Oklahoma Sooners Football vs. BYU Cougars Preview: The final Big 12 road trip

What’s good?

Alright, do I need to start with an apology? Lo and behold, I know nothing. We all know it is true, it is just finally good to get some confirmation. I was dead wrong last week.

Mobile QBs, pressure, and game managment seemed to be showing themselves as issues for the Sooners again, and I thought we were in a weird on vs. WVU. I, however, was wrong.

I think? I mean seriously, West Virginia was so bad. All the credit to Oklahoma for making them look that way. I just stand here not quite sure what to expect on game day. Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of it by the end of this pre-formatted post.

What will I be watching?

• Dillon Gabriel has been really good this year, but has had moments showing that he doesn’t have the final gear like Jalen Hurts, Baker Mayfield, and Kyler Murray. So I think frankly the most imporant thing from last week was Gavin Sawchuk. If Oklahoma’s offensive line and Sawchuk can get the running game into a place where it can be counted on... put me back on the Big 12 Title conversation. Their offense looks so different when every key third down of four or less isn’t an obvious pass.
• The secondary, minus Billy Bowman (he has been excellent), has been up and down this year. Last week they played a great game against a bad quarterback. The great thing about college football right now is that while there are great QBs... they aren’t littered all over the place. Playing well against bad QBs is really valuable. It’s still a TBD this week for BYU as of publishing. Kedon Slovis might be back, but that has not been confirmed officially.
• Talk to me when anyone knows how good this offensive line is. A great game against a decent Mountaineer front gives you hope, but stringing those together would sure be nice, huh? BYU does have some talent and has size up front. OU having the ability to stand tall against BYU in a tough road environment would be something.
• Turnovers. I mean seriously. I should put this every week, Oklahoma needs to create and not have turnovers. You can win most of your games that way, and that’s been the recipe for success in many of them thus far.

Know your opponent: BYU Cougars

• Kedon Slovis was the starter at QB for most of the season, but the Cougars might be trotting out Jake Retzlaff. With the latter, it hasn’t gone well. Last week against Iowa State, he was terrible. Retlaff, though, did manage to get 60 yards on the ground, which can be attributed mostly to not having the slightest clue what he was supposed to do. Oklahoma should 100% be able to create turnovers and long-yardage situations.
• The wide recieving core is bizarre. No one really jumps out as a true ace or main target. Roberts, Lassiter, and Rex are all involved in the pass game. They are all within 150 yards of each other on the season and all within one yard on their per catch average. Now, I don’t bring this up to say that they are “unpredictable and everything is on the table”. I bring it up to say that they are bad and should not be good in this game.
• Tyler Batty is a defensive player that could wreak havok in this game. Battle has five sacks on the season and two forced fumbles. By the extremes, even these numbers aren’t doing much of anything to strike fear in anyone’s heart. He is essentially having Ethan Downs’ year. The difference is that he doesn’t have 10 other players with sack production behind him like Ethan Downs.

Score Prediction

Lets make it clean and simple. BYU’s offense is terrible. Oklahoma’s offense still can’t be trusted, but after Iowa State slicing and dicing BYU last week, the Sooners should score.

Give me a Farooq TD and a Gavin Sawchuck 70+ yard run, and one complete mismanagement of a game/time situation that makes us all want to pull our hair out to complete the “offseason expectation” bingo card.

Oklahoma - 52

BYU - 16

Talk to you later, knuckleheads.