Why Oklahoma's Deep Passing Game Continues to Be Dysfunctional Going into Bedlam

NORMAN — No matter the opponent, glitches keep popping up in the Oklahoma passing game.

The really visible kind.

Whether it’s Dillon Gabriel overthrowing or underthrowing his target, which has been all too frequent, or the rarity of Marvin Mims dropping a sure touchdown, the deep ball has all but deserted the OU offense this season.

“The most frustrating part,” Gabriel said, “is it’s self-inflicted.”

It’s something the Sooners (5-5 overall, 2-5 Big 12 Conference) need to get fixed as No. 22-ranked Oklahoma State (7-3, 4-3) comes to Owen Field for the 117th Bedlam showdown. The game kicks off at 6:30 p.m. and will be televised by ABC. OU is a 7.5-point favorite despite coming off back-to-back losses.

If the Sooners can iron out the deep ball wrinkles in Week 11 that have largely hounded them all season, they’ll increase their chances of victory — and clinch bowl eligibility for the 24th year in a row.

But if the aerial game doesn’t get fixed, OU might need a win next week at Texas Tech just to get to 6-6.

Gabriel threw maybe his best deep ball of the year to Mims last week at West Virginia, but Mims — wide open inside the 5-yard line behind the WVU defensive back — raised his hands over his head to reach for the football, rather than letting it settle over his shoulder. The ball slipped right between his hands. It was an uncharacteristic rookie mistake from a proven, big-play veteran.

“Easy points on the board that we missed out on,” Mims said.

If it’s not been one thing, it’s been another on OU’s deep throws. Mims also dropped what could have been a big catch on the first play of the game at Iowa State, though an offensive penalty would have wiped it out.

There’s not much to do but continue repping it in practice. Obviously, offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby likes what he’s seen during the week — and both Gabriel and Mims have made a career so far of producing on the deep ball.

But OU is struggling now, and dysfunction in the deep passing game has been one of the reasons for the Sooners’ slide.

“The running game’s looking great,” Mims said Saturday. “Pass game, sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not. Not really much else to say.”

Mims did expound on what happened with the dropped TD. Other than a grabby DB, no receiver will ever make excuses for dropping such an easy ball. But Mims explained some of the reason for why he thinks it happened.

The rain and the cold, he said, made it tough.

“For me,” he said, “it was affecting me.

“Really, at that point, it was raining a lot. Ball came. Took my gloves off; it was hard to catch with water. Then my hands were cold, so I didn’t feel it to, like, grab it. It just went right through.”

Mims said he changed to some dry gloves and he caught the next ball thrown his way. But it wasn’t enough.

“They played with it just like we did,” Lebby said on Monday. “It was raining for both sides. And at the end of the day, we didn't make the plays we needed to make. We didn't coach the way we needed to coach. I didn't coach the way I needed to coach to get it done. That's the bottom line.”

Lebby has kept his cool, but at times, the frustration seeps out.

“I’m surprised that we haven't created more chunks in the throw game, without a doubt,” he said. “And again, I think you've seen, if you go back and you watch it, there's been great opportunities where we have not connected. And so that is surprising. It's frustrating because you got a chance to get away from these guys at times and multiple games where we don't. So yes, that's surprising and frustrating.”

“It’s basically just practice, repetition, knowing our game plan, what we see when we go out there,” Mims said. “Just stuff that we can expose and break open and then just executing it in the game.”

“At some point though,” Gabriel said, “we gotta flush it and we gotta move past it. Because we got another opportunity to be good. We gotta be excited about that because we got another opportunity to play and it’s Bedlam.”