Week 2 OU-SMU preview
Hoover, Chapman and Sweet answer two burning questions ahead of the Sooners' game Saturday against the Mustangs.
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00:00 What's up everybody? Fast week, wasn't it? Yeah, Oklahoma Game Day is almost here
00:05 once again and All Sooners has got you covered for every angle of this week's
00:09 game with SMU. I'm John Hoover, publisher at All Sooners, and we're gonna bring in
00:14 Ryan Chapman and Randall Sweet to help me break this thing down one more time
00:19 this week. It's OU-SMU. It's Saturday at 5 p.m. The game is on ESPN+ so you
00:25 better have your usernames and your passwords handy and you better have your
00:28 apps updated. The Sooners housed Arkansas State last week in the opener. You might
00:35 even say they road housed them. They just beat them senseless in every way, shape,
00:39 and form. 73-0 was the final score. OU's biggest win in a season opener
00:45 since 1917. What? Yeah, that's how good Oklahoma was last week. Dylan Gabriel and
00:52 Jackson Arnold were literally unstoppable at the quarterback position.
00:55 The Sooner defense pitched its first shutout against an FBS opponent in eight
01:00 years. This week, SMU comes to Norman. Game opened as a 18-point spread. It's Friday
01:06 today so the line has dropped to as low as 15 and a half. So guys, I'll ask you, as
01:12 easy and as effortless as Oklahoma made that thing look, what causes you more
01:17 concern about last week's win? Was it the lack of pressure in the backfield by the
01:21 defense where they had one sack, two quarterback hurries, six tackles for loss,
01:26 or was it the 3.85 yards per carry by the running backs on offense? This may be a
01:34 cop-out but I'm gonna go with the offensive line, the yards per carry, and
01:38 I'm gonna rope the running backs into that as well. Brent Levels talked about
01:41 it. Arkansas State passing quickly and Max
01:44 Pertek. Oklahoma didn't really even try to rush the passer so I almost gave them
01:48 an incomplete last week for the pass rush, whereas you flip that over, we heard
01:52 about this offensive line, offensive line, offensive line, and they were great in
01:55 pass protection, they were great in short yardage, but they didn't snap off a bunch
02:00 of those big explosive rushes on the ground or average close to seven yards
02:05 per carry like Tyler Guyton wanted them to head into that Arkansas State game. I
02:08 think that three new starters coming on in, McCain Mattari moving from the left
02:13 guard to right guard, that's a big area of improvement and the running backs, if
02:17 they can get into some kind of rhythm and maybe just trust the play as opposed
02:20 to trying to make these explosive, I think that could resolve itself, but
02:24 purely based off what you saw against Arkansas State, they tried to run the
02:27 football, they got a ton of yards on the ground, they just didn't average a huge
02:31 yards per carry and that Arkansas State front was overmatched and they should
02:34 have averaged more. I think the bigger cost for concern is in that low yards
02:40 per carry number that you mentioned. I mean we didn't really see any of the OU
02:43 running backs break off any explosive runs. They ran really, really tough and
02:47 really hard against Arkansas State, which did the job and did what they needed to
02:51 do, especially with the way the offensive line was blocking in that game, but you
02:56 know against better opponents like SMU, like some of the teams they'll face down
03:00 the road, you're gonna need your running backs to break off some of those
03:02 explosive runs. Against Arkansas State, they took what the
03:05 offensive line gave them, they got the yards that they should have gotten, not
03:08 really anything more, but you know a lot of the great OU offenses of the
03:13 past forever have had explosive running backs who can break big
03:19 plays. Not to say that these guys can't, but I think that that's the bigger
03:22 cost for concern. I think we need to see that, especially after that defensive
03:25 line. Even though they didn't get more than one sack, they still got a lot of
03:29 quarterback pressures, they still hit the quarterback a few times and
03:32 Arkansas State obviously did not have success passing the ball.
