OU linebackers’ second-half adjustments help OU to win
MANHATTAN, KAN. — The change was immediately noticeable.
On the first play of the second half, Oklahoma linebacker Kenneth Murray ran to his right toward the line of scrimmage, being careful not to be too aggressive before stepping up and meeting Kansas State ball carrier Isaiah Zuber nearly simultaneously with teammate, defensive lineman Amani Bledsoe.
A play later, it was linebacker Emmanuel Beal who came up with the big play, moving similarly before bringing down quarterback Alex Delton for a 2-yard loss.
The second half of the Sooners’ 42-35 win over the Wildcats was largely dominated by Oklahoma’s linebackers when Kansas State had the ball.
After a first half that was downright ugly — 256 rushing yards allowed to the Wildcats and 316 yards of total offense — the Sooners needed to make a change at halftime.
“Defensively, the quarterback put a lot of pressure on us,” defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said. “You know the quarterback run game, we never really got the grasp of it. Through the first half, we were kind of hanging on.” Barely.
Delton ran for 138 yards in the first half, and the Kansas State offense had eight rushing plays of 10 or more yards before halftime.
“He’s a dynamic runner, and they had a good plan,” Stoops said. “We adjusted. Some of our calls were no good against it.”
The biggest difference from the first to the second half came from the linebacker spot.
Caleb Kelly had been quiet not only for the first half but for much of the season before Saturday.
Although he had four first-quarter tackles, he was much more of an impact player after halftime.
“He’s one of those guys for us that — for us to be as good as we want to be, we need him to be a difference-maker,” Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said. “He got off a lot of blocks, made a lot of plays, really kind of helped set that edge. You need your bigtime players to make bigtime plays, and he really stood up and played well the second half.”
It wasn’t just Kelly, though.
Oklahoma’s linebackers — Beal, Kelly, Murray and Ogbonnia Okoronkwo — combined for 13.5 of the Sooners’ 19 tackles after halftime.
“I think the biggest thing for our guys was just the intensity of getting off the blocks,” Riley said. “They really attached to us the first half, and our guys did a lot better job of getting off blocks in the second half.”
That was evident in that second defensive play of the third quarter when Beal was able to slip by guard Tyler Mitchell with Mitchell only able to reach out futilely to try to push Beal before he brought down Delton.
“Caleb’s come on the last few weeks, and him and Ogbo (Okoronkwo) are a big part of what we do,” Stoops said. “All our linebackers have to play well for us.
“We started to make some plays in the second half, third quarter to gain the momentum back.”