The Football Brainiacs

Image via USA Today

For me this game and OU’s chances of coming away with a win center primarily around two things: (1) OU having consistent success running the ball & (2) OU getting pressure on Jarrett Stidham. There will be other factors to be sure, but in my opinion if OU can’t do both of those things they stand very little chance in this game.

* Man In The Middle: I can only hope the plan is to give Ty Darlington some help Saturday night, because he is going to have his hands FULL with Andrew Billings. If you can take Art Briles at his word (hahahahahahahaha….pauses to catch breath….hahahahahahahahaha), Billings is expected to be at close to full health in this one as he continues to work his way back from an ankle injury. But frankly, even a Billings at something like 75-80% is still better than most in the country and will present a significant challenge for a somewhat undersized guy in Darlington.

It’s critical because if Billings is consistently collapsing the pocket and/or run lanes, it will disrupt literally everything this OU offense will be looking to accomplish. No there is no doubt in my mind Lincoln Riley and Bill Bedenbaugh are aware of this and will plan accordingly, but when it comes to players as talented as Billings the best laid plans often go awry.

* Be Aggressive, B-E Aggressive: Some may disagree with the stance I’m about to take, but after two years of seeing the alternative fail miserably I have no clue how that could be the case. So if you are one of those people who disagrees with me, I’d be extremely curious to hear your argument against what I’m about to suggest.

Look, going into this one playing it passive, giving the Baylor WRs a 7-10 yard cushion, trying to keep everything in front of you isn’t going to work. It just isn’t. Like I said, we have two years of irrefutable evidence proving as much. We already know Art Briles is all too happy to take what you give him, methodically move the ball down the field, and eventually put points on the board.

The LAST thing you can do in this game, against a true freshman QB making easily the biggest start of his football career, is voluntarily make things easier on the guy. Why give him those gimmie throws? Why guarantee Baylor easy first downs? Why not make them work for it?

Now with an offense as talented as Baylor’s are the odds in their favor of burning you on occasion? Yeah, probably. But wouldn’t you rather go down fighting — i.e. playing up near the LOS, god forbid in actual, true press coverage, blitzing your brains out — rather than dying some slow, miserable death playing passive?

Man, if it’s me, I’m going out guns blazing. I can live with playing aggressive and getting beat. What I can’t stand, however, is playing off, giving up easy yards/first downs, even still occasionally getting beat deep, trying to “buckle down” once your opponent gets in the red zone, only to give up points anyway.

Every part of me is praying Mike has learned from his previous mistakes.

* Sanchez’s Ankle: We’ve been led to believe Zack Sanchez is back at practice and all is well. Which is great and everything, but do you honestly believe he’s going to be 100% on Saturday night? I’d suspect you’re much like me and remember how much pain he appeared to be in a couple weeks ago when the injury originally occurred. It’s just hard for me to see that ankle being fully ready after a couple weeks off.

And we all know Baylor is going to test him early and often. If OU is playing off (please, no), expect A LOT of what we saw last year in the Bears throwing those quick, short passes and forcing the Oklahoma DBs to come up and tackle (something we’ve seen Sanchez struggle to do at times throughout his still highly productive career). If OU is playing up tight, expect Corey Coleman and/or KD Cannon (among others) to be running plenty of double-moves and ‘go’ routes to again test that ankle.

* Ball Security: Let me start by saying I fully realize this is some serious Captain Obvious type ish. But given the ball security issues we’ve seen from this OU offense really all season, I feel in a game of this magnitude it simply has to be mentioned again.

On its face this will probably seem like the dumbest possibly analogy, but I almost liken this game to that debacle that took place in Dallas several weeks ago. Now clearly Texas and Baylor couldn’t be any more different in terms of a team (or program right now for that matter), and where the Horns needed a reason — one OU was still to this day inexplicably all to happy to give them — to believe Baylor most certainly will not.

But even as confident as the Bears are surely to be coming into this game, OU making early mistakes (i.e. Dallas 2015) would provide even more momentum for a team and crowd that won’t exactly be hurting for it to begin with.

All of which is to say an early — and at this point I think you’d almost have to say uncharacteristic — poor throw by Baker Mayfield, or an untimely putting of the ball on the turf by an OU running back could prove disastrous.

* Exploit The Middle: Mark Andrews was made for this game as far as I’m concerned. And yet amazingly enough I feel like we’ve seen very little of how many believe he would be used most effectively, i.e. in the middle of the field.

Not that he can’t still be successful split out wide, but you’d have to think inside, matched up on a linebacker or safety, he could be even more effective.

But at this point, honestly, just so long as they’re making an effort get him the ball, I’ll be content with that.

That said, maybe take a couple shots with him over the middle and/or up that crease, ala Jermaine Gresham. I mean I’m just sayin’.

* Legatron: As many points as there are expected to be put up in this game, it’s kind of hard for me to see it coming down to a field goal. But should it, one has to be at least somewhat skeptical as to the mental state of true freshman kicker (and punter) Austin Seibert after we’ve seen him struggle a bit with a recent propensity in hitting the uprights.

I’m not really that worried about it, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something in the back of my mind.

* Sweep The Leg: If, and I can only pray OU is even fortunate enough to be in a position for this to be an option, Stoops is in a position to send a message — be it to Briles, Baylor fans, the CFP committee, whomever — I hope with every fiber of my being he doesn’t take his foot off the gas.

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What will you be watching for Saturday night?