Five Quick Thoughts: OU 29, Texas 24

That was probably the most physical Red River Shootout I’ve watched in some time. Texas brought a lot of fight to this game in 2013 and then throughout the Charlie Strong era, often bringing some toughness and physicality to the run game that gave Oklahoma trouble. This was another beast altogether though.

The pads were popping early and guys started getting taken out in the third quarter when Texas’ defense could smell blood in the water and started delivering savage blows to the Sooners. OU’s big, powerful freshman back Trey Sermon didn’t wear down this defense in the fashion of a normal power back. Instead he was exhausted and beat up by the end of the game, avoiding hits late in the fourth and giving up on his normal tackle-breaking routine.

Baker Mayfield was taken out for a spell, Sam Ehlinger spent some time in the medical tent, and when it was all over the score read OU 29, Texas 24. A shame to lose that one, although I think if Oklahoma had lost that game it would have stuck in their craw considerably longer. Next year they’ll have to pull it off without Baker Mayfield or their mammoth left tackle. Here’s what I saw that led to this outcome.

Quick thought no. 1: OU had the better initial plan

The Sooners’ gameplan on offense was pretty simple and standard to who they are this season. They came out looking to impose their will with their veteran offensive line, particularly with their base counter-trey play, and then capitalizing off the resulting opportunities with Baker Mayfield and the passing game.

Texas’ aggressive quarters coverages can be vulnerable to good play-action and indeed Mayfield did quite a bit of damage there with 11.2 yards per pass and 302 passing yards. Baker Mayfield was the player of the game, as much as everyone will hate to admit it. He dodged some pass-rushers that were aiming to knock him out of the game and made a lot of plays and then fought back from injury to make the crucial plays down the stretch. Sam Ehlinger did all of those things as well without the benefit of a good running game, but Mayfield was the more effective player today. If you want to give that award to the Sooner OL I’ll hear you out.

None of that was surprising or particularly clever, save for their trick pass from Sermon that looked like a knockout blow at the time, what was a tad surprising was the initial Oklahoma defensive gameplan. The Sooners relegated 5-star linebacker Caleb Kelly to the bench in order to play a 3-3-5 nickel package in which Texas couldn’t use motion or alignment to take Obo Okoronkwo out of the box. They also played some 2-3-6 alignments that utilized Obo as a stand-up DE in a three-man rush.

The Sooners were wise enough to take note of Texas’ superior receiver personnel and inferior run game and decided to try and dare Texas to run the ball on standard downs. Then on third down they could bring a variety of different pressures from their dime package and try to get Obo in favorable matchups, of which there was no shortage.

Texas’ freshman-filled OL wilted early under the pressure and Oklahoma forced four punts and a turnover on downs before the Longhorns were able to generate any offense. By that point it was 20-0 Oklahoma. On a semi-related note, I’d be curious to know how much of the gameplan was Mike Stoops and how much was Ruffin McNeil. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was Stoops, it wasn’t totally out of character for him, I’m just curious.

Quick thought no. 2: Ehlinger wore the Sooners down

Texas’ depleted OL is probably going to be able to work over some teams this season as a result of playing in front of Ehlinger but they were poorly matched trying to deal with Obo, who is probably the best defensive player in the league. For much of the early game the Longhorns couldn’t block three or four with five or six and it put a serious governor on the offense.

Eventually Texas started mixing in enough successful runs and playing more 10 personnel (although Cade Brewer played some very worthy snaps and matched the game’s physical tone) and Okoronkwo and the Oklahoma DL began to wear down from the task of beating double teams and chip blocks only to then be asked to chase Ehlinger down the field.

Sam threw 39 passes for 278 yards on the day, good for 7.1 yards per attempt, which was a nice final line considering how things started. He also finished over 20 carries for over 100 yards again, with 22 for 106, and two total touchdowns. I firmly believe the game turned in large part due to him driving down to the goal line before the half and shoving the preseason’s presumed power back Chris Warren into the end zone. That lit a fire under the Texas side that burned strong for the rest of the game.

Ehlinger also protected the football, failing to either fumble or throw a pick despite being heavily pressured and facing two-high coverages all day. We got a nice scare when he went to the medical tent (I’d be curious to know what happened there) and Texas probably lost the game in the plays that Sam spent in that tent. Buechele wasn’t able to get as much yardage on his scrambles as Ehlinger would have garnered and also took a sack (and nearly a fumble) that Sam had been feeling and avoiding all day.

