2023 Oklahoma Sooners Post Mortem: Defense/Special Teams

The Texas defense lost to a play style.

In a game where the calculated aggressor is often rewarded, it generally pays to sucker punch first and ask questions later. There is a massive risk to neutering Longhorn defenders by game plan when the opponent game plan is already premised on sowing hesitation and doubt to mask their own weaknesses. That’s how an OU offense that was unremarkable against Cincy and SMU managed to hit a superior Texas defense for 486 yards at 6 yards per play, 6 for 6 in the red zone, over 200 yards rushing (they only broke 200+ against Arkansas State prior) and 34 points (with a missed field goal and a dropped Walker touchdown pass). Of course, all with the understanding that they have had a “Texas Day” of practice every week since August.

Well, it worked. Fast pace and formational diversity transformed 11 attackers into observers. Texas lost the initiative early and never regained it.

Here’s one of many examples where confusion creates easy opportunity:

Watch Catalon and the backer. You don’t vacate the middle of the field on goal to go. Nor do you have five cover three pre-snap. Note also that three Texas edge defenders are rendered useless by the play call. Look how far they are from the ball. That’s candy for a Brilesian offense.

Unfortunately, Texas indecision foiled aggression, forced no turnovers, got little pressure and had scant few hard hits on an OU game plan that featured a 5-10, 195 pound quarterback carrying the ball 14 times. Gabriel dropped back another 38 times with nary a touch. Gabriel was never made to feel his usage rate. Gabriel’s history is that you must make him feel the burden of the game physically and mentally, not just solely focus on narrowing one aspect of his passing game options.

Cut the head off of the snake. Don’t spend your time positioning bite shields everywhere.

Comparably, Oklahoma’s defense got absolutely sliced and diced everywhere but the red zone once Texas got their bearings on offense, but they forced three huge turnovers, held up in the red zone and were default aggressive. Not always in terms of scheme, but in how their players rallied to the ball.

Understand that when I write about aggression, it doesn’t mean a zero blitz on every play from press man. It means starting the play – no matter the call – with a bias towards action. Zone defense or off man coverage is actually premised on delivering hard tackles, rallying to the ball and being decisive. It’s not passive unless you play it that way.

Watch Longhorn defensive body language during the game. It tells you a lot.

Calm is contagious, but unfortunately, so is uncertainty. When the pressure ramps up, uncertainty compounds.

By game’s end, the odds of Texas getting a critical stop were zero, particularly when the first two plays of the Sooner possession revealed confused grass guarding, an undermanned, disinterested containment rush, multiple open receivers and a Texas defensive coordinator who had completely lost the plot of what a three point lead means with 1:17 on the clock. That’s actually Sark’s fault, but he seems to let his DC run game strategy when it’s the defense on the field.

College coaches routinely struggle with the eternity that 1:17 represents when an offense is allowed to gain chunk yards with a stopped clock for chain reset, even without time outs. You can easily get off 8 plays if you’re gaining yards, folks. Oklahoma only needed 5 to go 75. This places a massive disincentive on classic NFL style prevent defense. For OU, hurry up is their happy place and they are not subject to pre-snap time-wasting, killing seconds with slow sideline relays, or any of the other frictions that occur when slow-paced teams try to go fast.

PK (and Sark) effectively ran a defense as if the Horns were up by 14 and not by 3. I’m not even sure I like it then.

Once Oklahoma realized that Texas wasn’t going to pressure or guard anything but geometrical slices of lawn, their win was nearly guaranteed.

The final touchdown throw (oh, now PK brings pressure…cool, cool) enabled by a simple pre-snap motion and a panicked secondary allowed a wide open receiver in the back of the end zone rendering the blitz irrelevant. It was the final unraveling and a fitting culmination for a defense that had completely lost its plan and its composure.

Emptying the notebook here:

No, Texas didn’t play good second half defense…

Texas got two stops in the 2nd half from Gabriel missing two open 5 yard outs on money downs. If surrendering 255 yards on six Sooner drives at 6.5 yards a pop is good defense, including that game-winning debacle, I’d hate to see bad defense.

Oklahoma began the second half with a 13 play, 75 yard methodical touchdown drive. Right after going 67 yards at the end of the first half. Adjustments?

The Sooners added another 72 yard drive in the 4th quarter that ended with a missed field goal that began on their own 1/2 yard line. Their first play out of the end zone was a telegraphed 12 yard run against a 7 man Texas box where a late arriving Jerrin Thompson served as the 7th man next to a confused David Gbenda. PK schemed up a 1st down honest box against a Sooner offense standing in their own end zone paint with Texas down 27-20 with the chance to get a safety, force a shallow punt having already blocked one (get another block or OU is in punt safe max protect, guaranteeing a long Worthy return from the OU 45) or simply just win field position. Still backed up a couple of plays later, Gabriel ran a draw to convert a 3rd and 11. Two plays later, he went for 44 yards right up the middle of the field past paralyzed Texas defenders. Then…a missed field goal. Good D.

Dillon Gabriel killed Texas with his legs, with 5 of his 14 runs going for either a new set of sticks or a touchdown. He averaged 8.1 yards per carry overall (that’s with a sack included) but 4-37 came on scrambles. Those scrambles hurt Texas, but more consistent pain was inflicted on nine called runs between the tackles, where he averaged around 10 yards per carry. Given OU’s lack of run game push, those were scheme wins. See the goal to go clip above. Texas 2nd and 3rd level defenders stood and watched on multiple QB runs, as if mesmerized, and overloaded Longhorn fronts stationed extra men uselessly on the edge against wide splits.

