Iowa State's defensive plan could be used against Sooners the rest of the way

— On Oklahoma’s final offensive play of Saturday’s stunning 38-31 loss to Iowa State, the Cyclones did what they’d done for most of the game.

Instead of bringing pressure on Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield, Iowa State instead had eight defenders drop back in coverage with only the three defensive linemen attempting any kind of a rush.

Mayfield set in the pocket and prepared to look for a defender. Nothing. Danced around and set again. Nothing. Stepped up to avoid pressure and looked over the middle.

Nothing. Finally, Mayfield was forced out of the pocket and threw on the run to Marquise Brown.

The pass sailed way too high for Brown to even threaten making a play on it, and the game was over.

Iowa State’s defensive game plan was different from what teams had tried to do against the Sooners in the past, and it worked well.

Mayfield was given more time to stay in the pocket and generally had room to make plays with his feet when he couldn’t find receivers, but the Sooners couldn’t move the ball in big chunks like they’d done all season.

After the game, Mayfield said he didn’t think what the Cyclones did gave future opponents a blueprint on how to slow down the Sooners, saying OU beat itself.

But Monday, Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said he thought Mayfield handled Iowa State’s defense “pretty well” but that the Cyclones’ defense, using zone coverage that often had two defenders on virtually all OU receivers, made it difficult to find

throwing lanes.

“I thought maybe two times — maybe the last play of the game where we had a busted route, and then the sack that we gave up before we scored the last touchdown, we could have handled it better,” Riley said. “But he was pretty patient. He scrambled for several first downs, threw a couple of big third-down conversions in that.”

After making plenty of plays with his feet during his first season as a starter in Norman, Mayfield has used his legs more as a way to buy time to find receivers down the field.

But Saturday, when Mayfield bounced around for more time, more often than not he didn’t eventually find a target.

He carried the ball 11 times, more than he

had in any game since last Oct. 1 at TCU. Several times he pointed to receivers as he moved trying to direct them to open spots on the field.

“I tried that a little bit, and I’ve had a lot of success with that in the past,” Mayfield said. “But I think Iowa State did a good job of covering up downfield, and I think that’s something they were prepared for, knowing that they were going to come in and rush three and that was going to be a big part of their game plan.

“It’s like playing zone defense at that point where you just pass the guys off and get prepared, knowing the tendencies of what we’re doing.”

Mayfield said he expected other teams — starting with Texas on Saturday in the Red River

Showdown — to deploy similar defensive looks.

And several of those teams figure to have better overall talent on the back end of their defenses than the Cyclones used.

Mayfield said he has to be even more patient when that happens — without taking unnecessary sacks like he felt he did two years ago against the Longhorns.

“What we have to do a good job of is — from my perspective — is find the open man in scramble drill and the receivers have to play along with me as well,” Mayfield said. “Even if it takes five or 10 seconds, we’ve got to keep going, and we’ve got to make a big play happen.”

It also could be a heavier reliance on running backs finding space

on short routes or even behind the line of scrimmage and making plays.

Of Mayfield’s 25 completions against the Cyclones, 14 came to fullback Dimitri Flowers (seven) and running backs Trey Sermon (five), Abdul Adams and Rodney Anderson (one each).

“There were some times I had some bad calls against it,” Riley said of Iowa State’s eight-man coverage. “Just the sheer numbers of it — if they drop eight people, you can only get five guys into a route. You’re talking about three different guys being double-covered out there. The holes are tight. Sometimes you’re going to have a great call and you’re going to find the seam. But you’ve got to have patience.”