Jeff Lebby: Oklahoma couldn't get out of its own way at times during Week 2

Jeff Lebby liked the effort he saw out of the Oklahoma offense on Saturday but believes it can still clean some things up. The Sooners earned a 28-11 victory against SMU in Norman, though the offensive coordinator noted at times they “couldn’t get out of our own way.”

OU went scoreless in the third quarter and allowed the Mustangs to come within a field goal after a touchdown to make it 14-11 with 12:09 remaining. The Sooners managed to get things together after that as Dillon Gabriel led them on two touchdowns drives to pull away.

After getting a chance to watch the film from Saturday, Lebby gave an honest assessment of where the offense struggled in his Monday media appearance.

“When you put the tape on, our guys played incredibly hard and they tried to be incredibly physical,” he said. “We did not play very clean. We couldn’t get out of our own way at times. That was really spread out through the entire unit. Put the tape on and guys were playing incredibly hard, incredibly tough. But we didn’t execute cleanly.”

Gabriel finished the game with an efficient stat line of 19-of-27 passing for 176 yards and four touchdowns. The Sooners also managed 189 yards rushing on 4.0 yards per carry and did not commit a turnover.

Although that looks good on the surface, the Sooners failed to consistently move the ball down the field. They failed to score on seven of their first nine drives, including turning it over on downs at the SMU 19-yard line in the third quarter. It was a far cry from the season opener, when OU scored on its first nine drives in a 73-0 shutout of Arkansas State.

Lebby believes that comes down to a lack of focus on technique, citing a message that Oklahoma coach Brent Venables consistently preaches to his players.

“Coach V talks about it all the time, but it’s effort with technique,” he said. “It’s playing incredibly hard and incredibly physical, but having great technique and fundamentals inside of what you’re doing every snap. That’ll give us the chance to have the success we want to have. All of us gotta play cleaner. I am proud of the way we tried to play, we just did not play very clean.”

It’s clear the potential is there with this Sooners offense, and it will work on limiting those mistakes in practice this week. Oklahoma next hits the road to take on Tulsa at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday.