TFB Short | It’s the Defense

The Sooners showing yesterday was far more respectable than the first showing in the College Football Playoff. Oklahoma fans should be happy that the program is moving in the right direction, happy that the program is closer but having gotten that close to a national championship appearance, even hungrier than ever for number eight.

Riley hasn’t been here long but he’s already made changes. Under Riley, this is the best marketing I’ve seen from Oklahoma. Frankly, it’s the best marketing I’ve seen anywhere. Under Riley, I’ve never spoken to so many players who are in regular communication with the Sooners head coach. The purpose of all that is, largely, to ensure that Oklahoma can attract the best players.

But there are a lot of good programs all across the country, recruiting and developing good players. To truly be the best, Oklahoma has to be in constant pursuit of being the best from top to bottom. Based on what I saw yesterday and prior to that, the Sooners have some things that need to get fixed.

The broad areas OU needs to address are on the defensive side of the ball and in their S&C. I’m not claiming I know what those changes should be. It’s just obvious that OU needs to address issues in those two areas. Below are a few scattered notes to flesh things out.

– Georgia had monster after monster rolling out on the defensive line. Oklahoma didn’t appear to have a guy on their front outside of perhaps Obo and Lampkin that looked like they could play on Georgia’s defensive front. And Lampkin is, at this point in his physical development, not built like the Georgia or Alabama defensive linemen. Can you imagine being a offensive lineman and having to push and fight those Georgia defensive lineman all game?

– To the point above, OU’s offensive line is good but they don’t face a defensive line like that in practice. The issue with the Sooners weaknesses on defense is that it doesn’t just affect the team on game day. It affects the teams’ preparation. To be complete, Oklahoma needs to compete day in and day out against the best and that happens by being the best on both sides of the ball.

– The Sooners defense is, quite frankly, soft. Nothing about them feels like a defense that plays with an edge or a team to be feared. There doesn’t seem to be a true leader on the defensive side of the ball…someone who drives the identity of the defense or inspires the kind of controlled aggression and perfection you need to get better.

– In the second half when OU needed a big play, they got one from CeeDee Lamb against very tight coverage but we all saw that as the game wore on and Georgia was able to make things uncomfortable up front, every throw was contested. Once the play action was ineffective, the Sooners were throwing into tighter and tighter and windows.

– Georgia’s pre-snap look was tight everywhere. They’re facing a senior quarterback but they’re playing close to the line of scrimmage not giving OU anything before the snap. Meanwhile, OU’s defense…the defense OU’s offense sees everyday…is giving a true freshman quarterback very favorable pre-snap looks. If you’re a quarterback and you know your wide receivers have a free release and you get a free stop route on every play and you know all that before you snap the ball, it’s comforting. I’m not saying you have to press on every play but playing with that soft pre-snap look on every play? It just doesn’t smell like a competitive defense that wants to create tight windows, get hands on the ball, create turnovers. And forget trying to tackle. You try leveraging guys over and over coming from that far away.

– You can play different techniques out of a tight alignment. You don’t have to play strictly bump and run. In fact Georgia bailed a lot. But they start the play in your face…everywhere. They are who they are regardless of who they play and the thing that became obvious as the game wore on and as I watched Alabama is that…their defense is a WEAPON. OU’s defense is attempting to be a shield…trying to simply take a beating long enough for the OU offense to strike. These elite defenses are swords trying to land their own deadly blow. Bama’s defense put Clemson in a coffin yesterday.

– In terms of physical development and fundamentals, OU just doesn’t look like a national championship defense. Again, they don’t quite look the part physically. But also, there isn’t that polished feel to anything they do on that side of the ball. Georgia gave up points in the first half but as they started to pressure Oklahoma and find their footing you saw a very stingy defense…a clean defense. I saw the same thing from Bama later that evening. Guys tackle well and they tackle violently. Guys get off blocks. Linebackers time and fit, correctly.

– I know people will be quick to blame recruiting, and that plays a part. But it’s hard to imagine Neville Gallimore wouldn’t be one of those same monsters UGA and Alabama had, if those staffs got their hands on him. Having said that, the way those guys recruit is about finding a certain type of guy. I know Bama’s program pretty well and they are very particular about the frame of a player. When you watch Bobby Brown on film, you aren’t always blown away by him. But if you’ve seen Bobby in person, you see the big hands, the broad shoulders…you see their formula. They’re going to take a guy like him, put him through their S&C machine, teach him their technique and put him around a bunch of guys who look like him so that any time he’s on the field he can look over and see a bunch of guys who look just like him ready to come in and take his spot when he makes a mistake. You don’t know what a first rounder truly looks like until you’ve seen it live and in person. The young guys on great defenses are seeing what greatness looks like first hand. They’re seeing it in how the 1st rounders on their defense prepare and look and they know that the standard is the standard…if they don’t meet the standard, they won’t play on that defense.

To further illustrate my point about the type and the development, look at Alabama signee, Christian Barmore. Barmore’s biggest offer this past summer was Temple, I believe. But he’s a big framed dude that can run. He’s going to look exactly like their other guys once they run him through the machine. A few weeks ago Bama actually offered Billy Ferrell, a small town kid out of Arkansas who ended up getting a late offer from Arkansas and signing with the Hogs.

– The good news is OU has some guys coming in that look like the kind of guys who can be molded. But that machine needs to continue to be refined to ensure that the output all over the defense is uniform, violent and effective.