03:36 I'm more inclined to keep an eye on that running game. I'm telling you,
03:40 in no world does Jeff Lebbe want his running backs to average less than four
03:45 yards a carry. Are you kidding me? And against a team like Arkansas State, I
03:48 would think that he would want that number up around six and a half or even
03:51 seven yards per carry. Okay, let's switch it up here. Dylan Gabriel, I mentioned
03:55 him at the top, he was almost perfect last week, just three incompletions, two
03:58 of those hit the receivers right in the hands. He was 19 of 22, more than 300
04:03 yards, three touchdowns in one half of football. The question is this, did
04:09 we see the new DG out there against Arkansas State? Can he even begin to
04:13 keep up that torrid pace from last week? Or do we start to see his play begin
04:19 to level off this week against SMU? I'll tell you what, I'm willing to say
04:22 that what we saw last week was unequivocally a new and improved Dylan
04:26 Gabriel. I asked him that question last week, did you feel better? And he said,
04:30 yeah, I felt more confident, more comfortable as you would in year two in
04:33 that offense under Jeff Lebbe at Oklahoma. But guys, as optimistic as I
04:38 may be, I'm not sure he can keep up that kind of success rate for very long.
04:43 What say you? Yeah, I think that Dylan Gabriel can keep this up, maybe not
04:47 three incompletions, keep that up. But when you look at what he did, he did two
04:51 things really, really well against Arkansas State that we didn't see a ton
04:55 of last year. The first one was throwing not just between the numbers, but
04:59 between the hashes. Dylan Gabriel did a good job of, he was unafraid to use the
05:03 middle of the field, anything like that. And at times last year, I think Oklahoma
05:07 struggled with that aspect of the passing game. It wasn't reliant on just
05:10 deep balls or sideline throws. Dylan Gabriel was really, really comfortable
05:15 and confident making those reads. He also did something else. He wasn't
05:18 holding on to the football. There was no pass rush coming at him, really good job
05:22 offensive line, but he was happy to know, hey, I just need to check this down and
05:26 take the five yards. I need to check this down, take eight yards, move the
05:29 chains, things like that. Being that efficient, using both your check downs
05:33 in the flats and going over the middle of the field, pair that in with Andrew
05:36 Anthony being able to stretch the field. Jalil Farouk, he'll be a guy that can
05:40 stretch the field as he's a bigger part of the game plan. I do believe that
05:44 Dylan Gabriel, with that push of competition, Jackson behind him, I think
05:47 we're seeing a different guy, a more confident guy. And I think that will
05:51 result in Dylan Gabriel continuing to look this efficient through at least OU
05:55 Texas. I think Dylan Gabriel can absolutely sustain a high level of
05:59 success. I think maybe not the exact stat line that we saw against Arkansas
06:03 State. I mean, obviously, if he only threw three incompletions every game,
06:07 that would be pretty crazy. But I think that relative to the competition, I
06:11 think he can achieve high level success for the Sooners this season. I think
06:16 that one big thing for him is being confident. And I think that right now he
06:21 is playing with a lot of confidence. I think that if OU can keep that
06:24 confidence in him, then I think that he's going to be able to replicate,
06:29 maybe not the exact stat line, but again, statistical success. And I think
06:34 that if OU can script some good, easy completions, easy yards for him early
06:39 in the game, then I think that would go a long way to help him out. Obviously,
06:43 as the year progresses with this really new receiver core, he's going to get
06:48 more accustomed to playing with them, and that's going to do nothing but help
06:50 him out more too. And if Andrew Anthony can continue to get ingrained in this
06:54 offense, he looked really good in week one, then that's going to be a huge
06:57 help for Gabriel. I think that he could definitely have a huge year for the
07:01 Sooners.
07:02 All right. Nice work, fellas. Appreciate it. Listen, folks, don't
07:05 forget to keep it here at All Sooners for the rest of the weekend, really,
07:09 as we bring you our preview coverage of OU SMU and throughout the day on
07:14 Saturday. Once again, All Sooners is where you're going to find wall-to-wall
07:18 coverage of the game. We got the pregame, we got the in-game live blog,
07:21 we got the postgame interviews from players and coaches, we got our reaction
07:25 to what we saw on the field. Plus, don't forget the All Sooners podcast,
07:29 certified fresh from the press box, so you get all the latest. Plus, there's
07:33 so much more we do on Saturdays. Just keep it right here at AllSooners.com.
07:37 For Ryan Chapman, for Randall Sweet, I'm John Hoover. See you guys.