Postgame Thoughts: Texas 23, Oklahoma 6
The Texas Longhorns beat the Oklahoma Sooners at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday, 23-6. It wasn’t fun.
Here are some initial reactions from OU’s first loss of the season, based on one viewing of the live broadcast.
*From a wide-angle perspective, this result doesn’t require much analysis: Football teams are going to lose when they are -3 on turnover margin and give up a touchdown on a punt return.
Of course, all three of OU’s giveaways came from interceptions, and not all interceptions are created equal. Which brings us to my next point…
*The status of Sooners quarterback John Mateer seemed to take up most of the oxygen surrounding this matchup all the way up until kickoff. A Heisman Trophy candidate gutting through recovery from surgery to take the field for his team in a huge rivalry game? That’s cinema.
However, the reality was that OU needed Mateer to do more than just play in the game – the Sooners needed him to play better than he played in his first four starts.
Watching Mateer run the show this year for OU has made for a welcome change from last year’s disastrous situation behind center. But much like beer, Mateer has been the cause of and solution to some of the Sooners’ problems on offense. His flair for the dramatic had overshadowed a lot of forced throws, poor decisions and missed reads prior to Saturday.
The Texas defense was going to make Mateer pay for his recklessness if he didn’t clean things up before the game. Assuming Mateer and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle agreed with that assessment, what was the likelihood of doing that at the same time the QB was also rehabbing from surgery on his throwing hand.
The first two interceptions Mateer threw, at minimum, resulted from physical impairment, reckless decisions or both. Credit to Mateer and the coaching staff for shooting their shot in hopes of beating OU’s biggest rival, but there’s no denying his unforced errors reduced OU’s hopes of winning.
*I have no idea if the gamesmanship from head coach Brent Venables distracted his team. Personally, it contributed to the uneasy feeling I had last week that people, including the team and coaches, assumed simply getting Mateer back in the lineup would be enough to power the Sooners to victory.
*This year’s edition of the Red River Shootout followed a familiar pattern from the last four years. OU’s defense held up well to start the game. Eventually, the offense’s inability to score gave UT’s offense time to chip away and find something that worked against a unit that was wearing down as the game went on.
In other words, complementary football, this was not.
*The fire drill at the end of the first half is the kind of thing that makes it hard to defend Venables as game-day coach. It didn’t matter in the long run that OU was denied an opportunity to extend its lead with a field goal, but that doesn’t absolve Venables and his staff of blame.
*Clearly, the running game is a problem. Multiple factors are contributing to the lack of punch, but the most frustrating is the absence of an effective blocker at tight end. It’s not a new thing.
*I’ll try to follow up with more later this week. I don’t know how much of what the Longhorns did in this game will translate to other matchups the rest of the season, but the offense needs to find some identity to add to or augment Mateer’s one-man show.