Sooners Travel to Lubbock

November 19th, 2005

By Justin Waganer
Senior Sports Writer

The Oklahoma Sooners take their “come from ahead and win” style to Lubbock this weekend where they will try to make a case for an invitation to the Cotton Bowl. OU will try to beat their main competition for that bowl, those crazy Red Raiders, you know, the ones who joined the ranks of Florida Atlantic, Montana State, and Arkansas State last weekend in Stillwater. Can Oklahoma win again on the road in a tough environment? Depends on which Sooners and Red Raiders show up.

Have there been two more schizophrenic teams in the Big 12 this season than Oklahoma and Texas Tech? Tech has been in dog fights with Kansas State, Baylor, Kansas, and Nebraska before pulling out victories while failing to pull one out last week. Oklahoma started the year terribly against TCU, Tulsa and UCLA then turned in a solid performance against K-State before getting pummeled by Texas. Since then the Sooners struggled to win against Kansas in Kansas City and followed with great first half performances and horrible second half performances.

The Sooners need to make sure the consistent big-time starts continue as Tech has proven to be a slow starting team in most of their conference games. If Oklahoma can get out to a big lead then they can rely on AD and Company running against the 10th ranked rush defense in the Big 12 and pin their ears back against Hodges. If Tech gets off to a good start OU will have problems as Rhett Bomar will be throwing against the 2nd ranked pass defense in the Big 12.

The general consensus seems to be that Oklahoma has dominated Tech the past couple of seasons because of big players in the secondary and that they don’t have those this season. I beg to differ. Oklahoma has struggled against anybody who could (a) run the ball consistently AND (b) throw the ball vertically since 2002 when a chance at the National Championship Game was lost because of ridiculously bad performances against Texas A&M and Oklahoma State. Tech does not run the ball right at you and they throw the ball more horizontally than vertically. Leach’s offense struggles when the opponent’s defense has a decisive speed advantage, which Oklahoma does.

Oklahoma will get off to a great start on the ground, in turn forcing Tech to honor the run too much and allow Bomar to make some big plays to Malcolm Kelly and Travis Wilson. Tech will not go away easily, but Oklahoma will win the game by wearing the Red Raider defense down. Oklahoma 34- Tech 27.

Entry Filed under: Oklahoma Sports