Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

October 01, 2018 at 9:54 pm.

Big-play offense continues to fuel Sooners

Oklahoma’s offense continues to feed off of big plays.

In last week’s win over Baylor, six of Oklahoma’s touchdowns came on plays of 30 or more yards out, with three coming from at least 49 yards. None of Oklahoma’s 10 scoring drives in the game lasted longer than 2:57.

Heading into Saturday’s Red River Showdown game against Texas in Dallas, the Sooners have 14 plays of 40 or more yards — tops among Power Five schools and No. 2 overall in FBS.

Those plays have come courtesy of six different running backs to receivers.

“What can you do? You can’t double team us, we’re going to run it. You can’t stack the box, we’re going to throw it. It doesn’t matter what you do, we have a back door for it,” receiver CeeDee Lamb said.

Oklahoma co-offensive coordinator Cale Gundy said those explosive plays have masked some issues with the offense, though.

“We felt like we needed to have a little bit more consistency on first down and second down and not so much relying on the big plays to kind of get us out of those situations,” Gundy said. “But being able to have some of the players that we have offensively to create some big plays is obviously very nice.”

Oklahoma is seventh nationally in third-down offense.

That big-play potential, though, can sometimes make life a bit more difficult for the Sooners’ defense.

Over the last two games, the Sooners have had 23 drives, with only one during that span lasting longer than three minutes. Oklahoma’s 35 scoring drives through five games have averaged just less than 2:20 per drive.

“There’s sometimes that we score fast and, being in the press box, (defensive coordinator Mike Stoops) just kind of gives us that eye,” Gundy said. “It is challenging, obviously, for a defense to go back out there after you have some long drives, when the offense is out there quick, whether you score or whether you go three-and-out, you’ve got to get ready to go again.”

Though Oklahoma’s defensive numbers haven’t been great — the Sooners are just 91st nationally in total defense at 405.2 yards per game — it has held up well early in games for the most part.

The Sooners have allowed just 40 first-half points, the fewest for an OU defense for the first five games since 2013 and the defense has allowed scores on just 22 percent of opponents’ first-half possessions.

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