Not a lot to love about OU’s performance Saturday
OU avoids epic collapse vs. Tulane, but Grinch says ‘it’s not OK to be OK’
NORMAN – Alex Grinch and Thomas A. Harris might not exactly have seen eye to eye.
Harris, a psychiatrist, wrote the selfhelp book “I'm OK — You're OK” more than 50 years ago.
Grinch, OU's defensive coordinator, said his defense's effort was OK in last week's 40-35 season-opening win over Tulane, but that wasn't close to the standard the Sooners need to be at the rest of the season, beginning with Saturday night's home game against Western Carolina.
“It's not OK to be OK here,” Grinch said on Tuesday, expressing that he was “disappointed” in the Sooners' effort. “We played 31 guys, which I'd like to be proud of, but you don't play 31 guys to get more rest. We play 31 guys to get your absolute best. I don't think we got that across the board, which again, is a reflection of myself, in particular, and the defensive staff.”
There were plenty of players rotating in and out — eight different cornerbacks, seven interior defensive lineman and seven edge rushers/outside linebackers saw the field.
But oftentimes that defense, especially in the second half, was disjointed and struggling to get consistent stops.
The bright spot for the Sooners defensively was the second quarter,
when OU had three takeaways to help build a 37-14 lead.
Before and after that, though, there were plenty of concerning signs for the defense that was expected to be even better than they were a year ago.
Tulane scored quick touchdowns on each of its first two drives of the game.
After halftime, the Green Wave's scoring was more methodical, with several long drives ending in scores.
Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said there were differing reasons for the two sets of struggles.
“We made some mental mistakes in the beginning of the game that I don't think were lack of focus,” Riley said. “I think we were really juiced, really hyped to go play, and I think you saw some guys that just made some early mistakes that needed to settle in. I thought we stayed settled in and played pretty well the rest of the half.
“The second half, we lost our edge. You could just see it. Our effort was off. Our mentality was off. … We lost our edge and we turned into average pretty quickly, as did the entire football team.”
OK.
Average.
Those are not words the Sooners wanted to use to describe a defense that entered the season with the expectation they could be a reason why the Sooners would be a threat in the College Football Playoff instead of a reason why they couldn't be successful there — or even make the CFP.
“It's definitely fixable and I think we've already moved past that and will definitely show up within the remainder of the season,” linebacker David Ugwoegbu said. “We didn't play up to our standard. We have a very high standard that we set for ourselves. And when you've got such a high standard, that's when you get disappointed. But if you set a low standard for yourself, you're not ever gonna be upset about your performance or anything.”
This week, against an FCS opponent, slips in that standard aren't likely to cost the Sooners much. Moving forward, though, they could be an issue. Against the Catamounts, the rotation figures to be deep once again. But while Grinch and Riley want to be able to use several players at each position, the number of players who see the field for the Sooners — with the game on the line — could be contracting soon.
“We'll see how that evolves,” Riley said. “Part of it is that we have a lot of new pieces and you want to see what you have. You want to see what they're doing and how they respond in game situations.
“Listen, we're not gonna play 31 guys on defense every week. It will narrow. But we have proven over the years that we play our best when we play a high number of people, especially on the defensive side of the ball.”