Three Quick Takeaways From Oklahoma's Win Over Texas Tech

NORMAN — Oklahoma got back on track on Saturday.

One week after a lackluster win over the Kansas Jayhawks, the No. 4-ranked Sooners returned home to handle the Texas Tech Red Raiders 52-21 at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

Alex Grinch’s defense capped off a shaky October with by far its best showing, holding an explosive Red Raider attack 13 points below their scoring average.

With the victory, the Sooners head into their bye week 9-0, but there’s still plenty for the team to mop up ahead of their grueling November stretch.

Defense Rebounds

The Oklahoma defense on Saturday looked much more like the unit that was praised all offseason.

Promising a faster start all week, the group delivered, forcing a three-and-out on the opening possession. With Jalen Redmond and Delarrin Turner-Yell back in the lineup, the Sooners didn’t fade, putting in a complete four-quarter performance.

All told, the defense forced three punts and turned the Red Raiders over three times. Two of those came on interceptions by safeties Pat Fields and Justin Broiles.

Defensive tackle Isaiah Thomas added a third turnover late in the fourth quarter, as he stripped Texas Tech quarterback Donovan Smith and recovered the fumble himself.

Oklahoma may have also found an alternative to Woodi Washington while they await him to get healthy. Safety Key Lawrence was shifted over to corner and played pretty well considering he was tasked with covering one of the Big 12’s best receivers in Erik Ezukanma.

Lawrence was credited with seven total tackles and two pass breakups playing opposite of corner D.J. Graham.

The Sooners desperately needed to find a second corner in case Washington is unable to give it a go against the Baylor Bears in two weeks.

Call the Travel Agent

He may not win the Heisman Trophy, but true freshman quarterback Caleb Williams might at least finish high enough in the voting to get invited to New York City.

Williams was super efficient on Saturday, completing 23-of-30 passes for 402 yards and six touchdowns. The Washington, D.C. native is the first true freshman in the history of the program to pass for six touchdowns in a single game.

He also threw no interceptions, making him just the third player in OU history to throw for at least six touchdowns and zero interceptions, joining Kyler Murray’s 2018 performance against Baylor and Baker Mayfield’s 2016 showing against Texas Tech.

Dealing with sub-par protection from his offensive line, Williams remained calm and kept his eyes downfield, picking apart Texas Tech’s secondary and spreading the wealth around to eight different Oklahoma receivers while he was in the game.

Williams still has plenty of work to do as he’ll face the three best defenses the Sooners have seen all season to close out the regular season -- the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 defenses in the Big 12 -- but if he maintains this level of production, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t end up a finalist for the Heisman Trophy.

Running Woes

Oklahoma moved the ball up and down the field against Texas Tech despite the fact that the Sooners never really got things going on the ground.

OU ended up rushing the ball 20 times for 72 yards, but most of those yards were picked up in the fourth quarter.

At the end of the third quarter, the Sooners had only logged 25 yards rushing despite carrying a 38-14 lead into the final 15 minutes.

More concerning is the fact that the offense only averaged 3.6 yards per rush against the Red Raider defense.

Texas Tech entered this week as the No. 73-ranked rushing defense in the country, but they did a nice job defending the run all day due in large part to the offensive line’s inability to open up holes for running backs Kennedy Brooks and Eric Gray.

The offensive line will have to clean things up, as they can’t afford to head to Waco and let Dave Aranda’s defense make them completely one-dimensional, no matter how well Williams is throwing the ball.