Oklahoma Football: A tale of two running games

It was the penultimate recreation of the 2021 common season for the Oklahoma Sooners, they usually had spent that individual November afternoon futzing round with the Iowa State Cyclones. Nursing a 21-14 lead with seven minutes and 26 seconds remaining within the fourth quarter, the offense trotted out to take possession on the OU 32 yard line following a Cyclones punt.

With the Sooners sending out 11 personnel (one operating again and one tight finish), the ISU protection arrange with 5 gamers – three defensive linemen and two inside linebackers – within the run field between the wing TE on the left facet of OU’s offensive formation and the fitting deal with. The Cyclones had proven OU and coach Lincoln Riley the identical look all day.

On the primary play of the drive, operating again Kennedy Brooks chugged round left finish for 26 yards to the ISU 42. A face masks penalty added 15 yards to the run. On the subsequent play, quarterback Caleb Williams once more handed the ball to Brooks, who gashed the Cyclones for 9 yards on a cutback run. Brooks took one other handoff up the center for seven yards. With first-and-goal from the ISU 10, operating again Eric Grey subbed in for TE Brayden Willis and chewed up three yards on a lead run behind Brooks. On second down, Grey took the ball the ultimate seven yards to the tip zone on a counter with 5 minutes and 6 seconds left on the clock.

5 performs, all runs. Sixty-eight yards. Two-and-half minutes off the clock. Most significantly, it gave the Sooners the game-deciding landing in a 28-21 win.

Greater than a month earlier, the Ole Miss Rebels had hosted the Arkansas Razorbacks in Oxford. The 2 groups mixed for greater than 100 factors and virtually 1,300 yards in complete offense for the sport, which Ole Miss received.

Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom aligned the Hogs protection thusly all through your entire contest:

Remind you of something? Even with the nickel hedging in direction of the road of scrimmage, Arkansas is exhibiting the Rebels a light-weight run field not in contrast to what the Cyclones threw at OU. (For the report: Ole Miss ran for a 63-yard TD on this specific play.)

Juxtaposing these two video games towards opponents enjoying comparable defenses offers a really feel for what is going to change this 12 months at OU below offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby.

The drive described above versus ISU appeared like a microcosm of Riley’s orientation in direction of operating the ball. As was the case in a handful of different video games all year long, Riley didn’t appear inclined to lean on his workforce’s dashing till completely crucial.

OU’s floor assault put collectively a stellar day towards ISU’s stingy protection, which ranked twenty second nationally with a mean 3.54 yards allowed per dashing try in ‘21. The Sooners ran for 209 yards on 34 carries towards the Cyclones, a mean of 6.1 yards each time they went to the bottom. On the similar time, Williams was struggling throwing the ball, finishing 9 of his 19 makes an attempt for 97 yards within the recreation. The rookie QB additionally confirmed the form of lax ball safety that often obtained him into hassle, tossing one interception within the second half and getting stripped on a drop again in OU’s finish zone. (Offensive deal with Anton Harrison grabbed the free ball and carried it out throughout the objective line, stopping the Clones from scoring a defensive TD.)

Nonetheless, OU had known as 23 go performs to 21 runs main as much as the beginning of that aforementioned fourth-quarter drive. The Sooners completed the sport with 9 consecutive dashing performs, together with one kneel-down on the ultimate snap.

Conversely, of their 70 complete offensive performs within the recreation towards Arkansas, the Rebels ran the ball 49 instances, which works out to 70% of its snaps. Why go so heavy on the bottom? The Rebs generated 6.6 yards per rush for 324 yards within the recreation.

Even permitting for circumstantial elements that may have impacted the how the 2 groups ran their offenses in these specific video games, that disparity has to mirror variations in mentality. So what are they?

Riley by no means shares a lot publicly about his schemes. From the skin trying in at Riley’s offense, nevertheless, operating and passing typically seem to work as constraints towards one another. He has a diabolical capacity to make completely different performs look the identical by way of formations or personnel or blocking schemes or any variety of contextual elements. The objective is to govern opposing defenses in order that: a) they will’t anticipate what’s coming from the offense; or b) they guess flawed about what’s coming.

So there’s a secondary final result to each play past simply the quantity of yards it good points/loses. It additionally lays the groundwork for subsequent performs. Moreover, every play name can be influenced by what was known as earlier than it. (Very Hegelian.) Subsequently, throwing towards a light-weight run field does have a logic to it: Each play is a part of a broader framework that theoretically makes the offense simpler.

In distinction, if Lebby sees 5 within the field throughout video games this fall, contemplate a run play to be the default name. His RPO-heavy offense seems intent on constructing from the bottom up. Not solely are his offenses enjoying constantly at a excessive tempo, they’re additionally skewing to the run. Final season, as an example, Ole Miss ran the ball on 58% of its offensive performs. Particularly notable, the Rebels ran the ball on 45% of their passing downs in ‘21, which was considerably larger than the nationwide common final 12 months.

So which offensive method is healthier?

There’s no reply to that query. They’re simply completely different.

Nonetheless, in the event you obtained uninterested in screaming on the Sooners to run the ball within the final 5 seasons, prepare for a extra nice expertise watching their video games in 2022.