Brent Venables learned some great things about his team vs. Kent State that every coach wants to see facing an inferior opponent
The Oklahoma Sooners and their head coach Brent Venables learned a lot about themselves after beating Kent State.
The Oklahoma Sooners are walking out of a matchup against Kent State with some things improved. They used the game to fix some things that needed to be fixed, and to get backup QB Michael Hawkins Jr. acclimated and going in the offense.
Head coach Brent Venables also learned some things about his team in this game, things that every coach wants to learn when they are playing a borderline FCS team like Kent State.
“Maturity,” Venables told reporters after the game. “To show up and play with passion energy, be excited to play and celebrate the success… You play to this stadium, not to the team, weather, time, you can’t cheat this game…”
In other words, he’s glad his team showed up, and played the way they did, didn’t change their process, and didn’t let their foot off the gas, thinking they could cruise to a win over Kent State, who has been beaten up all year by teams like Texas Tech, Florida State, and now OU.
Oklahoma still has things to work on
The Sooners didn’t just dump a ton of points onto Kent State like Texas Tech did with 2, or FSU did with 66, but they did shut them out, unlike those other two schools. The Sooners, despite playing a terrible team, still could have run the ball better than they did. They had 185 rushing yards in the game, but it feels like they should have had 250 or more.
Michael Hawkins had some pretty bad throws, but still made some impressive plays when he needed to most. Some of these bad throws, though, were very bad, like sailing ten feet above or to the right of wide-open receivers.
The offensive line has to play better. Considering they were playing Kent State, the protection has to be so much better, because Hawkins does not have the same level of awareness as Mateer does in the pocket. And, Mateer has been hit far too often, so if he is back, and the offensive line plays this way against the Texas Longhorns, not only could they lose the game, but Mateer could get hurt again.
All in all, though, it was a great showing from the Sooners.
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