able to piece it together offensively,” Riley said.
Riley said every position group had a hand in Oklahoma’s offensive futility.
“To play good offense, it takes all eleven. Certainly, there’s examples of all the position groups. Wide outs had chances to make plays. Obviously, quarterback room had turnovers and missed a couple of pretty easy throws. We missed a couple things running backs wise, O-line wise. We just kind of all took our turn and just never got quite in sync together,” Riley said.
Even with everything that went wrong early, Oklahoma found itself entering the fourth quarter trailing on the road just 10-7. The Sooners had made a habit of winning close games before Saturday, but against the best opponent they’ve seen this season, that trend didn’t continue.
“We just didn’t play good. I mean, I still felt like we have at several points this year whether they’ve been low-scoring or high-scoring games. I felt like we were right there on both sides of the ball. I don’t right now. I’ll have to go back and see the tape, but the big things that show up to me is some frustration set in. We missed some assignments, we didn’t tackle well and obviously didn’t execute very consistently on offense the entire day. I mean, I just think you get to that point, you’ve got to rise up and be your best and we certainly did not do that,” Riley said.
Oklahoma’s College Football Playoff hopes took a serious dent with the first setback of the season. While those CFP dreams aren’t totally dead yet, it’s probably prudent for this team to shift its focus to simply winning the Big 12 championship first.
The Sooners will look to get back on the winning track when they return to Norman next week to play host to Iowa State.
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