Why? Don’t know.

Only one OU receiver really hurt Texas –Jalil Farooq. 5 catches for 130 yards on only 5 targets secured on five different Longhorn defenders at an average of 26 yards per catch. Was he picking on anyone in particular? No. Schemed up throws to a talented player.

OU deception happened before the snap by formation, but everything else was fairly meat and potatoes unless you’re awed by toss sweeps to Drake Stoops. They threw play action on less than 1/3 of their drop backs and they actually underperformed when doing so. So deception wasn’t integral to any aspect of of their passing game success. That makes sense. Play action exploits aggression.

Gabriel averaged 6.4 yards per attempt when blitzed. 7.9 yards per attempt when not. While Texas successfully limited him to only one successful deep shot (Farooq on Catalon for 43) he threw well in the intermediate game, going 6 of 9 for 106 yards. Gabriel’s short game was an unremarkable 16 of 23 for 136 yards, but the combo of that with his legs kept the chains moving. Ultimately, it was his legs and intermediate throws that hurt Texas and sustained OU enough to fuel Gabriel’s nearly 400 yards of offense.

Extra man pressure, when brought, was almost always an extra DB or LB lined up outside. Given OU line splits, that ain’t real close to the QB. An odd choice given that OU blocking is most vulnerable inside, Gabriel was running and scrambling almost solely between the tackles, OU’s tackles are high level pass protectors and the Sooners use trips and a flexed tight end to interfere with outside blitzer’s get off.

That extra man was as useless as a library in Edmond. How about bringing Hill screaming up the middle from a bear front (guards and center covered by interior DL) on a 5-10 QB while the edges contain?

Special Teams

Proud of the unit’s preparation and aggression demonstrated by the fake punt conversion with Whittington and the terrific Kitan Crawford block and Muhammad score.

Absolutely awesome performance by Bert Auburn under major pressure. Only 2 for 6 from 40+ coming into the game, Auburn nailed a 45 yarder easily and then followed it up with a pressure-packed 47 yarder right down the middle that would have been good from 55+. 3 for 3 on the game. Outstanding.

Will Stone did a really nice job on kick coverage, notching a tackle and forcing another OU returner into the sideline. You don’t want to praise your kicker for kick coverage, but it beats the alternative.

I don’t understand why Worthy keeps fair catching punts on the 5 yard line. This is a no-no. Basically, a football taboo. Does anyone communicate this to him? Does he just laugh and say,”I don’t care. It’s fun to do bad things.” Do I have a dinosaur perspective and the new cool thing to do is catch it on the 5? Help me.

Brushing the OU punter and allowing a new set of downs was a tough deal on a bang-bang play. There’s a benefit to ST aggression, but there will be a cost. You hope the former exceeds the latter. Texas won on the final ledger here.

Two uncalled face masks on Longhorn kick returners was…weird.

Defensive Line

Man, Oklahoma held a lot. The interior Longhorn DL played better on review than the live watch suggested. Collins played really well, notching a batted ball and three pressures. Good against run, too. He needs to keep his feet when he breaks through and not dive at a scrambling QB. Stay in the hunt in case the QB stops and tries to reset for a throw. Sweat flashed several times with some run stuffs, 2 hurries and a batted ball. Murphy had a pretty good game, but missed a tackle.

Sorrell had a couple of decent pass rush efforts, but not enough. The others were totally shut down as pass rushers. I’m not sure if they lost interest in pass rushing by design or they got tired of losing to Guyton and Rouse. At times it was difficult to tell the difference between our defensive plan and confusion.

Linebacker

Anthony Hill played hard and well (8 tackles, a sack, another tackle for loss). Probably not a coincidence given that he just fires and goes. The rest of the linebacker corps was inconsequential to bad. Jaylan Ford got picked on in the passing game (targeted 7 times, 6 completions, 67 yards) and he was sedentary on Gabriel run plays and his scrambles. Feet in concrete. Weirdly, he was good on OU’s traditional inside runs. #41 was very hesitant. The idea of Gabriel running more in this game seemed like a foreign idea to some of our key personnel. Gbenda was played as a traditional linebacker rather than as a chaser/blitzer and that accentuated all of his weaknesses. A bystander.

Defensive Backs

The absence of Ryan Watts robbed the Longhorn secondary of a naturally aggressive player and a physical force against the WR screen game.

Tackling wasn’t very good across the board. Bad angles, particularly as the defense started to crack under pressure. OU receivers consistently defeated Texas DBs when blocking, mostly out of…wait for it…better aggression and commitment. Barron was the exception and his typical self, notching 11 tackles to lead the team. Good in coverage as well. Gave up one 18 yard pass but OU otherwise avoided him.

Holmes wasn’t targeted much, but Oklahoma found success in all of them.

Final

Oklahoma ran 81 plays and Texas created very little disruptive havoc on any of them. No turnovers, only a few hard tackles, sporadic pressure, weird hesitation, useless extra man edge alignments, five tackles for loss and one sack on 43 drop backs. Texas was not well prepared for Sooner pace or formations and there were clearly choices made to discourage resetting the line of scrimmage with penetration. On some other snaps, I honestly can’t tell if the Texas defenders are just really confused or they were actually told to do that.

Oklahoma lacks multiple elite skill players around Gabriel and the QB has plenty of faults of his own, but they were obviously good enough to support Gabriel’s One Man Gang effort to victory. If they had their normal supply of Mark Claytons, DeMarco Murrays and a vintage level OL, it would have been ugly.

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