Postgame Thoughts: Oklahoma 23, Alabama 21
The Oklahoma Sooners over the weekend delivered the most important win in the two seasons since they joined the SEC, taking to the road to upset the Alabama Crimson Tide, 23-21. The victory added the most impressive accomplishment yet in a body of work that could put the Sooners in the College Football Playoff in a few weeks.
Ironically, OU played against Bama like the kind of team that has typically given it fits in the past – an opportunistic squad featuring a rugged defense. As the Sooners struggled to get offensive traction versus a defense that is far from extraordinary, OU’s own defense took the ball away from the Tide three times. Tacking on a series of pivotal plays on special teams helped get the Sooners over the finish line.
Here are some scattered thoughts on what played out on Saturday in Tuscaloosa, based on a live viewing of the televised broadcast.
*You don’t have to look too deeply into the box score to understand why OU won this game. When teams roll up a turnover margin of plus three – and take one of those turnovers to the house in the process – they usually win.
I’ll go ahead and take a bit of a victory lap on this one. I wrote a couple times leading up to this matchup about the importance of turnovers in swinging the fates of football teams. Prior to its previous game against Tennessee, the Sooners had landed on the wrong end of turnover variance for the season. Meanwhile, Bama was riding high in part due to turnover luck that appeared destined to swing back against them.
In the last two games, OU has taken the ball away from the Volunteers and Crimson Tide a combined six times. The Sooners gave the ball away on their own twice against UT and zero times on Saturday. With luck moving in OU’s direction in those two games, the Sooners have survived inconsistent showings by their offense to pull off high-profile wins. Considering OU dropped a game this season in which it lost three turnovers and allowed a touchdown on a punt return, we can probably call the luck factor a wash this year.
*If there’s a better example of a team winning a game with defense and special teams, I’d love to see it. OU returned an interception for a touchdown, and two of its fumble recoveries occurred in prime territory to get the Sooners points. On top of that, the Sooners’ first score of the game came after a punt return set them up deep in Bama territory in the first quarter.
In fact, the listlessness of the OU offense makes it hard to say the team even played well as a whole.
*Another week, another shook quarterback.
OU head coach and defensive coordinator Brent Venables cooked up a fantastic game plan for the second game in a row. The Sooners harassed Tennessee QB Joey Aguilar two weeks ago into back-breaking mistakes en route to a minor upset. Ty Simpson appeared to hold up better against OU’s relentless D, but the Sooners rattled him enough to make the Bama QB come up short late in the game.
OU sacked Simpson four times in the contest. None proved more important than linebacker Kip Lewis dropping Bama’s field general for an 11-yard loss on the Tide’s final possession. In addition to the sacks, Simpson misfired often enough to prevent his team from ever sticking the dagger in OU in the second half.
Much like Aguilar, Simpson piled up plenty of yards through the air versus the OU defense. And once again, it took a lot of passes for him to do it, and it didn’t produce many points.
*Tate Sandell has me rethinking my theory about the unintended consequences of having a good kicker.
*I don’t feel like I have enough to go on to say if OU QB John Mateer contributed to the offense’s inefficiency. Clearly, he had some role in it, but how much?
It’s frankly stunning that this team has won so many games with no semblance of a downfield passing attack.