Oklahoma-West Virginia: Three Keys to the Game

Throw the Football, early and often ... Stack the box, stop the run ... Forget the past, look to the present.

Throw the Football

West Virginia’s defense has just three interceptions this season. Only three teams this season have fewer than WVU. Quarterbacks from Pittsburgh, Kansas, Texas, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU and Iowa State combined for 16 touchdown passes with only one interception against the Mountaineers this year.

That should embolden Dillon Gabriel, who threw three picks against Baylor his last time out and has thrown four in his last three games.

The WVU defense ranks 118th in the nation defending the pass, allowing 276 yards per game, and is 119th in pass efficiency defense and 120th in scoring.

And that should embolden Jeff Lebby to call a lot of pass plays.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the Sooner run game. Eric Gray has been a vision of elusiveness and strength. OU leads the Big 12 and ranks 12th nationally at 220 rushing yards per game. And grinding out first downs and winding the clock and keeping possession is absolutely a sound method of offense for this OU team.

But the WVU secondary is low-hanging fruit. Gabriel and Lebby should gather up all they can.

Stack the Box

Maybe it’s too late for the Oklahoma defense. Maybe changes — structurally or personnel-wise — just won’t help. Maybe, just like in 2018, the Sooners are what they are.

If true, that’s probably good news for West Virginia.

The Mountaineers are coming off a dreadful loss last week at Iowa State — which has a very good defense, actually — but that’s not where they’ll be drawing from when the Sooners come to Morgantown on Saturday.

Rather, WVU will try to recapture the offensive magic that pushed them to a 43-40 win over Baylor — the same Baylor team that just pushed OU around in Norman — back on Oct. 13.

Tony Mathis rushed for 163 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries, Kaden Prather had 109 yards and a touchdown on eight catches, and JT Daniels threw for 283 yards and a touchdown to help the Mountaineers to 500 yards total offense and 43 points — and an impressive win, their first in conference play.

The OU defense has been susceptible to those kinds of outbursts all season. If the Sooners can get a couple of stops — a field goal instead of a touchdown, a punt instead of a field goal — then maybe Oklahoma can come home with a win.

Maybe OU’s defense should stack the box and emphasize stopping the run. In its last three games since that big win over the defending Big 12 champs, WVU has averaged 101 rushing yards per game and 3.4 yards per carry.

That might be too much to ask, however, from an Oklahoma defense that has given up 275, 361, 296, 165 and 281 rushing yards and 6.2 yards per carry in five of its last six games.

Forget the Past

OU has won 30 of its last 35 games on the road and 24 of its last 27 in November.

For this team — Team 128, Brent Venables calls it — such streaks now can be placed onto the pedestal of history, like 47 straight or 13-0.

What this Oklahoma team knows is that they lost their last two road games last year at Baylor and at Oklahoma State, and that they’ve now lost three of their last four in what used to be called “Championship November.”

And as for OU’s 9-0 record against WVU in Big 12 play? Just as meaningless. Wyoming transfer C.J. Coldon said this week the only things he knew about West Virginia came from what programmers had loaded into a video game.

“I haven’t heard too much besides it’s in kind of the middle of nowhere,” Coldon said. ”When I think about West Virginia, I think about a lot of trees, a lot of woods and like, the raccoon hat. I think about that, but I’ve been one time and it was traveling through, just going to Florida to, I think, AAU nationals. I used to play basketball when I was little so that’s the only time I’ve been in West Virginia.”

These Sooners are now 5-4. They’ve been humbled — repeatedly. They need one more win over the next three Saturdays to even qualify for even the most mundane bowl game. If they get there, Venables will put to good use the 15 extra practices as he tries to continue developing the roster and staving off the transfer portal.

The Sooners might need to peak this week — an all-time high with their attention to detail, and certainly a season-best fanatical effort. 

Anything less and the only talk of bowl games will be from OU’s glorious past.