Can Sooners bounce back from early-season loss? Well, they've done it before
Oklahoma's stunning collapse against Kansas State last Saturday was as catastrophic as it was unexpected. But in the wake of the 38-35 defeat, the shock is beginning to wear off, and reality is beginning to set in.
With their chances of College Football Playoff berth already on life support, all the Sooners can do is let bygones be bygones and attempt to right the ship.
"We have high expectations for ourselves," said running back T.J. Pledger. "So under certain circumstances, we try our best to go through, understand what went wrong and continue to move forward, understanding that it's a long season ahead and we continue to fight, continue to push. We know what the end result can be."
There will surely be a pall of disappointment across Sooner Nation if the end result is anything less than a sixth consecutive Big 12 championship. But if there's a silver lining in last weekend's loss to Kansas State, it's the fact that Oklahoma has historically rebounded well from losses. And it's not as if the Sooners turned in a dud last Saturday; they were absolutely dominant for the first three quarters of action.
"There’s a lot that we just left on the field," said offensive tackle Adrian Ealy. "Don’t get me wrong, we did a lot of good things also, know what I mean? We did a lot of good things as a unit that we’re gonna strive on to be good at that level. And the areas we didn’t do too good, like I said, we’re going to approach this week and going to get better each and every day to make sure we fix that."
October's slate of games will no doubt define the Sooners' season, as they have road dates with Iowa State, TCU and Texas Tech on the docket. Oh, and they've got that annual tilt with Texas in the Cotton Bowl on Oct. 10. Oklahoma won't return to the friendly confines of Owen Field until Nov. 7, when Kansas comes to town.
As the Sooners put the pedal to the metal in conference play, they'll likewise have to put the pedal to the metal for 60 minutes of clock time each week. A single sluggish quarter of play cost Oklahoma the game last weekend, and that's not an unfamiliar issue. A single bad quarter nearly bit the Sooners several times in 2019, whether it was the fourth against Iowa State and TCU, the second against Baylor, or the third against Kansas State.
"I think overall, just somewhat between the coaches, the players, I can't really speak on the play-calling because that's out of my hands, but I think there was a sense of complacency," H-back Jeremiah Hall said of last Saturday's loss. "There wasn't that same drive that we had in the first two quarters specifically, somewhat in the third quarter, and we waited until our backs were against the wall to realize that, 'Hey, we still have a football game to finish.'"
In that fateful fourth stanza, the Wildcats conjured all the apparitions of the Sooners' previous struggles to finish games. OU managed just 50 yards on their final 20 offensive plays, while the Sooner defense surrendered points on five straight possessions. What began with a coverage breakdown soon morphed into a veritable team-wide malaise, and the game snowballed out of Oklahoma's control. Especially in a 10-game season that amounts to a Big 12 round-robin tournament, the Sooners can't allow any semblance of nonchalance to metastasize in the late stages.
"I think we battled maybe what, 35-40 minutes out of a 60-minute game and you can't do that," said Hall. "You can't do that at any level, you can't give anybody hope, no matter the score, and I think we were ready to go home. I really do. But we took it to the chin and I'm going to take responsibility for that as a leader. I know Coach Riley will, and we'll bounce back. We will."
It wasn't long ago that Oklahoma was operating under similar circumstances, with sky-high expectations already shattered just weeks into the season. Back in 2016, Baker Mayfield's Sooners fell 34-23 in their season opener to Houston. Two weeks later, Ohio State shellacked OU 45-24 in Norman, and all of a sudden, a team that entered the season with College Football Playoff hype sat dead in the water with a 1-2 record.
"We had really high expectations for that team," said Riley. "And we had a lot of good players coming back after the way we had played in the second half of the season in 2015. I just remember it kind of just being a shock to our system. Nobody could even have imagined starting 1-2. It was just a complete shock to everybody’s system. It took some... it took some regrouping."
But regroup they did. After the thrashing at the hands of the Buckeyes, those 2016 Sooners ripped off ten straight wins to claim the Big 12 title, and capped off their dramatic resurgence with a 31-19 win over Auburn in the Sugar Bowl.
The path back to the top didn't come without adversity, but Mayfield and the Sooners displayed remarkable resilience. Two losses left them without a viable path to the CFP, and it would have been all too easy to coast listless for the remainder of the season. The 2016 team didn't let that happen, and Riley isn't about to let his 2020 team let it happen either.
"I still remind guys all the time," Riley continued. "You think, well, we circled the wagons and I think we had an off week before we played TCU, and we go up to TCU and man, we’re down like 21-7 just like that. So you’re thinking, I’m staring at 1-3 right in the face and we had some fight in us, rallied, came back and won that game. Then we didn’t lose again the rest of the year."
So why can't the Sooners have a similar turnaround this year? Riley doesn't see a reason.
"You can have that type of momentum," he said. "And I think we have the type of team that is capable of doing it."
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