The last month of the 2021 season was frustrating for a lot of reasons. The Oklahoma Sooners lost games to Baylor and Oklahoma State to knock them out of Big 12 and College Football Playoff contention. Those losses sandwiched a disappointing day offensively in a win over Iowa State.
Among the frustrations was the lack of targets directed toward wide receiver Marvin Mims. Mims, who led the Sooners in receiving yards for the second straight season, received just eight targets against Baylor, Iowa State, and Oklahoma State; combined.
Eight. Targets.
Here’s how the targets were distributed over the final three weeks of the season to Oklahoma’s top five receivers in that three-game stretch.
| Targets | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns | |
| Michael Woods | 14 | 7 | 87 | 0 |
| Jadon Haselwood | 12 | 6 | 83 | 0 |
| Jeremiah Hall | 9 | 8 | 113 | 0 |
| Mario Williams | 8 | 4 | 28 | 1 |
| Marvin Mims | 8 | 4 | 43 | 0 |
Mims tied for fourth in targets over the last three weeks of the regular season. Some of that was due to the way defenses were playing Mims, as they were looking to take away the deep ball. But there were zero adjustments made by Lincoln Riley to find other ways to get Mims the ball. Riley failed to get his best playmaker the football in a stretch of games where the Oklahoma Sooners were struggling to move the ball.
It was a stretch of games that had Marvin Mims on the verge of transferring had Riley stayed at Oklahoma.
“There wasn’t as many targets as I was looking for, nowhere near it,” Mims said told 247Sports’ Chris Hummer at Big 12 Media Days in July. “It was kind of a letdown, but at the end of the day I had to just keep battling through it. There were times where I was really unhappy about it with both the receiver coach and the offensive coordinator, but it was what it was.”
But with the coaching change that brought Jeff Lebby in to coordinate the offense, Marvin Mims is showing why that frustration was warranted.
Through two games, Marvin Mims has been targeted 12 times. He’s turned those 12 targets into an incredibly efficient 10 receptions for 244 yards and two touchdowns. He’s on pace to shatter his career-best numbers and is still averaging 24.4 yards per reception on the season.
Though he was targeted once in the first 29:24 of game time, Marvin Mims made his final three targets of the first half count. On three straight plays, Dillon Gabriel looked Mims’ way and the two connected for gains of 13, 14, and 36 yards, culminating in a touchdown.
Better late than never.
His performance on Saturday helped spark an Oklahoma Sooners’ offense that struggled for nearly 29 minutes of the first half. From the final drive of the half through the third quarter, the offense erupted for 31 points. It was his 36-yard touchdown reception at the end of the first half that got the Sooners on the board.
“… he ran by the guy in half-field coverage, and Dillon (Gabriel) makes a great throw,” Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables said “And Marvin makes a great play right over the shoulder, and, you know, good competitive play there when it counted the most. And it was, what a great play that was by both of them.”
It was a clutch play at a time when the Sooners needed someone to come through for them. The Sooners’ leading receiver for the 2020 and 2021 seasons came through with a big-time play to prevent Oklahoma from possibly trailing Kent State going into halftime. That was part of a career-high performance for the third-year Sooners wide receiver.
“And super proud of Marvin Mims, man, and what a display he put on tonight,” Venables said. “He’s my player of the game. Again, 203 all-purpose yards or whatever he does when he touches that ball, man. It’s electric. So 163 career yards receiving 36-yard touchdown, the 41-yard punt return, longest punt return we’ve had in three years.”
Only one other time in Marvin Mims career did he have seven receptions. The 2020 Big 12 title game win over Iowa State. On that day, he had seven receptions for 101 yards and a touchdown to help Oklahoma capture their sixth straight Big 12 title.
The Oklahoma Sooners need to feature Mims more moving forward. Seven to ten targets a game should be the goal because when he gets targeted, he produces. If Saturday against Kent State is any indication, Mims may see all the targets he wants and then some.
Offensive Coordinator Jeff Lebby said after the game, “Wanted to force the ball to him to give him the opportunity to go make plays and get us down the field. And it worked out the way we wanted.”
As the Sooners prepare to take on Nebraska, they must look to Marvin Mims early and often. He’s the type of player that can suck the air out of a hostile road crowd with his big play ability. While Jeff Lebby wants the Sooners to have a dominant running game, perhaps the clearest path to making that happen might be to air it out to his best offensive weapon.
As Mims makes plays down the field, he forces teams to commit more personnel to slow Oklahoma’s passing attack, leaving fewer defenders available around the line of scrimmage to stop the run. Tradition would argue that teams use the run to set up the pass, but times have changed. In modern college football, where passing attacks are so efficient, and good pass defenders are hard to come by, establishing your passing attack can open the ground game, as we saw on Saturday against Kent State.
The Nebraska Cornhuskers rank 113th in the NCAA in passing yards allowed. Oklahoma’s road trip could feature another opportunity to air it out with Dillon Gabriel and Marvin Mims leading the way. And it could mean another career day for the Sooners’ talented wide receiver.
But only if they make it a point to get him the football.
.@marvindmims autographs his work with excellence ✍️@CoachVenables | #OUDNA pic.twitter.com/qcrtZrzGjX
— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) September 13, 2022
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