Sooners try to clean up problem with penalties
NORMAN — Oklahoma offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh didn’t have one problem with Bobby Evans’ third-quarter holding call in Saturday’s win over Texas Tech.
Evans’ fourth-quarter unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, though, drew Bedenbaugh’s ire.
“The biggest thing is cutting out the penalties that we don’t need,” Bedenbaugh said Monday after the Sooners were flagged a season-high 10 times for 113 yards. “The two personal foul penalties, those things can’t happen. They’re going to cost us games.”
With Bedlam looming Saturday (2:30 p.m., ABC), and the Sooners having committed seven personal foul or unsportsmanlike conduct
penalties in the last two games, Oklahoma is concentrating on avoiding needless penalties this week.
Six of those penalties have been called on offensive players. As good as the Sooners’ offense has been, it’s an issue that needs to get cleaned up.
“We definitely killed ourselves a little bit,” quarterback Kyler Murray said. “I think that’s something that’s kind of stopped us. I don’t think a lot of teams can stop us for four quarters.
“When we make dumb penalties and hurt ourselves, that can hurt the drive or whatever. There’s a fine line between being physical ... (and) at the same time we made a couple penalties Saturday we can’t do going forward to beat better teams. I think it was a good learning experience for us.”
Offensive tackle Cody Ford was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct in the first quarter when he grabbed a Red Raiders’ defender around the neck as a play was winding down.
“I know where the edge is and I know I definitely crossed it,” Ford said. “I know every play I take is aggressive in between the whistle. Stopping at the edge is something I definitely need to work on more. It just goes back to what Coach (Lincoln) Riley was saying — stay poised no matter what happens.”
Riley got a measure of satisfaction over the weekend when Big 12 officials, he said, told him the first of two consecutive 15-yard penalties against receiver CeeDee Lamb shouldn’t have been called.
Riley said he saw the play as it was happening an knew Lamb did not kick at the Tech defender, which was why Lamb remained in the game.
The penalty numbers were the most for the Sooners since the 2015 game against West Virginia, when Oklahoma was penalized 12 times for 134 yards.
“We absolutely have to do better,” Riley said. “There were a couple of ’em that were just bad on our part. This game’s going to be intense. Emotions are going to be high, like they should be in this game, but we’ve certainly gotta manage it and do a better job and not give a good football team extra yards.”