I'll edit this post later with thoughts. Let's maybe pay more attention to the Offensive/Defensive Line section this week.
Well, I look at this graphic, and it doesn't look as bad as the Baylor one... Similar, to it, but so did TCU and we know how that worked out. I keep going back to the Baylor game, I have no idea what our game plan was on either side of the ball. It almost looked like we thought we were just going to play them straight up, and when they started beating our ass, we didn't really adjust. I have no idea what to expect this week, will we play as we did vs Baylor? What happens when OU stops our run game with 3-4 defenders and drops 7-8? If we can't break their secondary down when they do that, I expect the exact same result as Baylor, lots of punting.
The OU offense is good, like Baylor, they live and do their best on Standard downs. Getting them in 2nd/3rd long matches up with our strength. We failed to get Baylor in these situations many times and as a result we stayed on the field and got worn out. They give up a lot of sacks on Standard downs and their adjusted sack rate is fairly high as well (107th). The biggest thing is them finding a way to run the ball recently. Since the Texas game where they only rushed for 67 yards, they've rushed for an average of 292 yards per game, 5.8/carry. That's big boy football. How are they doing it and can we put a stop to it determines whether we win.
OU is perhaps one of the worse teams we've played at maintaining drives over 10 plays (methodical drives). They are gaining a first down on 80% of all drives, and reaching the 40 on over 50% of drives as well. They score a TD on 40% of all drives.
If you aren't scared now, let's talk about the OU defensive which is #1 in total defensive efficiency for FEI (drive-based metrics). They are only giving up TD on 18% of all drives, allowing a single first down on only 57% of all drives. Our only saving grace, may be the fact that they aren't quite as good against the run as Baylor, teams are having success on short yardage against them (78% success rate on 3rd/4th down runs of 2 of less). Their stuff rate (RB tackles behind LOS) is 21.5%, not far off though from Baylor's D (23.8%) from a pure number perspective. That's concerning for our run game (TCU's D stuff rate was 14.6%). In the Big 12, no one is really even close to Baylor/OU in that category.
OU's defense is in the top 11 of every single play-by-play adjusted metric, Standard downs (3rd), Passing downs (11th), Rushing (5th), Passing (4th), Success Rate (8th), Explosiveness (2nd). Baylor doesn't have advanced stats anywhere close to that.
Comparing to previous opponents...
For offensive play-by-play metrics OUs offense is most similar to TCU, they aren't Baylor/Texas Tech level, but still in the top 10. For offensive drive metrics, they are also similar to TCU.
For defensive play-by-play metrics, OUs defense is in a league of it's own, WVU is as similar as it gets, and it's not that close. For defensive drive metrics, WVU is again the comparison, but again, it's not even that similar.
Because of the way our offense performed vs Baylor, I'm really apprehensive about this game, Baylor's defense is no where near as good as OUs (according to advanced stats). We had 8 first half drives vs Baylor, only 2 gained more than 20 yards (the two scoring drives of 77 and 58 yards). In the second half, we punted on our first two drives, and Baylor made the score 38-14. At that point, I consider the game over, and while we scored on our next possession to make it 38-21, we punted 2 more times after that before scoring on our final two possessions. Not good.
Our defense, is also a concern, but I'm not as upset at them as I was during the game, they gave our offense a chance to put pressure on Baylor and they never did it, instead immediately punting the ball back. They gave up 3 points per drive in the first half, our offense has averaged 2.90 points per drive, if we are even average on offense vs a defense that was considered average to below average the score is tied at half (or very close). In the second half, they gave up 3.5 points per drive, not great, but our offense only scored 2 points per drive... There were no winners last week.
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