Oklahoma’s in the thick of the Playoff race as it heads into a rematch with Texas in the Big 12 Championship. The Sooners are up to No. 4 in the national S&P+ ranking, after they beat West Virginia in a 59-56 barnburner that even surpassed that Chiefs-Rams game for bonkers offense. Kyler Murray’s built up an increasingly serious Heisman case.
Oklahoma’s defense hasn’t gotten any better since Texas got Mike Stoops fired
The last UT-OU meeting led Oklahoma to immediately fire its maligned defensive coordinator. Things have not improved since then.
Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Nobody will ever get confused about why Oklahoma’s good. The Sooners are No. 1 in Offensive S&P+, a perch they’ve occupied for three years. And they’re still just horrible at playing defense, continuing a recent trend that started in earnest in 2016. Bad defense is the only reason they even have one loss: a 48-45 decision to Texas in Week 6.
The Red River Shootout was so bad that it finally pushed Oklahoma to fire defensive coordinator Mike Stoops, whom fans had wanted gone for years.
Seriously, Sooners fans wanted Stoops fired more than you’ve probably ever wanted anything in your life. His defenses had prevented Oklahoma from making the jump from 2017 Playoff team to national champion. The unit had piled up ugly performances, and Stoops was ultimately responsible. Nothing was more indicative of his shortcomings than a 2014 defensive series against Baylor, when Stoops had his players in soft coverage as Baylor just marched up the field bit by bit without challenge.
Firing Stoops was inevitable. Lincoln Riley promoted associate head coach and former ECU boss Ruffin McNeill to run the defense. But things have only gotten worse.
In six games under McNeill, the defense has turned in four of its five worst performances of the season, according to play-by-play data.
Opponent-adjusted S&P+ says Oklahoma’s defensive showing against was in the 13th percentile of FBS teams that week. It was, to that date, the Sooners’ worst effort.
After that, OU had a bye week. In the next two games, things appeared to be better. OU held TCU to 20 on offense and Kansas State to 14, slotting in the 82nd to 83rd percentile both weeks. Both of those teams are bad, but again, these percentiles bake in opponent and pace adjustments. OU hadn’t looked that good on defense since it destroyed FAU and UCLA (neither of which turned out to be great) in Weeks 1 and 2.
Since then, OU’s defense has been terrible four games in a row:
- Texas Tech: 14th percentile, 46 points allowed, 6.7 yards per play
- Oklahoma State: 8th percentile, 47 points allowed, 7.4 yards per play
- Kansas, in Norman: 12th percentile, 40 points, 8.2 yards per play
- West Virginia: 9th percentile, 56 points, 7.8 yards per play
That’s like four Texases in a row. All of the points scored against OU in this span came against the defense. It’s still a small sample size, but things have not improved.
Mostly, the problem has been that OU can’t defend the pass.
The glaring exception under McNeill was the Kansas game, when the Jayhawks — who were playing under a lame-duck coach and, again, were Kansas — ran 36 times for 348 yards, a 9.7-yard average. KU only averaged 6.3 yards per pass and still hung 40.
The other teams that have torched Oklahoma’s defense have done it primarily via great passing days. Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and West Virginia all did better than 8.2 yards per throw, and WVU’s Will Grier averaged 11. The Pokes and Eers did their damage with explosive plays, while Tech just ate its way upfield bit by bit in classic air-raid style.
Injuries all over the secondary haven’t helped. Cornerbacks Bookie Radley-Hiles and Justin Broiles and safeties Jordan Parker and Kahlil Haughton have all missed time in this stretch. None of the latter three played in the West Virginia game.
Still, Oklahoma had several former blue-chip recruits back there for WVU (safety Robert Barnes, corners Radley-Hiles and Tre Brown), and they couldn’t save the day.
All of that should be worrisome, given that UT also beat OU via the pass.
In their first meeting, the Longhorns had a 46 percent Success Rate on runs (5 percent above average) and a 54 percent SR on passes (13 percent above average).
UT’s running game is bad, slotting 99th in S&P+. But the passing game is 41st. That matches up well, for the Horns, with OU being 48th against the run and 89th against the pass.
In that vein, Sam Ehlinger should have a good day.
His 24-of-35 passing for 314 yards and two TDs the last time these teams were in North Texas is a good over/under, to say nothing of the three rushing TDs he added that day.
Or maybe Oklahoma will have fixed a bunch of things.
But there’s no reason to bank on that. The results the last month have been even more consistently bad than they were under Stoops. He still bears some of the blame for that, because OU’s still using players who were recruited and taught to play in Stoops’ defense. But it sure looks like the Sooners’ problems run deeper.
Fortunately, Oklahoma has Murray, and his offense is so good that there’s a strong chance the Sooners’ bad defense doesn’t change the result.
S&P+ projects a 15.5-point margin of Sooner victory despite everything I just typed. But given that Texas has often played to the level of the competition and has a game built well to stress Oklahoma, the Longhorns could outperform that projection.
See More:
