Sunday mornings are tough after a loss....
OU football report card: Plenty of low marks for Sooners in loss to Kansas
Ryan AberThe Oklahoman
LAWRENCE, Kan. — OU sputtered and struggled Saturday against Kansas.
After the Sooners’ 38-33 defeat, the grades reflect the issues that led to their first defeat of the season:
More:OU football suffers first loss at Kansas since 1997 & more stats from Jayhawks' win
Penalties kill OU’s chances to escape with win
Discipline: DThe Sooners were called for a season-high 11 penalties for 101 yards.
Perhaps the biggest were the two 15-yarders early in the fourth that gave Kansas the ball at the OU 24 in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter.
First, Kendel Dolby was called for unnecessary roughness after slamming Luke Grimm to the ground.
Dolby made the hit on Grimm inbounds, then knocked Grimm out of bounds before finishing with the slam.
Brent Venables disagreed with that call.
“I didn’t love the call on 15 (Dolby); the guy’s tackling him,” Venables said. “He don’t know where he is, inbounds or not. He definitely wasn’t up.”
But then an OU assistant said something that brought out the second flag, an unsportsmanlike conduct call on the Sooners’ bench.
“Can’t talk that way to the officials,” Venables said.
That drive ended with a Kansas touchdown on first-and-goal from the 1 after Reggie Pearson appeared to stop Jayhawks quarterback Jason Bean on third down but after a review, Pearson was ejected for targeting, giving Kansas another life.
Wide receiver Nic Anderson was also called for a false start on fourth down with 2:15 left, and the Sooners chose to punt instead of going for it from the Kansas 35.
It wasn’t just penalties that showed the Sooners’ lack of discipline.
They got turned around several times — some that proved costly and some that didn’t wind up hurting them.
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Dillon Gabriel struggles to move the ball through the air
Passing game: C-It wasn’t until nearly five minutes into the fourth quarter that OU quarterback Dillon Gabriel crossed the 100-yard threshold.
That the Sooners’ struggled to move the ball through the air shouldn’t have been too surprising — the cold, rainy conditions made it hard to throw much — but the degree of the struggles was surprising.
Gabriel completed 74% of his passes, going 14 of 19 for 171 yards, and threw an interception in the opening minutes of the game that was returned for a touchdown.
Gabriel had attempted at least 30 passes in each of the last five games.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said of the low number of attempted passes. “We were running the ball really well and tried to take advantage of that. Just a tough one."
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Tackling a problem as D-line struggles to have an impact
Tackling: C-The Sooners’ defense, which has been much improved this season, struggled to bring down the Jayhawks on first contact plenty Saturday.
“I didn’t think we tackled very well,” defensive coordinator Ted Roof said. “I thought that yards after contact was an issue, tracking angles was an issue, wrapping up and running through at times was an issue.
“But you know, that’s one element to it and certainly every week that’s a big element.”
Roof said he didn’t anticipate the tackling issues heading into the game.
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Cold and rain doesn’t entirely kill the atmosphere
Atmosphere: BOn Kansas’ homecoming, there was a celebratory feeling in the air even before the game started.
Fans roared when the fighter jets did their flyover practice, then even more after the spectacular flyover — going not only across the length of the field but then coming back to go over the field perpendicular to their original path.
The crowd was slow-arriving for the morning kick but built into one with plenty of buzz as Kansas jumped to a 14-0 lead.
But the hour-long lightning delay killed that momentum, as plenty of fans left David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and didn’t return.
As the game wound down, though, and it became apparent the Jayhawks had a chance to pull off their first win over OU since 1999, the energy returned.
After Dillon Gabriel’s pass was batted up in the air out of the end zone — where it was grabbed by Kansas’ Kwinton Lassiter — many of those fans stormed the field.
The fans had to work extensively to get the goalposts down, but they finally fell.
By the time OU’s busses left the stadium, though, the goalposts had already been replaced.
