How Did Oklahoma Spend Its Week Off to Prepare for the CFP?

While the Sooners waited to learn who their opponent would be in the College Football Playoff, OU dug into crucial self-scouting.

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

NORMAN — While Alabama was preparing to take on Georgia, Oklahoma got a rare week to focus on itself. 

The Sooners couldn’t start preparations for the College Football Playoff without an opponent last week. Instead, the coaching staff allowed the team to get closer to full health while highlighting aspects of the game that still need major improvement.

Brent Venables and his coaching staff also gave some of the younger pieces of the team a chance to shine during the off week. 

“They just need more work,” Venables said. “They can't get enough work; every rep they take is a rep that you can't replicate for them. They learn from it, all of it.”

In the film room, OU took a peek at its warts. 

“We watched, begrudgingly, the explosive plays, the negative plays that people had against us all season long,” Venables said. “Put them in a cut-up up and that was our film study last week. In all three phases, what are the things that we need to work on? Where have we not executed well or schemes against us that people have really exploited us? What are the things that keep showing up one week to the next? Because that's what's going to show up in the playoffs.”

One aspect of Oklahoma’s 23-21 win over Alabama that likely popped up was the success Crimson Tide tight end Josh Cuevas enjoyed in the first meeting. 

Cuevas finished with six catches for 80 yards and a touchdown, though 60 of his 80 receiving yards came in the first half. He only made one catch after halftime. 

Even though the Sooners got the job done over and over again in November, Ben Arbuckle and OU’s offensive coaches will also want to make plenty of improvements before taking the field against Alabama on Dec. 19 (7 p.m., ESPN and ABC).

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OU enters the playoff with plenty of confidence, but Venables said it’s his job to push the right buttons and keep the fire lit under his team.

“Sometimes, through success, you can just kind of be intoxicated and don't have the right type of lens to look at yourself because of the success,” Venables said. “So our job is to celebrate the success and then find ways to get better. And so that's what we did when we did some team stuff, just a little bit of teamwork. 

“Each of the days that we worked out, it was working on the bad stuff that we put on tape and then, our young guys did all the good on good stuff. … The older guys came over and helped coach them up. So it was great.”