Oklahoma Football Hot Links: Sooners found rock bottom Saturday, but can they pick themselves up?

What’s good? Not much? Okay.

The Oklahoma Sooners were embarrassed on Saturday.

(allowing you to let it sink in)

I just want to make sure we don’t skip any steps here. Oklahoma was pathetic on Saturday. The offensive game plan was some mix of “frustrated that they went away from it” and “disappointing it’s all they could muster”. OU’s defense couldn’t tackle, create pressure or slow down the Texas offense in the slightest. They were completely outmatched. The Sooners up front were WHIPPED on both sides of the ball. Texas shoved them around. Treated them like children.

So, where does Oklahoma go from here?

Square one. Understand that likely anything left on the table for Oklahoma this year, isn’t worth sacrificing development. OU is in a phase similar to Texas last year. Now Texas was fighting against locker room issues and kids fighting against the culture. Oklahoma? The Sooners are fighting against underachievement. They need to allow themselves to maybe throw in the towel on some guys who are great kids... but bad football players.

Square two (Yes, I understand this is not how the square system works). Keeping 2023 on the hip. Sooners can’t have a performance like they did Saturday again. The rest of the year. Period. They will stand to lose commitments from anyone and everyone in their class that isn’t tied down. It is the name of the game.

Square three. Reevaluate their staff. Rebuilding year? Yeah, expected. This? No. TCU has a first-year staff. Tech has a first-year staff. They don’t look like this and have less talent than Oklahoma. I am by no means calling for anyone’s job, but just a simple evaluation.

No easy answers. No quick solutions. No way to explain this one.

OU LINKS:

• On the somewhat more uplifting side, the Sooners will be wearing some alternate unis this Saturday, which will pay tribute to the late, great Prentice Gautt.

• Everyone braced for a lot of articles with some tough headlines. Here we go. Eric Bailey of the Tulsa Worlds puts it plainly. Has this been embarrassing and surprising? Of course, but Oklahoma is now flirting with a mistress it hasn’t seen in awhile — not being bowl eligible.
• Sooners opened up a seven-point favorite against Kansas at home, as much as it is crazy to say this... I was surprised. Sooners are making Vegas really have to think hard and they haven’t caught up yet. Bill Connelly adds some historic context. Note: The line has since moved to Sooners -9.

• Is this rock bottom? Berry Tramel takes a stab at it. This coming a week after Tramel pointed out some harsh realities of evaluating this coaching staff. The super recruiting units sure are struggling to create effort and production on Saturdays.
• Oklahoma afterwards cited “tiredness” as the reason for some of their struggles. The Longhorns have played the same amount of games and traveled to one less road game this year. I don’t know if I would quite use that as the 49-point difference but I will allow everyone to draw their own conclusions. Eli Lederman breaks down the game and that quote here.
• Nick Evers was obviously a giant point of conversation during the game. Here is what Lebby had to say about why Oklahoma didn’t turn to him earlier.

• Is Oklahoma better than Texas? No. But they would’ve likely mustered at least one point I assume if Dillon Gabriel was able to give it ago. Well, will Gabriel be able to give it a go? Ryan Chapman gives it a go here of figuring out what is next for Gabriel.
• I present this tweet simply to say this. Lebby knows more about football than I ever will one billion times over... but Lebby needs to call Doug Peterson about Nick Foles. Give a call to Green Bay and ask about Brett Farve. This just seems untrue.

• I obviously focus on local coverage. I rarely link any national stuff because frankly, sometimes it is so obvious that it lacks perspective. Here is Josh Pate, though, talking about the Sooners a week after pointing out some obvious Oklahoma misses by this coaching staff.

• Not even the pros are doing it well right now. Baker Mayfield looks like he is going to miss some time. This on the heels of Matt Rhule being fired.

• Finally Roof, putting a bow on this thing.

Anything else going on?

• I have not watched one second of Thunder preseason basketball... I have had a few other things on my mind but Andrew (someone who I would trust with my basketball life) told me that Poku, yes that Poku, is likely starter in place of Chet. I can’t believe I just typed that.

• This is now my favorite twitter account. I think reading this could use a little more joy and I discovered how cute ducks are. So I think you should too.