Oklahoma Dominated the Stat Brent Venables Believes is the Most Important in Football

The Oklahoma defense forced six turnovers its season opener against Temple and lead the nation in turnover margin after Week 1.

Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables / Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

It just kept happening. 

Oklahoma forced six turnovers in its season-opening win against Temple on Friday night, which was also Zac Alley’s debut as the Sooners’ defensive coordinator. Obviously with such a jumpstart in the stat, OU leads the country with a 6-0 turnover margin after Week 1. Illinois is second after forcing four takeaways against Eastern Illinois. No other SEC team forced more than one turnover during the Week 1 slate. 

Turnovers most likely weren’t the difference in a win or loss against competition like Temple, but it certainly made the scoreboard look much worse as the Sooners converted those turnovers into 34 points Friday night. That’s much different than a theoretical 17-3 win without any takeaways for OU. 

“There’s lots of different ways to look at it,” said OU coach Brent Venables during his coaches show Monday evening. “No. 1, when we were undefeated last year, we led the nation in turnover margin. And then in our three losses we turned the ball over 12 times and lost the margin. The saying goes, ‘There’s not a more important stat in the game than forcing turnovers,’ and we got 34 points off of those six turnovers and had a real short field for our offense – played really complimentary football.”

The Sooners forced the first turnover of the game on Temple’s second possession when Ethan Downs knocked the ball out of the quarterback’s hands before Da’Jon Terry jumped on the ball to recover the fumble. Starting on Temple’s 43-yard line, OU was in the end zone five plays later. 

Then was the most spectacular defensive play of the night when Kendel Dolby batted a pass almost directly into Kani Walker’s grasp. OU gained only 1 yard the following possession but was still already close enough to put three points on the board. 

It was Temple’s following possession when OU already took the ball away again after Robert Spears-Jennings forced and recovered a fumble after a completed pass. Once again, the Sooners turned the takeaway into three points. 

Next, Gracen Halton forced a fumble that Billy Bowman Jr. recovered on Temple’s 6-yard line. The Sooners scored a touchdown two plays later. That also marked four turnovers in the first half for OU. 

After a clean third quarter, the Sooners notched a pair of takeaways in the fourth. First, Jaren Kanak didn’t need any help from the offense, scooping up a muffed punt and running it into the end zone. 

Lastly, on Temple’s ensuing drive, Jaydan Hardy picked off Forrest Brock. The Sooners didn’t start with tremendous field position because of it on their own 15, but still drove 85 yards and got into paydirt because of the takeaway. 

“Even regardless of who you’re playing, some people will say, ‘Oh, well, it was Temple,’” Venables said. “Well, man, everybody, there’s a lot of people playing worse than that – a lot of FCS teams in that first weekend – and you don’t see them getting six turnovers, so again, I’m not beating our chest, but at the same time, this is hard to do. And what I liked about it, it was more of our doing. We forced the turnovers. We hit people and jared the ball loose. And we had some nice plays to pick the ball.”