For the first time since 1999, Oklahoma football lost two games in a row with Saturday night’s 37-30 loss to Iowa State. With a current 0-2 record in conference play for the Sooners, many feel like their season has ended before it really had the chance to begin.
Following the loss against Kansas State, many fans seemed hopeful the Week 2 loss would light some fire under the team. However, Oklahoma came out in Ames, Iowa on Saturday looking almost less motivated than the week before.
Looking at this past weekend’s game, it seems both the defense and especially the Sooner offense come out far stronger in the first half than they did after halftime. In the first possession of the game, the Sooners scored a touchdown followed by a few more powerful drives to keep them ahead the entire first half.
After halftime, however, is a much different story, especially with Oklahoma’s defense. Game after game it seems that the D can’t get to the level its needs to be playing at. Alex Grinch, the Oklahoma defensive coordinator said himself the Sooner defense was “not an elite defense,” which is necessary to win football games. What Grinch never mentioned was how they were going to get to an ‘elite’ level defense causing many fans to wonder if that will even be obtainable at all.
On the offensive end, quarterback Spencer Rattler needs to find consistency in his game before the Sooner offense will get back to where it used to be. Obviously being a freshman, it will take some time for him to get a hang of the offense.
Not only looking at Oklahoma football but the Big 12, this year of college football has become the most unexpected one in a while to where I can’t even predict who will be playing in Jerry World come December.
Following the loss to Iowa State, the Sooners are now headed to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas next week to take on Texas in the Red River showdown. The Longhorns are also coming off of a loss against TCU. Both Texas and Oklahoma seem to struggle in an equal amount of areas on the field right now, making this weekend’s game incredibly unpredictable.