Jeremiah Hall was adamant about addressing the sluggishness that defined No. 4 Oklahoma’s lackluster 35-23 win over Kansas last Saturday.
For the first time since 2014, a Sooners offense was shut out in the first half, and nonetheless by KU, which hadn’t done that to OU since 1992. The Sooners’ defense also struggled to get off the field, limiting its counterparts to eight possessions and only three in the first half.
Afterward, redshirt junior running back Kennedy Brooks, Hall’s roommate, also noted the team’s lack of urgency, admitting his team “played down” to the Jayhawks, arguably one of the worst teams in the FBS. What should’ve been an easy victory became a dog fight OU didn’t need while missing four defensive starters and two contributing receivers to injury.
Oklahoma is 8-0 for the first time since 2004, and carrying the weight of College Football Playoff and national championship expectations perhaps more heavily than ever before with the postseason creeping up. Despite that, Hall’s message to his teammates in practice has been to treat their looming matchup with Texas Tech (5-3, 2-3) like it’s week one.
“So far this week, we've been emphasizing competition, just straight out there going to compete, trying to bring back that fall camp mindset as if we're zero and zero again,” the redshirt senior H-back and team captain said Tuesday. “And so I think we've done a good job of that, especially today. So we'll get some more of that competition tomorrow, and we're looking to make sure that carries over into Saturday, that we make sure that we play to our standard of football.”
The eyes of college football were on the Sooners in the preseason as well, so expectations won’t disappear even if OU turns its mental clock back to August. However, a reversal to a preseason state of mind could benefit the team’s urgency by upping the intensity it prepares with.
Either way, Hall’s sentiments are a welcome sound to head coach Lincoln Riley, who’s hoping for elder leaders to step up. So far, he said Hall and OU’s other captains — defensive lineman Isaiah Thomas, linebacker Caleb Kelly, safety Pat Fields and quarterback Spencer Rattler — have been “aggressive” in re-intensifying their teammates' preparation.
“The week has started off very well, it was a great practice today, but we gotta be able to sustain that,” Riley said Tuesday. “I think anytime you have a leak in any way… as coaches you put a plan in place, you put it in front of the players and everybody's got to take it and run with it and buy in 100 percent, and part of getting that full team buy in and everybody pushing in the right direction is … the leaders do set the tone in a lot of ways. They’re around the other guys when we aren’t in the locker room.”
Numerous leaders have graced the OU locker room during Riley's five seasons as head coach, among them Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Baker Mayfield and standout linebacker Kenneth Murray, who both became first-round NFL draft picks.
Referencing those two specifically, Riley said it’s difficult for players who haven’t been leaders before to understand that they always have an audience, just like Mayfield and Murray did while in Norman.
“If you're doing the right thing, if you're preparing the right way, playing the right way, working the right way, it not only helps you as a player, it impacts those around you. If you're not doing it at an elite level, it can have a negative impact,” Riley said. “We've got a lot of older guys that are playing solid, they're playing good, that are capable of playing elite and we need them to step up and play elite.”
Of late, Hall has been forcing the issue with long-tenured teammates like offensive linemen Marquis Hayes and Tyrese Robinson and fellow H-back Brayden Willis.
“They understand the urgency that I'm talking about, because they've been through it with me, and so those are the older guys that I'm talking to about making sure that we lead and get everybody to have that same urgency,” Hall said. “I'm not changing anything drastically, I’m not making excuses for anybody or anything like that, but I do understand what's at hand. I know that we have to play better.”
Next, the Sooners must handle a Red Raiders squad that fired head coach Matt Wells earlier this week and replaced him with interim Sonny Cumbie. At face value, it appears a simple victory for the Sooners, but so was their game at Kansas before they fell short of expectations.
However, if its intensity continues trending upward, Oklahoma has a chance to weather a grueling Championship November which includes matchups with Baylor, Iowa State and Oklahoma State.
“We haven't quite put it together, but we're closer than you guys think and we're probably a little bit closer than the fan base, national perception, all that think,” Riley said. “I know this: I've been around here long enough, you keep winning, things tend to kind of work themselves out. And we've had eight chances, we've done it eight times. We've got the longest winning streak in the country. The sky's not falling. Don't write us off just yet.”
