Riley: Wildcat plays not executed well
Even though Lincoln Riley said Monday that Baker
Mayfield didn’t practice for the week leading up to the Kansas State game, Riley insisted that the unusual string of play calls late in the first half of that game had nothing to do with Mayfield’s health.
During a stretch. Mayfield gave way to Kyler
Murray at quarterback and then was lined up at wide receiver for several plays in a row.
“We were able to work some things with Kyler more because Baker wasn’t practicing,” Riley said. “Did that have a big factor in play calls? No.”
The Sooners didn’t have much success with wildcat packages using Dimitri
Flowers or Trey Sermon at quarterback.
“We didn’t execute them very well,” Riley said. “That’s been something that we’ve been running here for three years. I looked back and in three years, we’ve had one that’s been unsuccessful. One in three years. We had three the other night. One of them was a bad call by me in the scheme that we ran. The other two we did not run to the level that we expect to run them.”
Adams was available at Kansas State
Sooners starting running back Abdul Adams did not play at Kansas State but Riley said he was available if needed.
With the performance of Rodney Anderson, Adams was able to give his injured ankle another week.
“He’s better,” Riley said. “We were hoping to be able to get through it without playing him, which we were. I would expect him to continue making improvements.”
Riley said Mykel Jones’ shoulder popped out of place “three or four times” during the course of the game. Jones returned.
“We have a lot of guys playing through a lot of stuff that is not out,” Riley said. “There are a lot of persevering and fighting through some things. You see that fight in your team all around.”
Riley said safety Kahlil Haughton would likely be available against Texas Tech, while defensive lineman Matt Romar remained questionable.
Seibert, Horky both take responsibility for fumbled punt
Early in the third quarter against Kansas State, Wesley Horky’s snap to punter Austin Seibert went through Seibert’s hands and resulted in a 32-yard loss.
Seibert tried to recover and kick but couldn’t avoid being brought down. The play gave the Wildcats the ball at the 13 and set up the game-tying touchdown a few plays later.
“Austin certainly felt like he should have at least caught it, and Wesley, it wasn’t one of his best snaps,” Riley said. “But that’s one of those, it happens. Wesley is one of the best snappers in the country. He’s been very, very consistent for us over the last several years. We haven’t had to talk about him much, which is always a great sign. And Austin, obviously, his punting has been unreal.”
Riley said Seibert did the right thing after the ball got past him.“He did about what we coached him to do,” Riley said. “He scooped it once and he didn’t get it clean. And then after that, it was just try to get on it or at least keep them from scoring.”