Inexplicable personnel usage at key position by Oklahoma coaching staff limiting offensive explosiveness
It’s time for the Oklahoma Sooners to get two young playmakers more involved in the offense to help boost the passing attack
So far, the offense for the Oklahoma Sooners has been a bit of a mixed bag. For every good showing, the Sooners have followed it up with an inexplicably poor outing. I’m willing to put most of the fault on quarterback John Mateer, who has set all of his NFL Draft stock on fire after numerous weeks of unbelievably poor play.
However, the coaching staff has made their fair share of gaffes as well, and it seems like every room has had an issue pop up. I’ve already written about how completely unacceptable the tight end room is (and the changes that should occur there), and DeMarco Murray’s usage at running back has been a well-documented…roller coaster, shall we say.
For the first time all season, I found myself questioning the wide receiver usage from wide receivers coach Emmett Jones and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle. Or rather, the lack of usage from two promising playmakers who had coaches and scouts buzzing all offseason long.
Where are Zion Kearney and Elijah Thomas?
It’s time to involve two elite playmakers in Sooners’ offense
All offseason long, all we heard about was how talented wide receivers Zion Kearney and Elijah Thomas were. Arbuckle raved about both routinely, and it got to the point where I believed Kearney would be a starting wide receiver for the team, especially when it was revealed that Javonnie Gibson would miss the beginning of the season.
That has yet to manifest this season. Kearney has just 27 snaps on offense all season, a shocking tally given his prowess as a deep threat last season. Six different wide receivers have outsnapped Kearney, who has only hit double digit snaps in the Sooners’ blowout win over Temple in Week 3. It’s downright frustrating, as Kearney put on film his ability to take the top off of SEC defenders just last season. It’s there; we all saw it! For a team struggling to hit the downfield shots, him not getting any looks at all is maddening.
In the case of Elijah Thomas, it could very well be that he might not know the playbook as a true freshman, but given how unbelievably talented he is, I almost find myself not caring. Gibson hasn’t proven he knows the playbook either and lines up incorrectly often, yet he’s already gotten 180 snaps despite missing the first five weeks of the year. Thomas might be the best pound-for-pound athlete the Sooners have on offense. Not giving him any sort of designed touches feels like malpractice, even if it’s just a tendency breaker every now and then in a game. They’ve already burned his redshirt since he’s played every game as a special teams ace, so there’s no defense to not feature him on offense.
With the offense floundering and searching for some sort of spark in the passing game, maybe it should be time the coaching staff considers turning to playmakers right under their noses to try and solve this problem. At this rate, I’m worried that both of these players will transfer in the offseason to a school willing to play them, and that would leave the Sooners without much of a building block for the future at wide receiver.
They are running out of time to fix this, but now is the time to start trying any solution with their backs to the wall.
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