The Oklahoma Sooners have to regroup from their 17-10 loss to the Michigan Wolverines. After hosting New Mexico, a team they can't look past, this weekend, the Sooners will go back on the road to face the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens. Then they'll have a bye before heading to Dallas for the Red River Shootout against the No. 1 team in the nation, the Texas Longhorns.
There's a lot of football to be played, but if the Oklahoma Sooners want to make the College Football Playoff, they have to find more success on offense than they did against Michigan on Saturday. After the rough performance in Ann Arbor, here's a look at this week's Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
1. The Good - Defense Gave Oklahoma a Chance
17 points should be more than enough to win a football game. Especially at a place where
offense has been a staple throughout the history of its program.
That just hasn't been the case the last three seasons, but thankfully, Brent Venables has built a defense that can keep Oklahoma in games when the offense is struggling. And that's what it did on Saturday against Michigan. Gave the offense a chance.
Sure, you'd like to keep those 10 points off the board in the first half. Oklahoma had a hard time bottling up Bryce Underwood. But even then, 10 points shouldn't lose you a game.
The defense fought back from a rough first half and may have shut Michigan out in the second if not for John Mateer's interception deep in their own end of the field.
Still, after Michigan went up seven, the Oklahoma defense gave offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and Mateer the ball back twice and they couldn't do anything with it.
Defense did its job.
2. The Bad - Neglecting the Running Back Room
The running back room had 13 carries. John Mateer had 13 carries and 33 pass attempts. Isaiah Sategna had as many carries as Xavier Robinson and more than Tory Blaylock. Yes, Blaylock was coming back from injury, but they felt he was healthy enough to be a lead blocker on a sweep, so he was certainly healthy enough to get the ball.
Too often in his tenure at Oklahoma has Arbuckle neglected giving the ball to the running back room. Sure, the run game hasn't been great, but it's also difficult to get better or get into the flow of the game if you're only getting one carry per drive, which was the case for Oklahoma's leading rusher Lloyd Avant on several of Oklahoma's drives.
The Sooners spent the offseason talking about the importance of establishing the running game. After an eight-yard carry from Avant on the first play of the day, it looked like that might happen in the Big House. But Avant didn't receive another carry on that drive. Then on the second drive of the day, Avant went for six yards. You'd think that would encourage Arbuckle to keep feeding his running back. But no, Arbuckle didn't give Avant another carry until the third drive.
If Oklahoma really wants to be a running football team and not simply pay it lipservice, then Arbuckle has to commit to Mateer just turning around and handing the ball off to his backs. It's a great way to take pressure off of his quarterback and it's a great way to get the offensive line going as well.
3. The Ugly - Mateer beyond 10 yards
John Mateer completed just 25% of his throws on attempts of 10 yards or more. He was 2-for-7 on throws of 10-19 yards and 1-for-5 on throws of more than 20 yards downfield. Mateer's 52% completion percentage was buoyed by going 5 of 6 behind the line of scrimmage. Take those throws out and Mateer's completion percentage drops to 44%.
That's not going to work.
The quarterback has to be more efficient with the ball. Some of it was a technical issue. His feet weren't always right when he threw, and that affected his accuracy.
There were some opportunities to win down the field that Mateer was either off-target on or simply didn't pull the trigger on. When it's there, he has to be willing to throw the ball and he has to be more consistent with his mechanics.
Simply put, Mateer has to be better going down the field if Oklahoma wants to make the playoff.
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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from Oklahoma's 17-10 loss to Michigan
