LAWRENCE, Kan. – A dreadful atmosphere Saturday morning was turning into something special by the afternoon, but Oklahoma was somehow able to avoid being on the wrong of history.

Like it was extremely close to becoming one of the worst losses in OU football in a long, long time before just enough things went right in a 35-23 win over the Jayhawks to stay undefeated and 8-0 for the first time since 2004.

Everything that felt so right about the Sooners defense in September has been flipped on its head as Alex Grinch’s group had zero answers for anything during the month of October.

Grinch sat in the postgame Zoom and the frustration seemingly only grew and grew with each question being answered.

“As I said, there's a theme forming over the last few weeks,” Grinch said. “An inconsistent unit. Who's fault is that? It's all of ours, obviously, specifically, me.”

You could point to any number of statistics to illustrate your point. KU held the ball for 35:30, and a whopping 22 of the 30 minutes in the first half.

The Jayhawks were 7 of 9 on third down conversions in the first half and finished the game 9 of 13 and converted their only fourth down attempt.

Or you could point to 412 yards of total offense allowed. To Kansas?

“I talked to the team before the game last night, and one thing that I said was tie your process to your passion,” captain Isaiah Thomas said. “Never tie your process to your opponent. And what I mean by that is tie your process to why you play this game and the reason you do it for. Don’t tie it to the opponent that you’re facing.

“Don’t have your process be better just because you’re facing Texas but if you’re facing Kansas you’re gonna relax or take it easy that week. That’s just one thing I preached on, and I feel like at times guys thought to themselves ‘It’s not a sold-out arena. It’s not the team that we usually face in primetime games.’ And that was a disappointing thing to see. It was bigger than what it ended up being, and I feel like guys weren’t ready for that.”

Everybody knows OU is battling injuries defensively, especially in the secondary. But everybody knows that is not an excuse at this point in the season.

The vaunted defensive line, at least coming in, has been neutralized in back-to-back weeks. If it wasn’t for a Nik Bonitto sack on the second-to-last play in the game, OU would have gone two consecutive games without a sack.

With the lack of a consistent pass rush, the inexperience in the secondary has reared its ugly head multiple times in multiple ways.

It can’t and won’t all be blamed on the defensive backs, though, said head coach Lincoln Riley.

“That secondary gets better when you start pressuring the quarterback,” he said. “That secondary gets better when you handle the zone run game with an athletic quarterback better than we did. The secondary gets better where you aren’t constantly having penalties that put them in plus situations.

“We know we’ve got to continue to get better there. We’re looking for that right lineup that we feel like is going to give us a spark.”

KU led 10-0 at half as OU was the blanked in the first 30 minutes for the first time since Riley has been with the program in any capacity.

OU managed to earn a takeaway with a forced fumble by Key Lawrence that was recovered by Justin Broiles in the fourth quarter.

However, the feeling isn’t about celebrating that one play. It’s more of a wondering why isn’t this, why hasn’t this been occurring more?

“That's just it,” Grinch said. “Why aren't we seeing that more? I think as opposed to saying, credit goes to us for making that comment, we constantly ... no one talks about it more. We've gotta do maybe less talking and more actual doing.

“Where are those snaps? Where are those gang tackles with guys stripping at the football? What are we doing wrong as a coaching staff to not convince guys of the impact of those plays? We keep seeing the impact once we do that, so why is that not happening more?”

Another week to figure out, but the time is ticking. Riley and Grinch know it. Still so much left on the table, but the answers need to be found and found quickly.