Oklahoma's meeting with Baylor today has plenty of huge implications on it's own but where do things stand heading into tonight's huge matchup in Waco? The SoonerScoop.com staff takes inventory of where the defense is, where it can go and what's the future hold for Jalen Hurts and the rest of the Sooners? This week's roundtable has your answers.

Eddie Radosevich: They can but I'm not convinced they will. Oklahoma fans knew this thing wasn't going to be fixed overnight but it's what they've seen the last two weeks that have them hesitant. Afraid to love -- or something like that. Maybe the Goo Goo Dolls will write a song about it. Returning to form and getting pressure on the quarterback would be a good place to start the turnaround. Since the Sooners nine sack explosion at the Cotton Bowl they've recorded just one in the last three games. Those havoc plays Alex Grinch lives for? Seemingly non-existent.A bad recipe for success in a league that was built on offense. Particularly if you are going to fail at forcing turnovers -- a component of the Sooners defense that was promised with the ushering in of Grinch as defensive coordinator. Maybe they're thinking too much. Maybe it's just been a bad two weeks. Overall the good has certainly outweighed the bad in Grinch Year 1. But it's already cost them dearly when it comes to a national title hunt and another misstep will cost them their season.

Bob Przybylo: Boy, count me in among those who believed 100 percent the defense would play at a much higher level against Iowa State. Kansas State was the aberration.

Maybe they wouldn’t play up to Texas level, but it would never sink below what happened in Manhattan. Except it did. And now truly go into Saturday’s game with zero expectations. There is just no way of knowing how this group is going to respond. Or how this coaching staff will respond now that it’s facing adversity.

The way to turn it around is exactly what has been preached. Do your job and your job only, and you’re going to be OK. Don’t press, don’t try to do too much, and it will all come together.But that’s easier said than done when teams have scored on two or three consecutive drives. Not saying the mindset is at a 2017 or 2018 stage yet, but it’s up to Kenneth Murray and Neville Gallimore to set the tone.

If you want an actual schematic way to improve, get bigger. It’s not a slap in the face to take out Brendan Radley-Hiles for Ryan Jones in certain situations. OU is back to reverting to nickel and dime packages and that still feels like it’s reacting to offense instead of attacking on defense.

Josh McCuistion: I don't have any doubts that this defense can turn it around, to me the entire question is will they. We've talked a lot about how shell-shocked this team looked the last few years; essentially the second one thing went wrong you could see the entire defense sag and start expecting everything to go wrong.

Until the Iowa State game I'd not seen that. People will talk about Kansas State but that's not what I saw in that game. That looked like a team that just wasn't at it's best and just saw some things it wasn't ready for.

To me, this is the test. Oklahoma's strength, their defensive line, goes head to head with Baylor's weakness - their offensive line and that's something Oklahoma needs to take advantage of.

I think, as Bob said, you've got to put more of Ryan Jones in there as Oklahoma is just getting worked over on the edge and consider the idea of more David Ugwoegbu as, to date, he has looked better setting the edge than the more explosive, but smaller, Nik Bonitto since the loss of Jon-Michael Terry.

ER: It's a curious case study. And you know what? I don't think Lincoln Riley would change a thing. Afterall, Oklahoma is 9-1. Afterall, Jalen Hurts is likely headed to New York City. Afterall, there's still a lot of football to be played. How not winning the Heisman Trophy is now seen as some kind of failed season is some kind of sick joke in a way. A product of Riley's own success. But how the hell did this become a reality? Did Riley's offense get so good that winning the Heisman Trophy became the standard? That's not fair to anyone.Perhaps Hurts greatest impact at Oklahoma will be on the future in the quarterback rooms. You would hope Hurts professionalism in the workplace would have rubbed off on the young signal callers in the Oklahoma quarterbacks room. More simply Oklahoma went from all-time great -- maybe best ever in Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray-- to really good at quarterback position. And that's okay. Expectations too high? Time will only tell. But it was worth the risk.

BP: It was worth it to bring Hurts to Norman because it seems obvious Austin Kendall wasn’t the answer, and Tanner Mordecai really would have had some hiccups that the Spencer Rattler crowd would have had a field day in calling for Mordecai’s head.Hurts has fared well, but he hasn’t made the leaps and bounds improvements that OU was going to need him. What’s funny/sad about that is with his skill set and with Lincoln Riley leading the charge, they can still put up about 50 points per game and more than 500 yards per outing.Could it be more? Could it be more diverse? Eh, probably. But this has turned into the definition of a stop-gap year that could still result in a fifth straight Big 12 championship.

JM: I don't know how anyone can deny that it's been for the better of the program that Jalen Hurts was brought in. He has given this team some veteran leadership that it sorely lacked after such a key senior class was sent to the NFL, and elsewhere, last year.

I mean are we arguing Kendall or Mordecai would have done the things that Hurts has so far this year? Of course not.And by the same token, we really want to argue that Spencer Rattler after a few weeks on campus was ready to run this offense?

Now, at the same time, is there a part of me that thinks this team is probably better to have gone through the growing pains with Rattler? Yeah, I can get there on that conversation.

But that's not going to happen so let's move forward with the topic at hand - yes Hurts has a lot of culpability for the offense's sputtering ways of the last few games.

ER: They will. Maybe that's more of an indictment on the rest of the conference rather than a tip of the cap to Oklahoma. The Sooners are still the best team in the league. That hasn't changed. Maybe we'll never know what actually happened in Manhattan. For three quarters last week you sat in Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and thought, 'maybe it was jut a blip in the radar'. Then the bottom fell out. Warning: It's not going to be a walk in the park. Trips to Waco and Stillwater will push this team. But at the end of the day Oklahoma is better. Believe it or not Oklahoma is still one of the better teams in the country. I'm not telling you to book trips to College Football Playoff destinations but I am telling you it's not as bad as you think. Smile a little bit. The end of the season is close. And you're going to miss it when it's gone.

BP: Oh man. Obvious question with incredibly tough answer. There’s so many ifs

involved here, and it all starts with the takeaways. That goes both ways.The head-scratching giveaways by Hurts combined with the zero turnovers created by the defense have made the last month a lot more intense than anybody expected.So short answer is if OU cannot win the turnover margin, then no, OU isn’t winning the final three games. Seems clear 9-3 is the basement, while 11-1and fighting for a playoff spot is the ceiling.There’s nothing to suggest OU can start getting takeaways, and there’s nothing to suggest the Sooners can take care of the ball at all times.So the answer is no… at least for this week.

JM: I know no one wants to believe it and I feel a little like Chip Diller screaming 'all is well!' in the street but I legitimately think this team isn't that far away from a strong performance over the last few weeks.

I thought against Kansas State they just weren't sharp but still nearly found a way to win that game with their C+ game. Iowa State they just couldn't quite put away and then, let's be real, just got tight and played like it.

But at the end of the day this is the best team in the Big 12 by some distance and whether the last few weeks of defense have been pretty or not, they've been better than the worst of the last decade. So yes, it's not perfect but the basement is a lot tougher to flood than it once was.

I think this team goes undefeated and it still won't shock me if this team ends up in the playoff - whether they deserve to be is another question entirely.