Film Preview: A close look at Oklahoma's 2018 offense

The OU offense is one of the best in college football.   Head Coach Lincoln Riley has brought many Air Raid schemes he excelled with as an offensive assistant at Texas Tech and East Carolina while adding a deeper run scheme.  He's a great innovator and OU is reaping the benefits of that.  His addition as offensive coordinator in 2015 before he took the head job last fall is a huge factor in OU's recent national resurgence.

For statistics on OU, check out the statistics preview I published Wednesday.

Scheme

He's a Mike Leach protoge and the passing game has tons of Air Raid concepts mixed in.  Their running game will primarily feature zone, power, dart, and counter.   The counter play has been very productive for them over the last couple of years.

They also do a great job incorporating play action passes and run/pass options. Below you see a great example of one of their RPO's of split zone.

They use motion effectively to set up more favorable looks from defenses.  This clip is a good example against TCU in 2016.

Personnel

The star at Quarterback this year is A&M transfer #1 Kyler Murray (5-10 195 RJr.) who is a very gifted all around athlete and was drafted by the Oakland Athletics.  On the football field he's an accurate passer with a solid arm.  He's not going to be quite the passer Mayfield was (who would be?) but provides a lot of upside and generally makes good decisions while completing a high percentage of passes.

As a runner he almost reminds you of a slot receiver or a punt returner.  In a year where Baylor has faced a couple of pretty athletic runners at the position Murray figures to be the most dynamic runner that Baylor has seen.

At tailback OU lost Rodney Anderson for the year and figure to lean on #4 Trey Sermon (6-1 224 So.) who saw a lot of time in Waco last fall.   He's got good speed and quickness but is a very powerful runner.   The other back that should get a lot of time is speedy #21 Marcelias Sutton (5-9 192 Sr.).

At receiver the Sooners feature two great targets outside in X Receiver #2 CeeDee Lamb (6-2 189 So.) and Z Recevier #5 Marquise Brown (5-10 168 Jr.) who will test a team's ability to match up at corner.   Brown is one of the best deep threats in the country with nearly 22 yards per reception.   Lamb is a great size/speed matchup who averages 15 per reception. In the slot receiver position OU will feature quick players like #87 Myles Tease (5-9 171 RSr.),  #83 Nick Basquine (5-11 195 RSr.), and #25 Drake Stoops (5-9 169 Fr.), the son of OU's former Coach Bob Stoops.

One of the big challenges teams had defending OU last year was the presence of extremely versatile Tight End and Fullback starters that could line up just about anywhere and still make explosive plays for the offense.   This year they feature #80 Grant Calcaterra (6-4 221 So.) at Tight End who isn't quite at the level Andrews was but still provides some good receiving options at the position and can line up outside too.   Their fullbacks don't appear to have the versatility Flowers did.

On the Offensive Line they reshuffled a bit after key contributors graduated.   They have upperclassmen at all four of the Guard and Tackle spots but have played both veteran #68 Jonathan Alvarez (6-3 312 RSr.) and youngster #56 Creed Humphrey (6-5 325 RFr.) at Center.   This will be one of the best lines the Bears will face.

Special Teams

#43 Austin Seibert (5-9 214 Sr.) handles placekicking, kickoffs, and punts.  He averages 41 yards per punt and will usually force a touchback on his kickoffs.  In field goals he was 17 of 21 a year ago and is 3 of 5 this fall missing from 33 and 53.

Question & Answer

What happened with the run defense for Baylor last fall?

It was statistically terrible with 342 yards and over 8 per carry but the vast majority of OU's damage came two ways.

First there was the 99 yard run where a Linebacker followed motion and left his A gap unguarded.   If he fills his gap it may have been a safety.  One missed tackle by the free safety and the rest is a foot race.

The other issue was Phil Snow's use of a very wide three man front with only five men in the box.   As you can see it essentially handed OU rushing yards when they ran at it.  I didn't chart the entire game but I did notice at least 5 carries went for 129 yards against this unconventional front.

The other 22 tailback carries went for 87 yards and 3.95 per carry.  That is an entire game's worth of carries that were well defended.  The Bears have enough talent in the front six to hold up reasonably assuming they aren't put in that front.  It's too easy to check to a run when it's shown to you pre-snap and it definitely needs to be scrapped this week.  It also cost BU vs Duke on an otherwise good defensive series after a turnover.

If you were Phil Snow, what would be your gameplan to slow down OU's offense?

I don't think you can survive playing obvious man or zone, Riley is too good and has the personnel to make you pay.  You have to mix it up and you can't just let OU have the run.  Iowa State tried to be disciplined and bend but don't break and it didn't work well for them defensively.

I think a healthy dose of run blitzes and in passing situations bringing fire zones could be a good strategy if they are designed based on OU's tendencies with Murray at the helm.   They helped BU get a good pick against UTSA and could disrupt an offense that features a lot of players who are in new positions or playing with a lot of new faces next to them.

If you can get to Murray early you can then mix in a lot of good diguised coverages to hopefully force them into beneficial audibles like this video from Snow's days at Temple only waiting until later in the play clock to show your hand.  

The Sooners throw a lot at you and bringing the heat to where they may not execute quite as sharp needs to at least be tried. I don't think Baylor has total defense to shut OU down but mixing things up and picking good spots to be aggressive can get some stops to let the offense have a puncher's chance at keeping this one tight for a while.

How will Baylor's secondary prevent explosive plays from their skill positions?

The Sooners are very good on offense and will likely make plays at a high rate.  With that said plays like this one last fall gave them plenty of help.  At the end of the day the Bears can't make mistakes like this and must make the Sooners beat them.

What changed last week to make the run defense more effective?  Can it be effective this week?

The Bears were more disciplined on their assingments and didn't have any major mental busts.  They missed one tackle on the long run by Pooka Williams but otherwise held KU in check.  As for this week it won't be that solid simply due to scheme and talent on the other sideline but if they play disciplined they can slow the Sooners on the ground.

What does it mean for the defense if they struggle against OU?

Obviously the answer to this depends on how much they struggle and for what reason.  With that said if they are mostly assignment sound and simply get beat on plays where they don't make it easy on the Sooners it won't really impact my view of this defense much.   It's an improving group that did very well last week that is going up against an offense that consistently does more damage than opponents are used to giving up.

In the final portion of the preview we will look at the OU defense.

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