Miscues galore, OU stunned
First-year Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables had been preaching about it ever since he took the job in December.
In the first nine months, not a whole heck of a lot didn’t go the way OU or Venables wanted it to play out, on and off the field.
But it wasn’t always going to be like that. Now it’s definitely not like that as the Sooners will have to pick themselves off the mat following a shocking 41-34 loss to visiting Kansas State on Saturday night.
It’s the first loss of the season and the first one for Venables as a head coach.
“We're down in the mud right now. There ain't no doubt about it,” Venables said. “We're going to take this one on the chin and try to learn and grow from it.”
The honeymoon period is over, now what? That will be answered in the weeks going down the road after everything that felt so right in the 3-0 start fell apart against the Wildcats.
Especially defensively.
KSU had very little offensive success in its initial three games and put up 509 total yards of offense. Quarterback Adrian Martinez, who had been incredibly underwhelming, had a career outing with 382 yards of total offense (234 passing, 148 rushing) and five total touchdowns.
The discipline, the strain that had been a staple of OU’s 3-0 start, for whatever reason, forgot to make the trip back home after last week’s dominant outing at Nebraska.
The Sooners had 11 penalties for 87 yards, and they were costly. Whether it was defensively to give automatic first downs, or pre-snap infractions on offense to stall potential scoring drives.
For a coach who says that everything matters, the message hit home in a negative way for the Sooners on Saturday.
“We're not going to be defined by this loss moving forward,” Venables said. “We will, however, be defined by how we win moving forward. I still believe with everything I've got in this team and what's still sitting in front of us.”
Venables has been quick to say they have to strip it all down Sunday and get to work on the next week. Heading to undefeated TCU will be no easy task as the first real taste of adversity has hit the Venables era in Norman.
Redemption for Martinez
Despite OU giving up more than 400 yards and 34 points, the Sooners defense was still in a position to make something happen in the final two minutes.
Until Martinez did it one more time.
On a third-and-16 from the KSU 41 yard line, Martinez worked his way out of the pocket and down the sidelines for a 55-yard run. Essentially, sealing the game.
He would score two plays later to give the Wildcats a 41-27 advantage and take a bow in the end zone.
“At the end of the game there, third-and-16, when we've got to make a play and get off the field, we have a bust,” Venable said. “We had a designed spy. Obviously, it ended up being a poor call and a bust, and it broke our back at the most critical time.”
Martinez gave an amazing effort vs. OU last year when he was at Nebraska. Somehow, he obviously topped that with a performance for the ages.
“He had great pocket awareness,” said linebacker David Ugwoegbu, who led the team with 15 tackles. “He had great vision, and in those situations sometimes you see guys force throws or throw it out of bounds, but he did a great job of keeping the ball on the ground and getting what we were giving him. That was sometimes first downs, that was sometimes 30- or 40-yard runs.”
OU had zero sacks and just four tackles for loss.
Gabriel’s uneven night
Look, the stats are going to say quarterback Dillon Gabriel had a banner evening. He threw for 330 yards and four touchdowns, completing 66 percent of his passes and still hasn’t turned the ball over this season.
But he knows.
“It starts with me. I touch the ball every play,” Gabriel said. “I take that as a huge responsibility on my end. Just got to be better.
“The mental errors and the pre-snap penalties. Getting behind the chains. Completing some balls and throws I want back. There’s a bunch. Gotta correct it, gotta be better, gotta make the necessary changes so we can be better.”
It wasn’t so much that Gabriel was bad as it was his inability to make the key throw at the key time. He only had 13 incompletions, but they were some huge ones on third and fourth downs. One, a clear miss to Drake Stoops that would have been a walk-in touchdown.
“Fourth down, being a little more accurate on that. Felt like we were really close on a third down to Marv. A lot of third downs, really close to completing it but a little high here, outside there. Just wanted to put it where I want to put it. At the end of the day, I didn’t.”
Working from a hole
If there’s one thing OU didn’t learn from last week was about starting fast. OU recovered against the Huskers, but a 14-0 deficit before you could even blink against KSU was a recipe for disaster.
“You got punched in the face and you've just got to respond. We came out fighting and we were scrappy,” linebacker Danny Stutsman. “They were scrappy and they just got us today.”
The Wildcats, fresh off of scoring 10 points in the upset loss at home to Tulane the previous week, had 14 points with 5:37 left in the first quarter.
It forced OU to have to play almost a perfect game from that point on.
“That’s not a place you want to put yourself. It causes for a lot of mistakes and a lot of itching to make a play at 14-0,” running back Eric Gray said. “But you can do it. We had a lot of penalties. Too many penalties.”
Gray imposes his will
There are going to be a lot of Sooners who won’t want to watch this tape again. Running back Eric Gray isn’t one of them, especially in the second half.
Gray rushed for 114 yards on 16 attempts and had a team-high seven receptions for 45 yards.
“I just wanted to try to make a play for the team,” Gray said. “I went into the locker room and said I need to run harder, be more physical, and that’s what I tried to do in the second half. Run harder and be more physical and just try to help my team win.”
Gray did the majority of his damage in the second half, rushing for 100 yards on 11 attempts with six catches for 34 yards.
He has now rushed for more than 100 yards in each of the last three games.