If there was one criticism about the Oklahoma Sooners’ first game of the season, it was the pass rush didn’t get home as much as fans would like. Now, there is context as to why, from the quick drops to Arkansas State’s max protection when running deeper passing concepts.
Max protection made it so that there were almost always two people on one guy. The way the defensive line did show up was in the running game. The Sooners held the Arkansas State Red Wolves to 48 yards on 2.1 yards per carry.
[autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] talked about the defensive line (ESPN+) performance during his show on Monday night.
“I thought they played well,” Venables said. “Not perfect. They didn’t drop back a lot. You’re rushing four, and they had seven or eight-man protection several times. They did a lot of boots so you don’t have clean opportunities for sacks necessarily.”
Venables is someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat the performance if it wasn’t good enough.
[autotag]Da’Jon Terry[/autotag] spoke after practice on Monday and said he felt it was an overall good defensive performance.
“Everybody stepped up and did what they were supposed to do,” Terry said. “We didn’t have very many busts defensively, and everyone stepped up and did their part.”
Now the Sooners will take on an SMU Mustangs team with a high-powered offense that almost assuredly won’t do much max protection. So, if the pass rush is a no-show in this game, then there are problems.
Until then, there isn’t much to worry about.
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