NORMAN - Oklahoma’s offense is still searching for its footing, but the Sooners are trying to separate the good from the bad after a familiar kind of Saturday.
For most of the game against Kentucky, OU actually moved the ball well. The Sooners outgained the Wildcats 346-230 and put together some long possessions, including a 13-play drive and two 12-play marches in the first half. But the same issues that have defined the season showed up again when the game tightened, and Oklahoma ended up paying for it.
Tight end Hayden Hansen said Monday that the encouraging stretches shouldn’t be ignored, even if the final result was hard to swallow.
“If anyone who watched the game has kept up with us all year, we were moving the ball,” Hansen said after practice Monday. “We only had three drives in the first half and were inside the 15 every time. Now, it just comes down to those little details.”
Those little details have piled up all season. Oklahoma is averaging just 311.5 yards per game, which ranks 126th nationally and second worst among Power Four teams. The Sooners are 3-3, a record shaped in large part by offensive inconsistency that has shown up through turnovers from quarterback John Mateer, depth issues on the offensive line and playcalling that has drawn questions at times.
Against Kentucky, the offense again flashed enough to make the frustration sting a little more. But it also unraveled in the second half behind a battered offensive line and three Mateer interceptions.
Still, Hansen said the message inside the building is to keep pressing forward, not dwell on what went wrong. He pointed to a missed fake field goal as one more chance that slipped away.
“We had the fake field goal, it was there and there was opportunity for it, we just didn’t execute,” Hansen said. “If we can just tighten up, it’s a three-touchdown game.
That’s the frustrating part. But how close we are keeps us motivated and I’ve been trying to echo that to the guys.”
While the offense has sputtered, Oklahoma’s defense has again carried itself like one of the nation’s best. Brent Venables’ group ranks third in passing defense and 24th in rushing defense among Power Four teams.
That kind of imbalance can test a locker room, but defensive back Reggie Powers III said the group is focused on keeping the offense steady instead of letting results create a divide.
“We know things can be tough out there on Saturdays,” Powers said. “So we don’t take for granted them being good or bad. We just try to make them better in practice, give them the confidence and let them know we have their backs.”
There were still signs of life from Mateer beyond the turnovers. If those mistakes are stripped away, he finished with 270 passing yards and a touchdown, enough to suggest the offense isn’t hopeless even after an emotional loss.
With six games left and college football chaos all over the place, Oklahoma still has time to change the story. The next chance comes this week at Mississippi State, and Hansen said the locker room is determined to keep pushing.
“The message throughout the locker room is don’t flinch now,” Hansen said. “Now is not the time to go into hiding.
“ … One of the first things Venables said after the game was, ‘This should hurt. You should be mad.
But I don’t want to see any moping.’ He said, ‘There are a lot of top teams in the SEC that lost, so anything’s possible.’
We can only control what we can control.”
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