Why This Week 'Just Felt Different' for Oklahoma Coach Lincoln Riley

The Sooners put forth their most complete game of the season, and the head coach said he just had a hunch it might happen after what felt like a special week of preparation.

Credit Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley. He had a hunch this week the Sooners would play well against Texas Tech.

Getting several key players back from injury was an obvious “boost,” Riley said after OU slammed Texas Tech 52-21 on Saturday night in Norman.

But Riley’s intuition came from somewhere other than the athletic training room.

“I thought the guys were mentally in a really, really good place coming into this one,” Riley said. “You kind of get these — not hunches, but if you’re around your team enough, you kind of feel … I felt like we were getting to play really well. I really did. Nothing magical. Just a credit to the guys for the way they competed this week in practice. They took that to another level, and it showed.”

Pressed for details on whether it was just instinct or if he saw something tangible during the week of preparation for Tech, Riley couldn’t quite quantify it.

Yes, the team practiced well. But, he said, “I don't know there's been a week or two we say ‘Man, we didn't practice very good.’ But it just, I don't know, it just felt different this week. It did.”

Maybe the team finally experienced a self-awareness and a clarity of mind coming off its dreadful performance at Kansas the week before. High expectations create pressure, and pressure can create tension. Tension can buckle a team.

Coming out of Kansas, maybe this team finally found its identity.

“There's times you don't have your best,” Riley said, “or, you know, rumblings on the outside or whatever. And you just got to, man, you just got to play. You just got to get better. And you just got to keep going and that's how you get there.”

Riley said the the coaches made “some adjustments” during the week — moving Key Lawrence from safety to cornerback, for instance, some minor tactical changes across the offensive line, more man-to-man coverage in the secondary, for another. But, Riley said, “nothing magical there.

“The guys’ attitude and mentality towards it — and I think the guys, you know, we just, we had some good conversations this week. We did. And I and I felt like the guys embraced it. As opposed to … trying to ignore the position that we're in right now. I think they embraced that.

“You know, we've won all of our games, we've put ourselves in a great position, we have not played quite as well — all together simultaneously — as we can as a team. And that's OK. Like, we got to embrace it and we got to go to work.

“And so … I think the guys just really embraced it. We just embraced all the good, what needs to get better, like, everything about the position we're in right now. It was totally embraced by our players by the entire program. And we did the things we need to do this week, and then played the way we needed to play today.”

As injuries mounted and the grind of games on nine consecutive Saturdays wore on, players’ minds wandered — most likely to this week’s open date.

Somehow, wandering minds last week refocused on the Red Raiders.

The result was an emphatic victory, probably the Sooners’ most complete win of the season.

“The energy, the guys just really competed their tail off,” Riley said. “It wasn't a, you know, ‘You get to this point of the season,’ or kind of this, ‘We've talked about the end of this nine-game stretch,’ and you know, ‘Guys are tired,’ and blah, blah, blah. I mean it did not feel like that. I mean, there was just the energy, the competitiveness on the practice field.

“It's like I told them, ‘Hell, if every time somebody counted us out over the last six years, we wouldn't have any of those six rings.’ I mean, we get counted out all the time. That's just part of it.”

Barring any setbacks in practice over the next two weeks, roster reinforcements should continue to return just in time for a four-week finishing stretch of No. 14-ranked Baylor, previously ranked Iowa State, No. 11 Oklahoma State and then one of them again, if everything works out, in the Big 12 Championship Game.

“We’ll get into the bye week and get some work done,” Riley said, “get a couple guys back healthy, a couple more key contributors back pretty quick. And get ready for our favorite month of the year.”