Oklahoma Sooners HC Brent Venables showed why he’s a defensive genius with the game on the line vs. Auburn
Oklahoma's Week 5 matchup against Auburn started poorly. The Sooners looked poorly disciplined and looked like they were getting out-coached. Auburn deployed multiple personnel groupings and hit explosive plays at critical moments. And then, as the four fingers went up in that game to signal the start of the fourth quarter, something shifted. Auburn kicker […]
Oklahoma's Week 5 matchup against Auburn started poorly. The Sooners looked poorly disciplined and looked like they were getting out-coached. Auburn deployed multiple personnel groupings and hit explosive plays at critical moments.
And then, as the four fingers went up in that game to signal the start of the fourth quarter, something shifted. Auburn kicker Towns McGough missed his second field goal at the OU 33, and OU clicked.
Two plays after the missed field goal, Sooners quarterback Michael Hawkins hit wide receiver J.J. Hester for a 60-yard bomb to the Auburn 5. Two plays later, Oklahoma punches it in to make it 21-16 Auburn.
With the momentum rapidly shifting, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables knew he needed to create a big play on defense to capitalize. Thus, he turned to a staple of his playbooks, a blitz called "Miami" in his playbook.
Kip Lewis drops back after showing a blitz, Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne misses him and throws it, Lewis picks it off and returns it 60 yards for the game-winning pick-six.
This is one of the most diabolical blitz calls I've ever seen. Here's the play diagrammed out.
This is a six-on-five blitz against empty sets, where the quarterback is already looking to get the ball out quickly. The defensive line rushes till they get contacted, and once they get touched, they drop back and manipulate the passing lanes for the quarterback.
On paper, this looks like a total 0 blitz, but it ends up turning into five defenders in man, five different defenders in passing lanes, and there will be a free rusher off the edge somewhere.
On this play, R Mason Thomas is bearing down on Thorne in a hurry, speeding up his clock. Thorne completely missed Lewis dropping out, putting him in perfect position to make a play, and the rest is history.
What a time to hit this play call. I can't recall them hitting this blitz at all this season or even at all under Brent Venables. I had to dig back to his time at Clemson to find an example on this play.
If you want to read into that at all, perhaps Venables trusts the talent of his defense for the first time to fully deploy the playbook he had at Clemson. That's a terrific sign for the state of the Sooners moving forward.
