Oklahoma-West Virginia GameDay: X-Factor
John Hoover: Bowl desperation
Can you imagine a college football postseason without Oklahoma somewhere in the endless list of bowl pairings? That’s where OU has found itself in its first season under Brent Venables — needing to win one of their final three games just to reach six victories and land some obscure bowl game. Either WVU, Oklahoma State or Texas Tech must go down for that to happen. At West Virginia, the Mountaineers need to win out — Oklahoma this week, Kansas State next week, at Oklahoma State the finale — just to get to six wins. At stake is a trip to some warm-weather city and some decent bowl swag and another week with your teammates. The real prize, of course, is 15 extra practices. It’s these postseason practices where a team’s success tends to perpetuate itself — ne reason good teams stay good is they get to practice more than bad teams. So which coaching staff is more desperate? Which needs those 15 practices more? There’s been a lot of talk that WVU’s Neal Brown is on the hot seat, and only a four-win flurry through the last three games and a bowl game could save his job. To that end, it’s clear that Brent Venables and his staff would benefit more from landing a postseason game. Will they coach like it?
Ryan Chapman: Third-and-long
The fourth down struggles aren’t going to magically disappear for the OU defense this week. Neal Brown has been hyper-aggressive on fourth downs this year, allowing his Mountaineer offense to stay on the field and go for it on 21 occasions this season. The offense has responded well, converting 71.4 percent of those attempts, and will be looking forward to testing an Oklahoma defense that allowed Baylor to be a perfect 3-of-3 on fourth downs last week. And while the Sooner rushing defense has made it difficult to get stops in short yardage situations, Oklahoma can dissuade Brown from rolling the dice over and over to extend drives if it can plant West Virginia behind the chains. That starts with a good effort on first and second down, because if OU can get West Virginia into third-and-long, the Sooners may be able to force JT Daniels into a few mistakes that lead to either turnovers or punts on Saturday.
Josh Callaway: Motivation
One can't help but wonder where the Oklahoma morale level is at this point in the season. A team with so much excitement around them after the strong start has suddenly lost four of their last six games and has seen all of their preseason goals now become unreachable. How motivated and ready to play on Saturday will the Sooners be? They are better than West Virginia, and should win this game even despite it being on the road. But, the Mountaineers are a lot better at home than on the road — proving that with their upset win of Baylor earlier in the season. If Oklahoma comes into this game without the proper edge, or taking WVU too lightly, it could be seriously problematic for the Sooners. OU has done a tremendous job of being fired up and ready to play on the road this season like against Nebraska or Iowa State. If they can replicate that, they should be fine in this contest. If they don't, things could get dicey against a West Virginia team that is essentially as desperate for a win as a team can get.
Ross Lovelace: Turnover Battle
Both Oklahoma and West Virginia have been plagued by turnovers on multiple occasions this season. Dillon Gabriel totaled three interceptions last week, even though two of the three were tipped. It was deflating for not only the offense, but the entire team, and was a big reason Oklahoma couldn’t take the lead over a scrappy Baylor team. On the other hand, JT Daniels has thrown six interceptions in the last four games for the Mountaineers. In West Virginia’s 48-10 loss to Texas Tech in late October, Daniels threw three costly interceptions. Both teams seem to be inconsistent offensively, and a turnover or two could absolutely change the course of the entire game. Taking care of the ball, establishing the ground game and not forcing any plays will be key on Saturday.
