Tramel's ScissorTales: Lincoln Riley's offense was in a three-year decline
Berry Tramel
Oklahoman
Lincoln Riley’s last OU offense took the field eight times in the
second half of Bedlam on Saturday night and did not score.
It happens. It happens to a lot of teams that play OSU’s defense this year.
But the shutdown of the Sooner offense paved the way for a 37-33 Cowboy victory, and about 15 hours later we learned Riley was gone.
Headed to Southern Cal.
Riley’s OU offensive legacy is set in stone. The Riley offense was full of thrills and awards and points galore. Don’t ever forget that. I assume Riley can do something similar with the Trojans.
But since it’s dump-on-Riley week, I’ll play along. Riley’s offense was in decline.
The final numbers are in on my weekly Big 12 efficiency ratings, and OU, like always, checks in with the Big 12’s best offense. But just barely.
OU’s offensive efficiency of .453 beat out Iowa State’s .441. But that’s OU’s worst offensive efficiency of the seven-year Riley era. And the Riley offenses have been on a steady descent.
In Josh Heupel’s final two years as the Sooner offensive coordinator, OU’s offensive efficiency numbers were .304 (2013) and .381 (2014).
Riley arrived in 2015, Baker Mayfield became eligible and the Sooner offense found its gear: .496 (2015), .531 (2016), .542 (2017) and .624 (2018).
That Kyler Murray season of 2018 is beyond description. Has to rank among the best offenses in college football history.
But since then? There’s been a dropoff -- .536 (2019), .475 (2020) and .453 (2021).
Some of it is personnel. Some of it improved Big 12 defenses. Some of it a lack of the magic touch for which Riley became known.
OU is changing conferences, but the conference also is changing. Big 12 teams are playing better defense in recent years than they did three, four, five seasons ago.
Don’t believe it? OSU and Baylor rank 1-2 in defensive efficiency. OSU and Baylor meet Saturday for the Big 12 Championship Game. Those two facts are directly related.
Caleb Williams was a freshman sensation for the Sooners, but when OU met up with the Bears and the Cowboys, Riley’s offense went splat: 24 possessions, five touchdowns, one field goal.
Could Riley have turned around the trend? Absolutely. Was Riley’s offense going to dominate the Big 12 like the Star Wars show it was a few years ago? Not likely. Was Riley’s offense going to terrorize the Southeastern Conference? No.
The game is changing. Defense is making a comeback.
Which also is an indictment of Alex Grinch’s three years as OU’s defensive coordinator. Grinch is off to USC with Riley, and Grinch was fine as a d-coordinator. But only if you compare him to the Sooners’ 2018 defensive disaster.
The 2021 OU defense ranked sixth in Big 12 efficiency, at .365. That’s the Sooners’ second-worst efficiency in the nine years since I’ve been chronicling the numbers.
In 2018, Riley fired defensive coordinator Mike Stoops at midstream, and the Sooners limped home last in defensive efficiency, .458. Grinch improved things to .337 (sixth) in 2019 and .272 (fifth) in 2020. But the Sooners regressed this year, to .365 (sixth), in a year when offenses weren’t spectacular. That .365 is OU’s second-worst number in the nine years.
The Sooners’ quest for a national championship had stagnated. It had stagnated offensively and it had stagnated defensively.
That doesn’t mean OU is better off with a coaching change. It means the Sooners had plateaued, and Riley needed to change things. He changed things all right.
Here are the final efficiency numbers for 2021, and remember, they are devised by counting production (or preventing opposing offenses from production) divided by possessions. Touchdowns count full credit, field goals half credit.
Offense
1. Oklahoma .453: By season’s end, the Caleb Williams offense wasn’t that much better than the Spencer Rattler offense, which operated at about .360 efficiency.
2. Iowa State .441: The Cyclones were coming hard at OU for the Big 12’s best offense.
3. Baylor .392: The Bears are good, not great, on offense.
4. Oklahoma State .390: The Cowboys, Baylor and Texas were virtual equals offensively.
5. Texas .387: For a team with massive quarterback problems, this is a rather good number. Keep an eye on that.
6. Texas Tech .368: Historically, the Red Raiders need to be far better offensively to make a real impact.
7. Kansas State .360: The Wildcats were effective on offense with quarterback Skylar Thompson, but multiple injuries to Thompson wrecked KSU’s chances.
8. Texas Christian .324: Not very good offense at all.
9. West Virginia .311: Coach Neal Brown has a better reputation than this. He needs to get the Mountaineer offense going.
10. Kansas .245: Not terrible by Jayhawk standards.
Defense
1. Oklahoma State .150: Historic defense. The best since at least 2009.
2. Baylor .278: Very good defense, unless compared to OSU’s.
3. Iowa State .286: The Cyclones had the Big 12’s No. 2 offense (and nearly the best), the Big 12’s No. 3 defense (and nearly the second-best) and still went 5-4 in the conference.
4. West Virginia .335: WVU is developing a solid reputation for defense.
5. Kansas State .335: The Wildcats always play rather tough.
6. Oklahoma .365: Not good enough in Norman. Maybe the Sooners can find a new identity with the coaching change.
7. Texas .398: Why? Please explain? Why are the Longhorns so mediocre?
8. TCU .510: This is downright awful. The Horned Frogs had a long-time reputation for defensive prowess under Gary Patterson, but declining defense cost Patterson his job in mid-season.
9. Texas Tech .511: Oh boy, this is bad.
10. Kansas .597: You’re not going to win much playing defense like this, and KU didn’t.
Predictions
One fun sidekick to the efficiency ratings is a tool by which we can predict the score of matchups. They are not predisposed to predicting blowouts, but they’re fun to scour.
OSU vs. Baylor in Arlington: Cowboys 27-22. I don’t see this many points being scored, but I didn’t see 70 points being scored in Bedlam.
