The Football Brainiacs

Image via USA Today

* Creativity: I’m certainly not breaking any news in declaring what Lincoln Riley did with the OU offense this past Saturday against Akron was extremely vanilla. We know this. We also know, as does Riley and every coach on that OU staff, they won’t have the save luxury this coming Saturday in Knoxville.

With Oklahoma’s apparent issues up front, I can’t help but feel Riley will need to get fairly creative in this game. We all saw the Sooners struggle to run the ball against an underrated Akron front seven, but at the end of the day it’s still Akron. And we know the strength of this Vols team is also their defensive front, albeit more so the front four but still, so it’s probably fair to assume OU won’t simply be able to line up and run at will.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d be absolutely fine if that were the case. But after this past Saturday, I’m not quite ready to go there just yet. Especially against a pretty talented Tennessee front four.

* Passing to open up the run: There seems to be a general consensus that Tennessee’s secondary is pretty suspect when it comes to defending the pass. They’re coming off a game against an admittedly talented Bowling Green offense which saw the Vols allow 400+ passing yards, several of which came on big plays down the field.

In fact, Bowling Green had nine passing plays of 20 or more yards in that game. No other teams in the country had more (though two teams — La Tech & Tulsa were tied with BG at nine) in that particular state.

My point being, OU will need to take some shots down the field. Both because Tennessee appears to be extremely vulnerable to them and because, in my opinion, we have every reason to believe much like Akron the Vols’ defense will be looking to stop the run first and foremost.

I definitely do not believe deep balls need to be the primary focus for Riley and the offense, however. Rather I think the focus needs to be getting the ball out of Baker Mayfield’s hands quickly. Primarily for two reasons: (1) If Tennessee is able to get pressure on Mayfield with their front four, it may lead to him taking chances with the ball and we don’t want that. (2) I’d be fairly surprised if the Vols are confident enough in the secondary to be playing tight coverage on the LOS, thus playing right into what an ‘Air Raid’ offense is specifically designed to have success with, i.e. short, quick passes.

It’s cliche, I know, but if OU’s offensive line continues to struggle to consistently open up rush lanes, a ‘pass first to set up the run’ style of offense is easily their best strategy for success, no?

* Mark Andrews: To that point, is there anyone on this OU roster that is better genetically engineered (did I just make things weird?) to have a significant impact on this game?

I’m stubbornly refusing to allow Andrews’ lack of real involvement in this revamped OU offense didn’t come until the fourth quarter last week as Riley playing possum only to unleash Andrews as an impossible match-up this coming Saturday.

If success is to be found in the passing game, and specifically the quick, short throws as I referenced above, having a target the size of Andrews over the middle of the field on those short-to-intermediate routes could prove invaluable.

I put it out there on Twitter earlier in the week, but I just kind of have a gut feel Andrews has a big game in this one. Now I could easily be dead wrong, but this seems like a match up tailor-made for Riley & Andrews to exploit.

* Pressure & contain: I would suspect few OU fans reading this need a reminder as to the struggles past Oklahoma defenses have incurred when facing a mobile quarterback, though to be fair the same can be said for any number of defenses. Mobile QBs are employed specifically for this purpose, to confuses defense and capitalize on their ability to make plays both in-and-outside the pocket. And that’s exactly what the Sooners will be facing on Saturday.

Gone is the statuesque presence of Justin Worley from 2014, whom the OU defense teed off on for five sacks and countless other QB hurries. No, instead the Sooners will be facing a much more athletic threat in Joshua Dobbs. The junior signal-caller rushed 12 times for 89 yards (and a TD) Tennessee’s season opener against Bowling Green. And if you check his game log from 2014 after taking over for Worley, it only further shows just a capable of a runner Dobbs has already proved to be.

It would appear this is someone the Vols are perfectly comfortable running 15-20 times a game if need be, and that’s not even necessarily taking into account Dobbs making plays if a throw isn’t there and/or when the pocket collapses.

You need look no farther than OU’s post-practice quotes this past Wednesday from the defense, in which virtually every individual that spoke, be it coach or player, specifically mentioned Dobbs in some manner. Oklahoma is well-aware the threat he presents. The obvious question then being will they be able to apply pressure of their own possibly forcing him into some bad throws, all the while working to contain him in the pocket and limiting his ability to make plays with his legs.

* Linebacker & Safety play: These strike me as worth mentioning, but also no-brainers so we don’t necessarily need to spend a ton of time/words on them.

With respect to the linebackers – Tennessee is going to want to run the ball. Thus, it will be important for OU’s linebackers to play well in this game to prevent the Vols from having success doing so. Dom Alexander had one of the better games of his OU career last week, but he’s still a bit undersized and we’ve seen him have trouble shedding blocks when the opposing OL is able to get to the second level of the defense. Admittedly, it’s the job of the OU defensive line, at least in part, to keep those guys off the LBs, which is also something we’ve seen them struggle with at times.

With respect to the safeties – With all due respect to Akron, we learned absolutely nothing about Hatari Byrd and Ahmad Thomas in that game last Saturday. I’m not even sure this Tennessee offense is really equipped to exploit either as others will be further down this OU schedule, but I’ll be surprised if we don’t learn considerably more based simply on the fact the Vols will attempt to field a passing offense where as Akron, well, really did not.

* Austin Seibert: If this game is close, as I expect it to be, it’s certainly not inconceivable to presume special teams could potentially be the difference maker. Seibert’s first every OU game last Saturday has been met with rave reviews after hitting both his field goal attempts and averaging nearly 50 yards/per on six punts.

This young man definitely is not lacking in confidence, but it’s one thing to go out and drill a field goal or two in front of your home crowd compared to doing so in front of 100k+ fans most of whom will be screaming for you to miss.

Maybe the kid gets his own Uwe Von Schamann moment, or maybe it never even comes to that. Just something to keep in mind.

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What will you be watching for Saturday night?