FanPost

Evaluating the Sooners' defenses under Mike Stoops.

I am one of the many fans who has called for Mike Stoops' head on multiple occasions. The defense often seems unprepared, out of position, and prone to game changing mental mistakes. Mike's adjustments seem to come late at times, if at all. The Sooners are often beaten by the same play over and over throughout the course of a game. There is somewhat of a debate about whether this is a talent or coaching issue. I am attempting to understand this better myself. I firmly believe this is an issue of coaching, and the stats confirm this in my opinion.

I started digging through the stats. I want to understand the trends and trajectories of the last 5.5 years. I believe it's important to look at conference stats over national stats. The way the big 12 conference plays, it will inevitably skew national statistics. When I looked at national stats, I noticed that no big 12 defense ranks highly in national traditional defensive stats, such as yards per game and points per game.

Funny enough, the only big 12 schools to rank in the top 25 in points per game given up over the last 5.5 years are Oklahoma (twice 2013 and 2015) and Oklahoma State (2013). Oklahoma also ranked 20th in yards per game given up (2013). No other big 12 school has achieved that feat over the last 5.5 years.

Here are a few of the Sooners Big 12 defensive rankings over the last 5.5 years-

2012- Total Defense 4th, Pass- 2nd, Rush- 9th, Scoring- 4th

2013- Total Defense 1st, Pass- 1st, Rush- 2nd, Scoring- 2nd

2014- Total Defense 5th, Pass-9th, Rush- 1st, Scoring- 5th

2015- Total Defense 1st, Pass-1st, Rush- 2nd, Scoring- 1st

2016- Total Defense 5th, Pass- 8th, Rush- 2nd, Scoring- 5th

2017- Total Defense 4th, Pass- 3rd, Rush- 7th, Scoring- 6th

Now what does this tell me about the OU defense?? Exactly what the eye test has told me all these years. We often have the talent to be the best defense in the big 12 and occasionally have risen to that level, but have spent more time in the middle (or in some cases the bottom) of the conference. Mike Stoops' best defenses (this go around) were 2013 and 2015. Those squads were senior laden and had experience throughout the D. Every other year, the defense has seen a significant, and at times catastrophic, drop in performance.

The last two years have been beacons of inconsistency. The defense shows flashes of being quite good at times (Ohio St this year, Auburn, Okie St last year), and then devolves into a squad resembling something you might see from Rice or Tulsa ( Tech, Texas, Ohio St last year, Baylor, Iowa St, and K-State this year).

To me, these dramatic swings are more indicative of poor coaching than lack of talent. If you don't have the talent to be really good, then you wouldn't be really good occasionally. If you have the talent to be really good occasionally, then you should be able to be really good MOST of the time. That's where coaching comes in (preparedness, adjustments, leadership, consistency etc.)

The Sooners recruit better than pretty much every school in the conference. Texas is the only talent level competition in that regard. The Sooners really should be in the top 3 in the conference in most, if not all, defensive categories year in and year out. Youth and injuries happen to all schools, but well coached defenses play to their talent level most of the time. Take TCU for instance- Total Defense rankings over the last 5.5 years- 1st, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st. TCU does this with less talent. This is what we should expect from OU defenses and more.

It is time to hold the defense at OU to a higher standard. If we want to compete for national championships, we need to be near the top of the big 12 defensively as well as offensively. I think Mike has done some great things over the course of his career, and he has nothing to be ashamed of, but it's time for him to move on. We are seeing a resurgence in recruiting, and I believe this would only be helped with a fresh face as the D.C.

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