The Football Brainiacs

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* Mike Stoops’ defensive game plan for containing Sam B. Richardson – No one is going to confuse the Iowa State QB for an elite athlete, but he is more than enough of an athlete to keep plays alive and make something happen outside the pocket. And that’s the exact same kind of quarterback we’ve seen OU face the past three games and at the same time we’ve witnessed M.Stoops go uber-conservative with his defensive approach as a result. It hasn’t made sense the past three games and with all due respect this is just Iowa State, but what reason/s would I possibly have (I mean beside the two I just gave you) to believe M.Stoops will do anything different on Saturday?

If they rush three, drop eight, and play that soft zone crap yet again Richardson will be able to make plays. Don’t confuse Iowa State equating to have no talent. They have some talented guys on this offense and after watching what they did to a Texas defense that, at times, had their way with OU, it’s abundantly clear Mark Mangino just might be pretty good as this offensive coordinator thing.

We’ve all heard a million times by now how quarterbacks like Richardson kill OU defenses. And we’ve all seen how a passive approach to defending that style of QB has not worked. So if OU comes out on Saturday and tries to do the same thing again, I’m going to lose it. And frankly, even if they don’t and whatever they do differently works I’m not entirely sure how much credit they deserve for waiting until eight games into a season now with two losses to do so.

* Defensive discipline – Iowa State does a lot of stuff off zone read/read option looks and we just saw this OU defense fare quite poorly against KSU’s POP pass plays (which I realize aren’t the same, but both obviously involve the defense staying disciplined in their assignments. I’m fully expecting Mangino to spread this OU defense out and force the linebackers and safeties to have to make plays in space, something we’ve seen both positions struggle with at times this season. Stay in your lanes, don’t bite on the read action, and don’t let anyone behind you for a big play.

* Defending E.J. Bibbs – Third straight defensive point of emphasis, you think I’m a little worried about the Mangino vs. M.Stoops match-up? But this point was specific to Bibbs for a reason, and that reason is his being the best tight endin this league. He’s a very difficult match-up for any defense, but particularly this OU squad because of their undersized linebackers and considerable struggles their safeties not named Q.Hayes have had in coverage.

Mangino will move Bibbs around a lot, they like to split him out on a regular basis. So the key for Oklahoma will be avoiding mismatches Mangino can exploit. In previous weeks, teams have tried to spread out the OU defense and force Eric Striker to play coverage rather than his much more effective and disruptive role of rushing the QB. And amazingly, it has sure looked as though M.Stoops made few adjustments to avoid that happening.

Oh, and if Mangino can get Bibbs matched up with Ahmad Thomas then it will likely be a long day for this OU secondary.

* Tempo – Sorry, one more on this Mangino/M.Stoops topic. Much like I expect Mangino to spread this OU defense out, I also expect to see him go up tempo to try and help create opportunities for this ISU offense. He did it quite a bit against Texas and did so with great effectiveness. So I see no reason why he wouldn’t try to do the exact same on Saturday. The big question will be whether or not Mike will be able to adjust for it prior to halftime.

* What I expect to be a conservative Josh Heupel and what happens if OU gets behind early – I’m expecting to see the OU game early and often. The Sooners have a considerable size advantage up front against this ISU defensive line. Oklahoma’s offensive lines averages 321 pounds a man, while Iowa State’s defensive line averages just over 267 pounds a man. If OU can’t push these guys around something will have gone drastically wrong.

To this point, it will be interesting to see just how much Cale Gundy tries to work in Keith Ford, who is expected back for the first time since the Tennessee game. I wouldn’t expect they should need much of him Saturday, but you also need to get him back into the flow for next week’s Baylor game.

And what happens if OU gets behind early? We’ve seen what has looked to be Heupel abandoning a game plan if things aren’t going as expected. If OU were to get down early, would he go away from the run game and get pass happy like we’ve seen in the past?

* Trevor Knight – To that previous point or really just Heupel in general, I know he said this week his shoulder is 100%, but I’m not buying it. I could be completely wrong and he’s perfectly fine, but I just kind of have this sneaking suspicion that’s not the case. We’ll see on Saturday though because it’s going to be fairly cold, and I’d bet you in that type of weather his shoulder will be stiff. So how will he be accurate? Will OU be afraid to run him?

There’s not much about this Iowa State defense that really worries me, but that’s based on OU not hamstringing themselves offensively and/or Knight giving the ball to the other team. If one or both of those things happen, it could (stress, could) get much more interesting Saturday than OU fans are hoping for.

* WRs not named Shepard – The Cyclones play a lot of man coverage, so if the Oklahoma receivers (not named Shepard) can’t get separation it could be a pretty bad sign. I’d expect safety help over the top on Shepard until someone else proves to be enough of a viable threat that ISU has to respect them. That or the OU run game proves to strong and they simply have to commit another guy or two up to the box to defend it.

* ISU’s size on the outside – One other quick one. I mentioned this in my ‘Names To Know‘ post from Wednesday, but Iowa State has to 6’5″ wide receivers that should present a difficult physical match-up for OU’s corners. Both guys are coming off big games against Texas as well. It remains to be seen if Richardson will be able to take advantage of it (I’m hopeful M.Stoops will actually try to bring pressure on Saturday and Richardson will spend the better part of the day running for his life), but it will definitely be something to keep an eye on.

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What will you be watching for Saturday morning afternoon?