Five Quick Takes: Iowa State 37, Oklahoma 30
For the first time since 1999, Oklahoma has dropped back-to-back regular season games. This time, the Sooners fell victim to the Iowa State Cyclones, who proved the more resilient squad on a rainy night in Ames.
Spencer Rattler completed 25 of 36 passes for 300 yards and two touchdowns, but tossed a crucial interception that effectively iced the Cyclones' win. The Sooners' shoddy defense reared its ugly head down the stretch for the second straight week, as Alex Grinch's unit displayed no capacity to stop the run in the fourth quarter. Breece Hall torched Oklahoma for 139 yards and two touchdowns on 28 totes, including an 8-yard touchdown with just over four minutes left to provide the decisive margin.
Here are 5 takeaways from the Sooners' soul-crushing loss.
1) It's time to pull the plug on the Brendan Radley-Hiles experiment. There's no sugarcoating it: Bookie was awful tonight. He was penalized three times, missed a tackle that sprung Tarique Milton for a huge gain, and bungled a third-quarter interception that Brock Purdy dropped in his lap. It's about time for a change at nickel. Lincoln Riley has spoken highly of Jeremiah Criddell, and Joshua Eaton has the kind of size and athleticism that the Sooners desperately need in the secondary. Heck, Tre Norwood has never been fantastic in coverage, but at least he competes, and that's more than can be said for Bookie at this point.
2) Seth McGowan and Marvin Mims need to start. There aren't a ton of positives in the Sooner locker room at the moment, but if you want to talk about players who have seized their opportunity and run with it, look no further than the two true freshmen. McGowan has clearly supplanted Marcus Major in the backfield hierarchy, while T.J. Pledger has been streaky and ineffective. Meanwhile, Mims continues to display exceptional open-field elusiveness once he's got the ball in his hands. He's clearly more of an all-around threat than Drake Stoops, and perhaps even more so than Theo Wease as well. Mims also seems to have developed quite a rapport with Rattler, which bodes well for his snap count going forward.
3) The Sooners have bigger fish to fry defensively than lack of takeaways. It's no stretch to say that Patrick Fields should have had three interceptions tonight, which is blatant evidence of the fact that Oklahoma simply isn't sharp enough to create turnovers in bunches. Pass coverage was a major struggle for the Sooners all night, as was tackling. Fields was in perfect position to pick off Purdy not once, not twice, but three times. However, the junior safety dropped the first two passes, and inexplicably chose to spike the third pass into the ground like a volleyball. The Sooners could get no pressure on Purdy, and they simply couldn't bring down Breece Hall. When the defense is on the field, Oklahoma doesn't look like a Big 12 title contender, let alone a CFP contender. Alex Grinch needs to get back to the fundamentals with his unit, and there's no time to dilly-dally with the Red River Showdown on deck.
4) Spencer Rattler's desire to play hero ball is a massive detriment. Say what you will about the no-call on Charleston Rambo. But hold or no hold, Rattler made a very reckless decision to try to squeeze the ball downfield into double coverage with the game on the line. That's a throw very few quarterbacks can make, and it was an enormous risk with a seven-point deficit and less than two minutes on the clock. It marks two consecutive weeks that the redshirt freshman has tarnished two impressive performances with egregiously poor decisions in crunch time. If this is the beginning of a pattern for the wunderkind signal-caller, it's one that Lincoln Riley needs to curtail immediately. Rattler's not in high school anymore; opposing defenses will victimize him when he tries to get a little too cute in the pocket.
5) Gabe Brkic is, in fact, mortal. The redshirt sophomore kicker misfired for the first time in his collegiate career, hooking a 54-yard attempt that would have given the Sooners a 20-13 halftime lead. It was a tough kick by any standard, and it's not any cause for concern. Brkic had made his first 78 attempts in the crimson and cream. Kicking is difficult, and though Brkic is exceptional at it, he's not a cyborg. He rebounded from the miss with a 33-yarder right down Broadway on his next try, and his game-tying 51-yarder into swirling wind and rain required nerves of steel. If there's one player with the mental resolve to bounce back from tonight's performance, it's Brkic.
Things don't get any easier for Oklahoma next week, as they travel to the Cotton Bowl to face Texas. The Longhorns are coming off a 33-31 loss to TCU, and there's a chance that the Red River Showdown will feature a pair of unranked teams for the first time since 1998.
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