The Oklahoma Sooners were once again poor on offense in Saturday night's home loss to the Kentucky Wildcats. OU fell by a final score of 21-13; once again, Oklahoma's offense held back
One of many curious decisions from offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle was his choice to stop running the football. The Sooners handed the ball off to a running back only once in the fourth quarter, despite never trailing by more than one possession. Oklahoma registered two more rushing attempts in the final frame, but both came from quarterback John Mateer.
In a close game, OU's three running backs received just 18 carries, compared to 13 for Mateer. Lloyd Avant gained 31 yards on eight carries, Tory Blaylock managed 23 yards on seven carries, and Jonathan Hatton
Jr. carried the ball three times for 13 yards. Including sacks, Mateer's 13 carries totaled nine yards.
In comparison, the Sooners threw it 41 times and threw four interceptions.
Through the first three quarters of the game, the Oklahoma Sooners ran the ball 25 times, and Mateer threw it 29 times. That's pretty good balance, especially with the short passing game working.
In the fourth quarter, OU gave up three sacks and ran the ball 12 times for 3 yards. That's a 4:1 run-to-pass ratio in the deciding quarter of a one-score conference game. After an offseason focused on running the football, Oklahoma's rushing attack isn't getting enough opportunities to win.
After the game, Arbuckle was asked why he stopped handing the ball off to his running backs. All three running had nice moments where they were able to fall forward and help the offense at least avoid negative yardage.
"Yeah, I think there's a lot that goes into it," Arbuckle said. "Really need to go back and watch the film and put myself in those situations again. If it was the last running back handoff (with 12 minutes left in the game), it wasn't the last run of the game. We were able to do some effective things in that way. Got to look at all of it. Got to look at all of it. What what could we have done better? What could I have done better? What could us as coaches have done better? What could the players have done better? We have to look at all of it, and ultimately, we have to get rolling on Monday, because we got to go play football next Saturday."
That's not exactly an inspiring answer from OU's play-caller, who was also having to work around a banged-up offensive line. With third and fourth-stringers on the field up front by the end of the night, there wasn't much the Sooners were going to be able to do to have success. The offensive line has been a major negative for years in Norman, and it's arguably Oklahoma's biggest problem right now.
Still, Arbuckle has to be much better. He has to at least try to run the ball, but he seems to abandon it and put the game on Mateer's shoulders when the game is close late, and the pressure is on. Through three quarters, the Sooners had better balance and
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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Ben Arbuckle explains why OU quit running the ball against Kentucky
