United Bank Playbook – Oklahoma Preview
November 25, 2020 02:25 PM | Football
West Virginia Game Notes | Oklahoma Game Notes
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – On paper, West Virginia is facing its biggest challenge of the season on Saturday night when jelling Oklahoma brings its 14th-ranked Sooners to Milan Puskar Stadium.
We saw the full potential of Oklahoma in its dominant 41-13 victory over Oklahoma State in the annual Bedlam game last Saturday night in Norman, Oklahoma.
We saw freshman quarterback Spencer Rattler’s continued growth, we the saw sheer power of 246-pound running back Rhamondre Stevenson, we saw the extraordinary downfield playmaking abilities of wide receiver Marvin Mims, who is just a freshman by the way, and we saw the havoc OU’s impressive front four wrought on the Cowboys’ duct-taped offensive line.
You always take notice of defensive linemen with single-digit numerals and the Sooners have two this year - junior Ronnie Perkins (No. 7) and junior Perrion Winfrey (No. 8). Those two guys, plus junior Isaiah Thomas (No. 95) and sophomore Nik Bonitto (No. 11), looked like the second coming of the Steel Curtain last Saturday night.
Through eight games, this Oklahoma defense has generated 64 tackles for loss and 30 sacks. That’s more than West Virginia’s No. 4-ranked defense has produced in the same amount of games.
Furthermore, the Sooners have generated 37 quarterback hurries, which are 37 more times they have been within a whisker of having even more negative-yardage plays. That means they are spending quite a bit of time in their opponents’ backfield, which was pointed out to West Virginia offensive coordinator Gerad Parker during Tuesday’s weekly press conference.
“Yes they are,” he laughed nervously.
You can go through Oklahoma’s game notes with a highlighter and completely cover it with light-yellow ink, which I did Tuesday morning. Here is a sampling:
* The Sooners are 26-2 in their last 28 true road games, including a 15-2 record under fourth-year coach Lincoln Riley
* Oklahoma has scored at least 28 points in 60 straight games
* Oklahoma has won 23 straight November games
* OU is the only Big 12 program West Virginia has not defeated since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 in 2012
* Oklahoma is 4-0 in games played at West Virginia and has averaged 53 points and 581.3 yards per game in those contests
* In the five games since (and including) the Texas win, Oklahoma is averaging 50.2 points per game – second among all Power 5 programs
* The Sooners have held their last two opponents, Kansas and Oklahoma State, to a combined 22 points
* The OU defense has held five of its eight opponents this year to 95 or fewer yards rushing and limited Texas to just 89 yards during regulation
I could keep going, but is it really necessary?
Neal Brown understands the tremendous challenge confronting his young and improving Mountaineer football team on Saturday night – Brown’s first-ever foray into nighttime football in Morgantown, West Virginia.
“The challenge is they have great players across the board,” he said earlier this week. “They are extremely long up front and our D-line has had difficulties going up against longer offensive linemen.”
Brown rattled off more superlatives Tuesday afternoon, beginning with Rattler, whom OU fans hope can continue the great tradition of quarterback play under Riley that began with Baker Mayfield and continued with Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts.
"You can see his improvement from the second half of the Texas game on,” Brown said. “He has as good of arm talent as anybody in the country, and he can make all of the throws.”
Brown called Mims the “best contested-catcher” in the Big 12 right now. Don’t be deceived by his 5-foot-11, 177-pound frame because he can go up and get 50-50 balls as good as receivers 5 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than him.
“I think I read where he’s the all-time leading receiver in the state of Texas … and they play pretty good football there,” Brown said.
Yes they do, coach.
Brown even spent time complimenting Drake Stoops’ blocking at slot receiver. He said many of Oklahoma’s big plays in its running and screen game can be attributed to Stoops’ ability to get in the way of defenders on the perimeter.
Defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley equated Stoops’ blocking to adding an extra gap to account for in the Sooner run game.
“He’s a slot receiver who blocks like a tight end,” Lesley said.
