Learn, but don't dwell: Oklahoma should enjoy the ups, but remain grounded in the hard times
Rhamondre Stevenson
Joshua R. Gateley / OU Athletics
Yes, Oklahoma is on a roll.
The Sooners got two overtime stops against Texas, then mashed TCU, then embarrassed Texas Tech, then plowed Owen Field with Kansas before taking a last weekend off heading into Saturday’s Bedlam game.
OU played better in those three games than it had in any stretch of the season in 2020.
Of course, those three teams are a combined 6-16 this season.
So it might be worth Lincoln Riley’s time to remind his players — whether in meetings, film study or just chatting in the Switzer Center hallways — of where they came from.
“We try to learn but not dwell,” Riley said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. “Whether that was something good in the past or something bad in the past, we want to learn from it.”
The hole from which this OU team crawled in late September-early October was cold and dark: Three consecutive fourth-quarter collapses. A pedestrian running game. Reckless with the football. Only two quarterback sacks. And no takeaways.
That recipe cooked up bitter losses to Kansas State and Iowa State and almost served up defeat in Dallas as dessert.
The trends began to change when the Sooners sacked Texas’ Sam Ehlinger six times and intercepted him twice in the fourth quarter and overtime.
Since then, Oklahoma football has turned up nothing but roses.
Was it all a mirage? Saturday will determine that.
But players hear from the coaching staff frequently about their earlier struggles. It can’t ever be far from the conversation. It can’t be pushed aside or covered up. Losing two games in crunch time is woven into the tapestry of Oklahoma’s 2020 season.
“Definitely,” said center Creed Humphrey. “We talk about that all the time. Players bring that up, too. We do a good job of keeping that in the back of everybody’s minds. Just because things are doing good, we can’t just slow down. We have to keep our foot on the gas. I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job of that the last couple of weeks, for sure. We have to keep improving in that area, keep our foot on the gas no matter what the outcome is and no matter what is going on in the game.”
Conversations — or reminders, say — are always constructive.
“Not necessarily like as a negative thing,” said running back Rhamondre Stevenson. “Because ever since those games, we’ve been nothing but going up. So, we just use that as a coaching point a little bit. Like, we don’t forget that. And we just know we need to go out there every game a full complete game or, you know, it can end bad.”
Either way, it’s in this team’s best interest to look at the big picture and stay grounded. Outscoring TCU, Tech and KU 157-51 is impressive. But Oklahoma football isn’t build on a diet of cupcakes.
“I don’t want you to think we’re living in the past by any means,” said H-back Jeremiah Hall. “But we definitely have a standard that we hold ourselves accountable to every single week. And when coach Riley talks about that standard, you can't help but think about when we didn’t meet those standards and when we didn’t follow through with how we were supposed to play.
Jeremiah Hall
OU Athletics
“And so, it’s definitely in the back of our mind. It’s not something that we need to talk about very much because we all know it’s happened. The only thing we can do is press forward now. But don’t think that we're comfortable by any means, just because we've gathered a little streak. We’re not at all and we’re going to definitely come out ready to play this weekend.”
“You never get there,” Riley said. “There’s not like some moment you’ve got it all figured out. Hopefully you can take the lessons that you have and apply them and keep getting better throughout the year.”
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