In a much-needed performance, the Oklahoma defense finally seemed to live up to the hype in 2021.\u00a0 While the defense stepped up, the offense sputtered most of the afternoon.\u00a0 In partial defense of the offense, the play calling was very confusing at times.\u00a0 The Sooners special teams are the ying and yang of this team.\u00a0 Michael Turk<\/a> is the best punter in America without a doubt, while Gabe Brkic<\/a> has gone from a Groza Award finalist to a kicker that has missed three straight and shanked a 25-yard attempt today.\u00a0 Possibly the most confusing area, the coaching staff did everything they could to give this game away.\u00a0 Undoubtedly, this will create some interesting conversations. With these points in mind, lets open the debate, as the Sooners survive a late rally by Iowa State.<\/p>\n This was clearly a tale of two halves.\u00a0 Neither team seemed to be able to get any rhythm going in the initial half.\u00a0 The first half was a story of an unusual, although correctly officiated, play to set up the Cyclones first and only touchdown of the half.\u00a0 The Sooners in like manner scored on a long 74-yard Quarterback run by Caleb Williams<\/a>.\u00a0 The only other points by the Sooners in the first half was a 42-yard fourth-down fumble return in the final 15 seconds by Jalen Redmond.<\/a> While the defenses dominated the first 30 minutes, the offenses seemed to get on track at times in the final half.<\/p>\n The Cyclones showed why they have been competitive against Oklahoma in recent years.\u00a0 Iowa State took advantage of a big height advantage over the Sooners secondary.\u00a0 As an illustration, Cyclone tight end and Mackey Award finalist Charlie Kolar<\/a> had a career-high in catches today.\u00a0 Coincidentally, Kolar a Norman, Oklahoma native garnered 12 receptions for 152 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n Sooner quarterback, Williams struggled through the air for the second week in a row.\u00a0 Williams was 8-18 and only 87 yards and an interception. On the positive side, Williams is a big play waiting to happen with his running ability and his ability to escape.\u00a0 At times, the offensive line did a much better job run blocking.\u00a0 This was evident by Kennedy Brooks<\/a> rushing 17 times for 115 yards.\u00a0 Clearly, the Sooners need to run the ball much more.<\/p>\n For the most part, the defense was the order of the day.\u00a0 While both defenses dominated for a majority of the game, at times they were aided by questionable play calling on both sides.<\/p>\n While being somewhat undermanned, the Cyclones battled the Sooners all day.\u00a0 Led by All-Conference players Mike Rose<\/a> and Will McDonald<\/a>, the Iowa State defense kept the game within reach for the offense.<\/p>\n For the most part, the Sooner defense turned in the best performance of the season.\u00a0 For the first time all year the defense played with passion and effort.\u00a0 All of this against a quality opponent.<\/p>\n The most puzzling part is, why did the coaching staff go away from pressure the last two drives of the game.\u00a0 Why change something that\u2019s working?<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the sideline advantage goes to the Sooners opponent.\u00a0 Numerous times Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell<\/strong> outwitted Lincoln Riley<\/strong> and his staff.<\/p>\n As an example, how could Oklahoma not be ready for the fake punt on fourth and seven in the second half given Campbell\u2019s history?\u00a0 Another case in point, Oklahoma was dominating the ground game in the third and early fourth quarters.\u00a0 Inexplicably, Riley changed his play-calling and went ultra-conservative.\u00a0 The final point from the sidelines, the defense had the Cyclones reeling by bringing pressure.\u00a0 When the game was on the line for whatever reason Oklahoma went away from pressure, which allowed Iowa State an opportunity to get back in the game.<\/p>\n In conclusion, Oklahoma made strides towards improvement today.\u00a0 The defense played with more heart, passion, and effort than they have all year.\u00a0 This was the defense everyone expected to see coming in to the 2021 season.<\/p>\n In contrast, the offense is struggling in certain areas.\u00a0 Williams needs to improve his downfield vision as well as accuracy.\u00a0 That being said, Williams provides the element of making a big play with his legs at any moment.<\/p>\n Riley and the coaching staff need to do a better job of play calling and putting players in the right positions to be successful.<\/p>\n All this needs to get accomplished in the next seven days.\u00a0 The Sooners toughest test of the season comes next Saturday night in Stillwater, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sooners Survive Late Cyclones Rally In a much-needed performance, the Oklahoma defense finally seemed to live up to the hype in 2021.\u00a0 While the defense stepped up, the offense sputtered most of the afternoon.\u00a0 In partial defense of the offense, the play calling was very confusing at times.\u00a0 The Sooners special teams are the ying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3198,"featured_media":41221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,35581],"tags":[4471,211,1746,37],"class_list":["post-41217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-big12","category-oklahoma-sooners","tag-alex-grinch","tag-iowa-state-cyclones","tag-lincoln-riley","tag-oklahoma-sooners"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78907,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41217\/revisions\/78907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Offense<\/h3>\n
Iowa State<\/h4>\n
Oklahoma<\/h4>\n
Defense<\/h3>\n
Iowa State<\/h4>\n
Oklahoma<\/h4>\n
Coaching<\/h4>\n
The Final Word<\/h3>\n