It’s a football team certainly operating at full power right now with regular season games remaining against 5-3 West Virginia and 1-5 Baylor.
OU is eyeing wins in both, another victory in the Big 12 championship game in Arlington, Texas, on Dec. 19 and then a bid to either the Chick-fil-A Peach, Cotton or Fiesta Bowls.
That is certainly the expectation in the Sooner State.
But Oklahoma does have early-season losses this year to middle-of-the-pack Kansas State and league-leader Iowa State, which the Sooners are currently chasing.
Oklahoma struck quickly in both games and had significant early leads, which requires the cap to once again come off the trusty highlighter.
The Sooners are outscoring their opponents 124-17 in the first quarter of their games this season. OU had Kansas State down 7-0 after the first quarter and 21-7 at halftime.
A week later, Oklahoma jumped on Iowa State 17-6 early in the second quarter. In both instances, OU struck with its tremendous speed and athleticism.
“The speed of the game was really fast and a lot of credit to Oklahoma because of the talent they have and some of the speed they were playing with early,” Iowa State coach Matt Campbell said in his postgame remarks following his team’s 37-30 come-from-behind victory.
OU swarmed Kansas State early and had the Wildcats down 21-7 at halftime, requiring usually reserved coach Chris Klieman to light into his players at halftime. He asked them if they thought they deserved to be on the same field as the Sooners. He also told them to take it one play at a time and not worry about what happened beforehand.
“If we do that, and get this game into the fourth quarter, I like our chances,” he told them.
What both winning teams did was brace for Oklahoma’s initial surge and then hang around and keep fighting until the fourth quarter. K-State had some success with its downfield passing game and scored four straight times in the second half, including Blake Lynch’s 50-yarder with 4:32 to go to win the game.
“We were answering their quick drives with big plays, and that gave us some life,” Klieman explained. “If we could ever get it down to one score and get a stop, we felt like we had a chance.”
Iowa State took its first lead late in the third quarter and eventually pulled away with a 14-point fourth quarter. Once again, explosive plays played a role in the comeback.
“I thought we kind of got our cleats in the ground after that first quarter and a half,” Campbell said.
That’s likely the pattern Saturday’s game must follow for a similar outcome. However, Oklahoma also wasn’t playing with a full deck of cards in those two early season defeats as Stevenson and Perkins were serving suspensions.
West Virginia also appears to be hitting its stride after perhaps its most complete performance two weeks ago against TCU.
The Mountaineers have had two weeks to rest and recover from a brutal five-week stretch of games.
“We are definitely more rested and healthier than we were going into that TCU game,” Brown noted. “We were a tired group. Now we played hard and it didn’t show, but we had to adjust some things as we went through that week. Right now, I think we’re in a good mental framework. The guys feel better and we’ve got to have productive days the rest of the week.”
If West Virginia can remain within rage of the favored Sooners going into the fourth quarter, perhaps playing under the lights at Milan Puskar Stadium with a vocal and supportive crowd can make a difference.
Brown certainly hopes so.
“It’s a Saturday night game here at Mountaineer Field, and it’s the first one I’ve had the privilege of coaching,” he said. “We haven’t had a night game, period, in two years so I know our guys are excited about that.
“And I hope our fans are excited, too,” he added. “Whatever number we can get in here, I hope they show up and create an atmosphere. I thought that really stood out to me as I watched the game at Oklahoma last Saturday night.”
That, among many other things.
ABC has designated a 7:30 p.m. kickoff for the game with Joe Tessitore, Greg McElroy and Holly Rowe handling the call. Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage begins at 4:30 p.m. with the GoMart Mountaineer Tailgate Show leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets can still be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com. A reduced 25% capacity for this season means approximately 15,000 tickets are available for the game.
Oklahoma leads the all-time series 10-2.
It’s a Saturday night game here at Mountaineer Field, and it’s the first one I’ve had the privilege of coaching. We haven’t had a night game, period, in two years so I know our guys are excited about that.-- West Virginia coach Neal Brown
