The loss at Kansas State fortunately left Oklahoma Sooners Dillon Gabriel out of the crosshairs of the national media becuase, well, the loss wasn’t his fault. Gabriel didn’t show anything against the Wildcats that Sooners fans weren’t already aware of. He had a strong performance in the loss.
However, Tom Fornelli of CBS Sports had a rather interesting point of view on Gabriel in his QB Power Rankings for this week.
Dillon Gabriel certainly isn’t the reason Oklahoma lost to Kansas State, but some of his limitations were displayed in the loss. Gabriel finished with 330 yards passing and four touchdowns, but he is a boom-or-bust QB. When he’s hitting the big plays, his teams are nearly unstoppable. He struggles when the big play isn’t there, however, and you need him to string some singles together instead of home runs. He struggled to hit the singles against Kansas State. -Tom Fornelli, CBS Sports
Respectfully, this is not a good assessment of Dillon Gabriel as a football player, nor of what happened against Kansas State.
Gabriel knows how to take what the defense gives him. He doesn’t need the “big play” to be successful. When Jeff Lebby calls for quick passes, Gabriel will throw them. Offensive line penalties were as much an issue as anything else that happened offensively Saturday.
Gabriel fell two spots from last week’s ranking and Kansas QB Jalon Daniels deservedly made his debut in the top 10 at No. 7.
The usual suspects, CJ Stroud and Bryce Young, are at No. 1 and No.2, and Caleb Williams dropped a spot to No. 4.
Should Gabriel have a great game against TCU, it will be interesting to see if he can climb higher than No. 8.
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