Red River Matchup: Oklahoma Must Find More Big Plays to Beat Texas

The Sooners' passing game has been limited all year, but it's possible that enough changes have occurred for OU to have success throwing against one of college football's best defenses.

Oklahoma wide receiver Brenen Thompson / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

Oklahoma’s offense probably needs two of three things to happen on Saturday if the Sooners are going to upset Texas.

One is obvious: don’t turn the football over. 

Another is just as big: control the line of scrimmage by running the ball. Anyone who follows college football knows the team that runs the ball better in the Cotton Bowl wins the game. That’s been the case in 22 of the last 24 years (in one of the other two, they tied in rushing yards).

But no one is counting on the Sooners to be able to grind out long, time-consuming drives against a Longhorn defense that ranks No. 3 nationally in fewest yards per game and No. 2 in the nation in fewest points per game.

Texas’ run defense allows just 3.2 yards per rush, which ranks 21st in the country. OU’s rushing offense averages just 3.7 yards per carry, which is 101st nationally.

Assuming the Sooners can’t consistently run the ball on Saturday, they’ll have to take the alternate route to victory.

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Michael Hawkins is going to have to challenge the Texas secondary with the deep ball.

That’ll be no easy task, either. Texas leads the nation in fewest yards per pass allowed at just 4.5. That’s otherworldly. Opponents are averaging just 121.6 passing yards per game. That ranks No. 2 among all FBS teams.

Oklahoma counters with a passing attack that ranks 118th in passing yards per game (169.2) and 120th in yards per pass (6.0).

That looks like an extremely favorable matchup for the No. 1-ranked Longhorns, who are now 15-point favorites according to some oddsmakers.

But maybe Hawkins’ deep ball to J.J. Hester to kickstart the comeback at Auburn was a sign that offensive coordinator Seth Littrell and his new QB have figured some things out.

“Feel like we’ve been waiting dog years,” Brent Venables said.

Indeed, that 60-yard bomb was the Sooners’ first deep completion of the year in 140 throws. The only one that looked even remotely similar was a 47-yard completion from Jackson Arnold to Jalil Farooq on an over route from the other side of the field on the second play of the season. But that ball only went about 35 yards downfield.

Where sometimes Arnold seemed hesitant to chuck it deep, Hawkins has shown a willingness to improvise a little more and even take risks. OU might need that mindset to beat the Horns.

“He’s got a lot of really good qualities that maybe sometimes a younger player doesn’t have,” Venables said. “But, hasn’t been there, done that, and so I’m not discounting that. And you know, at some point you can only do so much as a coach and he’s got to be willing to listen.” 

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Two other developments may work in Hawkins’ favor in Dallas.

First, Bill Bedenbaugh will finally have the same starting five on the offensive line for the second game in a row: Michael Tarquin, Jacob Sexton, Branson Hickman, Febechi Nwaiwu and Jake Taylor. That’s obviously huge from a protection standpoint.

“It definitely helps,” Venables said. “And we’ve got to be better there. We targeted (defenders) for the most part pretty dang good a week ago. Protection was pretty good against an aggressive, diverse front in what we saw (at Auburn).”

And second, Emmett Jones could get back the Sooners’ most dangerous offensive weapon this season as wideout Deion Burks, who missed the Auburn game, has been upgraded to questionable for Saturday, although Nic Anderson remains out.

“They’ve got big-play ability at the wide receiver spot,” said Texas coach Steve Sarkisian. “I think they’ve done a nice job of creating explosive plays and recruiting to explosive playmakers, whether it's Burks, Anderson, Brenen Thompson's created explosive plays. They've got speed, they've got length, they've got playmaking ability. 

“One of the keys to the drill is, how do we guard those people, stop the run and worry about a quarterback who can extend plays with his legs? And so there’s a lot of levels to this, but when you have threats on the perimeter, now you have to think about, ‘How are we going to guard them in a fashion to try to minimize those explosive plays that they're more than capable of making?’ ”

For Oklahoma’s passing game to hurt the Longhorns, the Sooners will simply have to do something they haven’t this year: they’re going to have to protect the quarterback, they’re going to have to get open deep, and they’re going to have to complete the throws.

OU ranks 96th nationally in pass efficiency with a paltry rating of 126.5. The NCAA’s pass efficiency formula places heavy value on deep throws, or at least yards per completion. And that’s why the Sooners have an historically low rating there: they rank 121st (out of 133) in the FBS in yards per completion at just 9.95. And that's after Hawkins' 60-yard bomb to Hester.

The program that has helped redefine excellence in efficiency rating over the years — with players like Jason White (152.70 career rating), Sam Bradford (175.62), Baker Mayfield (198.39), Kyler Murray (203.26), Jalen Hurts (191.20) and even Spencer Rattler (165.86) — has simply been terribly inefficient throwing the football.

OU’s current NCAA rating (126.5) would be the program’s fourth-lowest of the last 25 years. Sooner Nation would rather forget those other three: it was 117.34 in 2001, 109.82 in 2005, and 117.71 in 2014. Those Oklahoma offenses struggled all season, especially throwing the football.

The Sooners must now piece together an explosive passing game against a Texas secondary that includes three players who received preseason All-SEC accolades (senior Andrew Mukuba, senior Jahdae Barron and sophomore Malik Muhammad) and two others who are starting as juniors.

Although Superman has beaten the Longhorns in Dallas before, Venables insists his young QB doesn’t have to put on the cape for this game.

“He's gotta not try to win the game in the first drive of the game,” Venables said. “Play within the system, take care of the football. You do that, and you got good special teams, you got a good defense, and you can make some plays with the guys around you — you have a chance to win each and every week.”