NORMAN – Oklahoma’s offense didn’t have much going for it Saturday.
The 15th-ranked Sooners (2-0) were able to achieve a 16-12 victory against the Houston Cougars (0-2) thanks mainly to their defense.
Seth Littrell The offense scored two goals, but only one of these goals was the result of a real attack on the goal hunt.
OU capitalized on a Houston error on the first punt of the game, giving the Sooners first-and-goal from the 10-yard line. Quarterback Jackson-Arnold hit Brendan Thompson for the first point of the game, then OU later completed an eight-play, 81-yard touchdown drive to take a 14-3 lead.
The 81-yard drive was by far Oklahoma’s longest, as the Sooners only managed 168 yards of offense the rest of the game.
“Obviously inconsistent. It shows,” Littrell said of the performance after the game. “To be a good offense, you have to be consistent. You know, with the little details that it takes to finish drives.”
In the season-opening win against Temple, OU converted just 1 of 12 of its third-down attempts.
Fans who were hoping for a significant improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 were disappointed when the Sooners finished with a miserable 4-of-14 third down record against Houston.
Arnold was unable to keep the offense on track at any point in the game, and Oklahoma faced third-and-9 attempts six or more times throughout the night.
“You just have to get behind the chains,” Arnold said. “Early downs, first downs, second downs, whether it’s a penalty or just a play that went wrong, you lose yards, you get behind the chains, it’s terrible.”
“… Third and longs are tough. It’s really tough to convert. You’d like to have a 35 percent conversion rate on third and 10 or better. … It’s really tough for any offense to go out and convert those. But sometimes we have to go out and make plays and convert when we get bad cards.”
Oklahoma’s struggling offensive line struggled against Temple, which in turn caused Littrell’s entire unit to struggle.
There wasn’t a single position that consistently failed on Saturday. Instead, widespread errors in thinking led to a shockingly poor performance from the entire offense.
“It’s a bit of everything,” Brent Venables said. “So we have to go back and reevaluate a lot of things, but there were some opportunities in the game that would have allowed us to get into a rhythm and we missed some of those opportunities, so we have to go back and look at that. We have to get a hell of a lot better and fast.”
Oklahoma’s running attack averaged 2.6 yards per carry, a week after UNLV nearly rushed for 200 yards against Houston.
The Sooners only managed two passes longer than 13.7 yards, which represents a major failure in overcoming the Cougar defense.
Arnold was knocked down for three sacks. He lost the ball for the first time in 2024 after failing to Deion Burks on a long ball, and the sophomore often looked like he was pushing to make a big play.
The path to better results is also not clear.
Oklahoma’s offensive line, a group that played without a center Branson Hickman and lost the right tackle Jake Taylor in the first half, is still struggling with bumps and bruises across the board.
The OU wide receivers are also exhausted, as the Sooners hope Nick Anderson can return to the field in the final non-conference exhibition game against Tulane before Tennessee comes to town.
Jovantae Barnes was Oklahoma’s leading runner and only managed 40 yards as none of the running backs could get into any rhythm.
Replacing five starters on the offensive line and breaking in a new quarterback and offensive captain has been an ongoing process from the start, but the Sooners are well behind even on the most conservative timetable.
And Oklahoma is quickly running out of time.
“We just weren’t consistent enough tonight,” Littrell said. “We need to get a lot better in all areas. I promise you that. I’m going to work hard to change that, but at the same time, it’s going to take everyone. Everyone needs to pull themselves together and look at themselves in the mirror. Coaches and players alike.”
“…We put our defense in some bad situations, which is unfortunate. We have to be a lot better.”
