Oklahoma’s matchup with Mississippi State on Saturday brings a very specific kind of offense into focus, and Teddy Lehman says the label often attached to it doesn’t tell the full story.
Jeff Lebby’s Bulldogs operate out of a veer-and-shoot, or wide-choice, system that stretches defenses horizontally before forcing them to sort out the math in the box. If the numbers favor the run, Mississippi State will lean on it.
If not, the RPO game comes into play. The tempo is part of the package too, which means defenses have to be sharp with their eyes, their communication and their assignments from snap to snap.
That’s also why the deep shots can be misleading.
“You think because of all the deep ball stuff, like this is an air raid offense,” Lehman said on the 'Oklahoma Breakdown with Ikard and Lehman.'" It is a running offense.
They want to run the ball... That's what you have to do to hit the home runs."
That’s the key for Oklahoma’s defense: don’t let the Bulldogs turn the game into their kind of chess match. The Sooners have to hold up at the line of scrimmage, take away the easy run answers and force Mississippi State into less comfortable down-and-distance situations. If they can do that, quarterback Kamario Taylor has to operate under more pressure and the offense becomes easier to predict.
The back end will have to do its part as well. Against a system built to stress discipline, one blown assignment can turn into a chunk play in a hurry.
Mississippi State’s pace only raises the stakes. The Sooners will have to get aligned quickly, communicate cleanly and keep the structure of the defense intact before the ball is snapped. Oklahoma has the talent to make this matchup difficult for the Bulldogs, but the margin for error is thin against an offense built to punish even small mistakes.
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