Over the course of the season they need to try and keep Sam below 20 carries when possible. Even Heisman-winning Tebow only went over 20 carries three times that year. It’ll be hard unless Texas can get their backs going but that’s a discussion for another time.

Without Ehlinger’s fire, I think Oklahoma’s gameplan looks pretty good. Instead their hopes to lean on Obo abusing a young OL nearly led to disaster when he became exhausted while Ehlinger and the Longhorns kept coming at him.

Quick thought no 3: The game was lost on two busted coverages

Mayfield had two passes that went for 113 yards and two touchdowns. One to put Oklahoma up 7-0 and the next to put them up 29-24. Over the rest of the game Mayfield was 15-25 for 189 yards at 7.56 yards per attempt and an INT (brilliant play by John Bonney, btw, seems like his role should be larger). The ugly part of that stat isn’t just that so much of the Sooners’ offense on the day came on two plays but that both were a result of blown coverages.

On the first one Boyd just got beat, plain and simple. He might have been expecting more inside help from Elliott, who’d rolled over as a part of a nickel blitz, and he also almost closed on the ball. But he didn’t, again, and OU was 7 points richer.

On the second one it’s not obvious to me when the receivers switch down the field if the CB and SS are supposed to trade them or not. They didn’t trade them in this case, not until late at least, and Sooner flex TE Mark Andrews was left alone down the sideline with Jones trailing him. Clearly whatever was supposed to happen, didn’t happen, but I’m not going to blindly cast blame.

Texas will be better at the end of the year and then again by perhaps another whole measure next season when they have more experience on the back end in Orlando’s defense. In the meantime, their errors were the clearest area of preventable deficiency in this defeat.

Quick thought no. 4: Lil’Jordan Humphrey and Reggie Hemphill-Mapps represent the main identity of this offense

When those two are on the field, in the slots, Texas is very difficult to match up against. LJH had four catches for 56 yards in this one and very nearly another one that could have set up Texas for an end zone heave to end the game. RHM also had four catches, for 42 yards, and some impressive plays to get what he got.

The Sooners knew these guys and Collin Johnson were a dangerous component and they worked hard to take them away but it’s just plain hard to stop them from doing real damage over the course of the game.

In the 10 personnel set with Kyle Porter joining them the slip screen was pretty devastating and Porter had two catches for 31 yards and a score on those while Chris Warren was brutal on swing passes out of the backfield, finishing with four catches for 55 yards. Their ability to block and catch out of the backfield may be less valuable to a young team than being able to run the ball all day but they aren’t non-factors. When Texas gets their RBs involved in the passing game from these sets with Collin Johnson and the three-letter slots out there it all becomes too much to handle. Particularly with Ehlinger scrambling around to either find them on the run or pick up chunk yardage with his own legs.

Texas needs to continue to bring Cade Brewer and the younger RBs along so they can try to avoid Ehlinger finishing the year with 200+ carries or something absurd. However, when it’s winning time, the 10 personnel sets with one of the older backs out there throwing chip blocks and catching the ball out of the backfield is a nasty thing to defend. It might be the hardest package to defend in the fourth quarter around the league.

Quick thought no. 5: Texas is the most physical team in the Big 12

It was demoralizing to see the Sooners marching down the field early in the game on counter run after counter run. It was also partly fools gold for the Sooners, as they weren’t able to break many long runs against the Longhorns’ tackling and their four trips to the red zone netted them 16 total points. It’s hard to win a shootout kicking field goals.

The Sooner backs went 20 for 96 at 4.8 ypc (Trey Sermon) and 10 for 48 at 4.8 ypc (Rodney Anderson) and while they had some steady gains throughout the day neither were really killing Texas. Their production dropped in the second half from 4.9 ypc to 4.2 (removing Baker’s various contributions for better or worse) and they failed to wear down the Texas front and secure the win or protect their lead.

Despite out-gaining Texas 518-428 on the day, Oklahoma went 5-15 on 3rd down while Texas finished 8-17. Texas journeyed to the Sooner red zone four times but came out with 24 points.

Texas has outlasted Kansas State in a slugfest and then taken Oklahoma down to the wire and bloodied them up real nicely, in each instance emerging as the tougher team in situational football and only losing or playing the games close due to costly coverage busts that bled away points. Oklahoma State is a very, very good offensive team, TCU will run the football, and West Virginia aren’t playing paddy cakes but at this point Texas looks like the physically toughest team in the league.

I don’t know if that’ll add up to a 8-1 or 7-2 kind of Big 12 finish that could put Texas in the conference championship game, but I wouldn’t rule it out either. Everyone go hit the training room hard this week, there’s a lot of football left this season.