Game Recap: Texas

That was... ugly. A promising start yielded no results in the second loss to Texas in three years. We don't have much to say, so this will be a significantly shorter recap than normal. Spoiler alert for the rest of the article: Seth Littrell and Joe-Jon Finley must go.

1st Quarter

Oklahoma did something in the first quarter that Texas didn't: gain first downs. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Oklahoma offense looked better in the first quarter than the Texas offense. That said, we only scored because we were gifted nice field position on a couple of drives (and we missed a field goal on one of them). Michael Hawkins showed signs of being incredibly anxious. He missed a wide-open receiver on a throw and took a sack when he should've thrown it away. Our run game looked nice, but it didn't look very good. On top of this, our offensive line completely regressed. Michael Hawkins had no time to throw, and no run lanes were opening. Thankfully, our defense put us in position to score at least a field goal.

The first quarter offered a small ray of hope, propelled by Billy Bowman's opening-drive interception. We pitched a first-quarter shutout and had some defensive momentum going into the second quarter.

Score at the end of this quarter: 3-0 OU

2nd Quarter

Despite not scoring, the offense had something cooking in the second quarter, but they could sustain nothing. Back-to-back five-play, 17-yard drives did nothing to get us any momentum. We would find a nice gain for a first down, then go backward 5-10 yards on the next play. Then, on back-to-back drives, we had nice gains on the ground and fumbled the ball away. The offensive line refusing to block and our players not holding onto the ball killed any chance we had of staying in this game.

The wheels fell off in the second quarter. OU missed recovering an end-zone fumble by Texas that would have given us a touchback and proceeded to allow a total of 21 points in this quarter.

Score at the end of this quarter: 21-3 Texas

3rd Quarter

There is nothing to compliment about our offense in the third quarter. We never even sniffed the 50-yard line. There was no pass blocking, no run game, and no offense.

Score at the end of this quarter: 24-3 Texas

4th Quarter

The fourth quarter was essentially an extension of the third—almost no offense, minus the game's last drive. Michael Hawkins showed his youth when, on fourth down, he threw the ball away when under pressure instead of throwing it down field and giving his receivers a chance. On fourth down. Deep in our territory. We drove the length of the field on the final drive of the game. But once again, under pressure, with an opportunity to score our only touchdown of the game, Hawkins threw it away again instead of throwing a 50/50 ball.

Here's what I want to point out about our offensive performance: Seth Littrell and Joe-Jon Finley need to go. Were our top five receivers out due to injury? Yes. Do we have a terrible offensive line? Also yes. But think about this: Neither Seth Littrell nor Joe-Jon Finley played quarterback during their playing career. Littrell was a fullback, Finley a tight end. So naturally, we have Littrell as the quarterbacks coach. As much as we hate Lincoln Riley, think about his work as an offensive coordinator. He does not require 5 star wide receivers to run a successful offense. He knows how to scheme receivers open, no matter their ability. Seth Littrell has shown no ability to scheme receivers open. On long down-and-distance situations, we run plays that haven't worked all year, mainly inside zone runs or wide-receiver screens. Michael Hawkins has shown that he can be incredibly accurate with football, but we run it twice as often as we throw it. Defenses know that we won't throw and sell out against the run, and they're right every time. Seth Littrell, as our offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, has shown no ability to make adjustments to the opposing defense, has not taught important fundamentals to either of our quarterbacks, makes poor playcalling decisions on important downs, and does not seem to know how to create a scheme that opens up the passing game. The last time we had an offense performing anywhere close to this bad was in 2014 under Josh Heupel (still nowhere near as bad as we have now). Remember what we had to do to fix our offense? Hopefully, Brent Venables took notes on how Bob Stoops handled that situation.

The offense’s abject failure to produce any substance ate into the defense, leaving them out there for long stretches with seemingly no relief. The defense hit its breaking point Saturday and crumbled under the weight of Texas’ playmaking ability and the damp squib that was the Oklahoma offense. To have only allowed 34 points is nothing short of a miracle.

Final Score: 34-3 Texas

Observations

• Michael Hawkins has a lot of growing to do but still shows promise

• Despite what the numbers say, the Oklahoma defense is good. Really good. They did everything they could to help us win that game. A competent offense with this defense would've won yesterday by three scores.

• Eli Bowen is going to be a stud.

• Our true freshman class on our defense is one of the best I've ever seen.

• Our punter had an amazing game yesterday. That's very sad to say.

• Our offense will not be fixed this year. If that's the best performance we could conjure with two weeks to prepare, we must start thinking about next year.

• We need to throw the bank at offensive line transfers and recruits this offseason.

• As mentioned earlier. A competent offense with this defense would've won this game by three scores.

• We had more first downs (18) than Texas (17). If that doesn't tell you all it needs to about how bad our offense played, I don't know what to tell you.

Key Players

• Eli Bowen: Eight tackles, five solo, one tackle for loss.

• Billy Bowman: One solo tackle, one interception.

• Jayden Jackson: Five tackles.

• Danny Stutsman: Six tackles, two solo, 1.5 tackles for loss.

• Luke Elzinga: Six punts, 286 yards, 47.7 yards per punt, 63-yard longest punt.

Other Stats

• Offense: 19-30, 148 yards, 4.9 yards per pass, no touchdowns, no interceptions. 38 rushes, 91 yards, 2.4 yards per rush. 4-15 on third down, 1-2 on fourth down, 18 total first downs.

• Defense: 5-13 on third down, 0-1 on fourth down, 7.4 yards per pass, 5.9 yards per rush - 17 first downs.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, so I'll say it again: Seth Littrell and Joe-Jon Finley need to go. There are so many bright offensive minds out there who would come to Oklahoma without a second of hesitation if Oklahoma offered them the job. There is no excuse for us not to go after them. Finally, don't forget the toughest section of the schedule is still ahead of us. We are in for a long season. But, forever and always, Boomer Sooner.