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Getting out of the block

You go back to the first game of the season for Oklahoma, and the reality was the Sooners were up 21-0 in their initial 15 offensive plays.

That hasn’t been the case the last three games as OU has trailed in the first half of all of them, down 3-0 vs. Kent State, 7-0 at Nebraska and 14-0 in the loss to Kansas State.

For whatever reason, the offense hasn’t been able to find its groove right from the start, but it’s something offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby knows he needs to address.

“I think there's just got to be a heightened sense of urgency with everybody involved, starting with me about starting faster,” said Lebby at his Monday press conference. “You know we've got to do a better job there. You find yourself in a third-and-6 or a third-and-7 situation first drive and don't convert. Third-and-6 on the second drive, don't convert.

“So we've got to start faster, that's the reality of it, and get going and play complementary football. And that'll be a stress for sure this week.”

It might be tough to simulate in a practice setting, but Lebby said there are things he can do to put Dillon Gabriel and the offense in a better spot to begin.

“I think it's heightened awareness because of talking about it – one,” Lebby said. “And two, me doing a better job of starting the game with a couple of things that are maybe a little more layups for our guys. And getting it going that way.”

Fixing the mess

The offense has to figure out how to start faster, but the defense? Man, it might just be better to simply flush what happened against the Wildcats.

Defensive coordinator Ted Roof won’t do that, hoping to use it as a teaching tool and motivation to help the guys improve the rest of the way.

After a fantastic opening three weeks, the physicality that had been prevalent this season was basically non-existent against KSU.

“Again, it’s something we focus on every week,” Roof said. “We fell short last week, but our approach each and every week is to be a physical football team, tackle well, limit yards after contact. We didn’t do that. We didn’t do very good job at the end of the night.

“Again, everything that went wrong is my fault. I’ve got to help everybody get it fixed. That’s what we’re going to do moving forward.”

Roof said the defense had a rough practice last Tuesday night, but everybody firmly believed they had moved on the rest of the week and were fully prepared heading into Saturday night.

Keep the unit together

No massive message from Lebby about the play of quarterback Dillon Gabriel and what Gabriel needs to do moving forward.

He completed 66 percent of his passes and threw for four touchdowns, but anybody watching knows there were some crucial misses.

“You step into that arena, you're going to want some things back,” Lebby said. “And again, I thought he played his butt off. He played incredibly tough. He led. He did a lot of things really, really well. But he's gonna want some of those back. He wants a couple of those back. And just like I said right after the game, I want a couple calls back, too.

“We want him to play perfect, but that’s not a reality with everything that we ask him to do. Just continue to get better and to create a sense of urgency with everybody in that locker room and with us as a unit offensively to make sure we’re playing cleaner and cleaning up the penalty part of it.”

Lebby said if OU had been cleaner in the penalty department, he thinks we might be looking at a much different story.

White doing a-OK

When the defense has a performance like that, you start looking at the numbers and the blame game. It’s never one player, everybody knows that. But you’re wondering what tweaks can be done to make sure KSU doesn’t happen again.

Doesn’t sound like Roof is looking for a change from DaShaun White. Helping stop the run and covering the pass, White was out there for all 85 defensive snaps Saturday.

“I’ve been real proud and pleased with DaShaun,” Roof said. “He made a couple plays on the deep ball the other night and did a good job finishing. His versatility has been a nice thing for us. Again, I’m proud and pleased with how he’s done. We can all be better. I’m disappointed, but at the same time, we’ve got to use that to motivate us and learn from it.”

David Ugwoegbu, Danny Stutsman and Billy Bowman also played all 85 snaps for OU.

Don’t hit the panic button

Two things you could tell Roof wanted to get across. One, use Saturday’s issues to help fix things for OU at TCU on Saturday. Two, you cannot overreact and go too far in the other direction.

As good as people felt about OU’s defense in the first three games, now it’s important to not throw in the towel or overcorrect because of one bad outing.

It’ll start in the film room and at practice and be a point of emphasis the rest of the way.

“At the same time, if we dwell on that and walk around — that doesn’t help us get it fixed,” Roof said. “We’ve certainly identified it, corrected it and now we’ve got to drill it and move forward with it, and thank goodness we get another opportunity to do that. It grinds at you, but we’ve got to use that to motivate us.”

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