Oklahoma Defense Still has Plenty of Room for Growth During Stretch Run

NORMAN — Oklahoma coach Brent Venables can describe in intricate detail the plays his Sooners’ defense missed on last week vs. Tennessee and what went wrong.

“We missed the tackle on the screen, they throw the ball a yard behind the screen,” Venables said in breaking down a 37-yard completion on the game’s first drive. “We got a two-man vice with one blocker and the corner gets blocked, gets too think on the blocker and gets outside of our first player.”

Wednesday night after the Sooners’ bye-week practice, Venables similarly broke down Ethan Davis’ 40-yard catch later in the first quarter and a 54-yard touchdown early in the third quarter.

Those plays and more eat at Venables, and the breakdowns on those plays — and the fixes — are why Venables feels like there’s plenty of improvement to be had for an OU defense that has spent much of the season ranked as one of the nation’s best.

“It’s everything,” Venables said of where he saw opportunities for the defense to get better. “Tackling, staying on top of routes, maintaining the leverage on routes, everybody being on the same page. I thought … communication was gonna be critical because of the tempo and the pace of what we were gonna face and so being able to get lined up and have our cleats in the ground and having our eyes in the right spots and making the right adjustments was going to be critical.”

Read More Oklahoma Football

The Sooners remain one of the top defenses in college football, heading into the bye weekend ranked No. 7 in scoring defense, No. 8 in rushing defense, No. 9 in total defense and 12th in third-down defense in FBS.

Venables overall was happy with the group’s performance in the 33-27 win over Tennessee but the plays where the communication wasn’t there, or eyes were in the wrong spot or tackles were missed stood out.

“I thought overall, on the day, again, there’s a handful of plays where the call’s coming in late or guys are adjusting late, but that didn’t happen very much,” Venables said.

The Sooners spent a good amount of time in Wednesday’s practice going over each area of breakdown and how to eliminate those mistakes.

“These last three weeks it’s important that we can apply the things that we’ve done all season,” Venables said. “Be able to apply it this week, or in these next three weeks.”

Perhaps the biggest are of improvement still out there for OU was one that showed its importance in a major way vs. the Volunteers — turnovers.

After forcing just four turnovers in the season’s first eight games, the Sooners’ defense had three takeaways in the first half vs. Tennessee.

“It’s great because you just feel the energy come alive on the sideline,” linebacker Owen Heinecke said. “You feel the energy leave the stadium. It’s a huge momentum shift so being able to get those is awesome.”

Creating turnovers figures to be critical next week against Alabama.

In last season’s 24-3 upset of the Crimson Tide, the Sooners’ defense forced three turnovers, including Kip Lewis’ 49-yard interception return in the third quarter that all but put the game away.

“You have to create turnovers,” Venables said. “You can’t just continue this trend and expect to win. It’s too hard.”