What a difference no running game and a rusty, not-ready-for-the-moment quarterback can make.
And that’s really about it, right?
Because nobody’s giving up on Brent Venables, the defensive coordinator, are they? And have they really given up, for good, on everybody’s favorite transfer portal quarterback, too?
Yet, turn on the radio Monday and if the sky wasn’t falling it was because the sky can’t fall twice and it had fallen already at the Texas State Fair.
The funny thing about it?
The reason it was falling came down to one thing.
Against a real defense, Oklahoma can’t run the ball and how can it navigate the rest of its schedule without running the ball?
Even though nobody thought OU had a running game to begin with.
Make it make sense.
Against Illinois State, not even an FBS program, OU ran for 3.2 yards per carry and Sooner running backs for just 2.7. Against Michigan, it was 3.5 and 2.9.
Against Kent State, perhaps the worst team in all of the FBS, OU ran for 4.5 per carry, which might be all right against SEC opponents, but is still nothing against the Golden Flashes.
Given all that, why’s everybody convinced it’s all going to hell, that even should the Sooners get past South Carolina in a few days, they’ll be fortunate to get past any of what remains:
• No. 5 Ole Miss
• at No. 11 Tennessee
• at No. 6 Alabama
• No. 16 Missouri
• No. 10 LSU
Can John Mateer suddenly not play?
Will turnover variance — OU’s lost 11 and gained two — never snap back just a little? Is the lack of “edge” and “fire” shown against the Longhorns, for which Venables blamed himself, bound to repeat again and again?
Seems unlikely.
What’s true is OU is not less than the team it had shown itself to be before facing Texas; making it every bit as capable this Saturday as it was last Saturday; the only real difference being it’s now played one stinker of a game which teams sometimes do, allowing for three options going forward:
• The Sooners are still the supremely capable team so many of us thought they were, perhaps the class of the SEC, a playoff team for sure, with a real shot at a national championship.
• The Sooners were never any good to begin with and here comes the collapse, no more than seven wins, no resurrection of the program and, good chance, no more Venables at the helm.
• The Sooners are between those extremes, good enough and limited enough to win six, seven, eight or nine games and the season will tell the tale.
Experience and observation says all three outcomes are possible; the least likely being the second one; the most likely being the last one; while the first remains in the mix, despite an unpleasant truth.
Even if OU winds up being that great team, it will be that great team despite having no run real run game, at least in the way we think of real run games.
That ship’s sailed.
“They’re not moving anybody,” the old Sooner quarterback and assistant coach Cale Gundy must have said 10 times on the radio Monday.
So be it.
What’s left is for OU to pursue being that great team, nonetheless, with full knowledge of its limitations, and one thing that means is abandoning all thought of redshirting backup quarterback Michael Hawkins.
It never made much sense in the first place and makes less sense now.
Because OU needs Hawkins, because not having any kind of a conventional run game does not mean giving up on keeping opposing defenses off-balance, which is what the run game, even when not explosive, is supposed to provide.
There must be ways to incorporate Hawkins even if Mateer doesn’t leave the field.
Could one option to the other? Could Hawkins line up in the slot sometimes and take direct snaps other times? Can he just appear, leaving defenses to wonder who’ll take the snap, creating some level of discomfort?
Or, in short yardage, Mateer on the sideline, rather than hand the ball to a running back behind the blocks of Jayden Johnson and David Stone, defenders who came in to run block for one play against Texas, resulting in a two-yard gain and a first down, why not direct snap it to Hawkins, freeing still another run blocker to the cause?
My own two eyes tell me a bulldozer package can’t work because if the line can’t run block it can’t run block. On the other hand, offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle’s a smart guy, not to mention analyst Kevin Wilson, who’s right there with him on the sideline and knows a thing or two about scheming around weakness.
Surely they can come up with something.
As for the redshirt, Hawkins is a sophomore and does anybody really see him as a three-year starter should Mateer head for the draft at season’s end, or a two-year starter beginning in ’27 should Mateer stay?
He’s a terrific athlete and a so-so-at-best SEC quarterback.
So, however Hawkins can help right now is exactly what he should be doing.
OU could also pull a page from the Mike Leach playbook, which does not mean throwing the ball every down, thus creating a short-passing game to bypass the run game — not that it’s a bad idea; but the Sooners have already blown their first bye week — but to occasionally spread out formations, leaving it to Tory Blaylock, Xavier Robinson and maybe even Jaydn Ott to choose space for themselves.
That won’t create a running game out of nothing, but it might be worth another yard per carry, or two, on third and short, second-and-long or first-and-10, all of which would make the game far more manageable for the Sooner offense.
Optimally, Mateer would run the ball far more than Arbuckle asked him to run against Texas, but if that’s flirting with too much disaster, all the more reason to kill Hawkins’ redshirt and find new ways to use him.
Mateer could also quit throwing interceptions.
That or start throwing more touchdown passes, because he’s got six of each right now, which is a lot more Trevor Knight than even the old INT merchant himself, Landry Jones.
Knight tossed 25 touchdown passes against 19 interceptions over three Sooner seasons. Jones tossed 123 and 52 over four. Jones did nothing halfway as long as then-offensive coordinator Josh Heupel kept telling him to air it out, which he did (to a fault).
What OU can’t do, and what Arbuckle and Venables can’t do, is rail against the injustice of being saddled with a can’t-run-block offensive line and keep doing what they’re doing, banging their heads against walls; because even as not every remaining team on the schedule can do what Texas did, they should all be far better than Illinois State, Kent State and maybe Michigan, too, and OU wasn’t much on the ground against those teams either.
A great defense remains. A terrific quarterback, at least we think so, too. Special special teams as well, though Isaiah Sategna might want to quit fair-catching every kickoff. And a horrid running game that must be attempted to be coached around.
Arbuckle (and Wilson) must be inventive.
Venables must demand that they be, offering head coaching value along the way.
Mateer must pick it up.
OU, given the chance, can still be a great team.