Ducks to challenge offense
By JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Writer
9/11/2006
Sooners need offense to click against No. 18 Oregon on the road on Saturday.
In Week 1, Oklahoma's rebuilt offensive line played surprisingly well and the Sooners' unknown tight end group stood out. The skill position players, however -- quarterback, running back, receiver -- fell well short of their potential.
But Saturday's 37-20 victory over Washington, OU offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said, was just the opposite.
"Yesterday, I thought our skill positions really picked it up -- can be better, but played a heck of a lot better (than a 24-17 win over UAB) -- and we didn't play as well on the line or tight end," Wilson said Sunday.
Now is the time for all good players -- blockers and ballcarriers -- to come to the aid of their offense.
Wilson said OU will need to put all aspects of the offense together this week when the 15th-ranked Sooners (2-0) visit the No. 18 Oregon Ducks (2-0) on Saturday in Eugene.
"To go on the road and play a great team at their place, in a tough environment, we're going to need all 11 guys clicking a lot more effectively this weekend to get this win," he said.
Paramount for the offense is taking care of the football and eliminating presnap penalties. Quarterback
Paul Thompson was forced into two turnovers because of blocking mistakes that freed up Husky defenders to dis lodge the ball or force a bad throw. And there were five false start penalties -- on four different players -- that derailed drives.
Two false starts came on the first drive of the game. One came on second-and-6 from the Washington 10 and ultimately forced a field goal. One came when the offense was already backed up to its own goal line. Only once -- in the fourth quarter, when Paul Thompson passed to Fred Strong for 9 yards on third-and-10 and Adrian Peterson gained 3 on fourth-and-1 (and eventually scored) -- did a pre-snap penalty not kill a drive.
"Football's not a game of perfect. Offense is not a game of perfect. You're always going to have glitches," Wilson said. "But you want to eliminate the self-inflicted wounds where you're hurting yourself, especially the turnovers and pre-snap penalties. You get behind chains and lose yards not because . . . of a guy physically beating you, but because you're beating yourself. You're not going to play at the championship level, you're not going to win championships and win on the road with if you're playing that type of football."
The challenge is magnified this week because Oregon's Autzen Stadium is a small but noisy den of din. Opposing offenses there frequently can't hear their quarterback's cadence, which leads to all kinds of mayhem.
The offensive line play, head coach Bob Stoops said, "needs to be more consistent and we need to be better. We're capable of playing better up there. We have to get more consistency and eliminate those penalties that have nothing to do with the actual play."
And it wasn't just false starts and busts in pass protection. Although Adrian Peterson gained 165 yards and averaged 5.2 yards per carry, 19 of Peterson's 32 rushing attempts failed to gain more than 3 yards (one was a 1-yard touchdown). Of those, 11 came in the second half, when it looked like the offense had solved its first-half problems.
"Stats and yards and points," Wilson said, "can sometimes skew some things."
Wilson said Peterson did a much better job against Washington of running hard into the designated hole.
"He took a bunch of 2-yard runs and got 5, 6 and 7," Wilson said. "He just ran through some trash. He's the biggest, strongest, fastest guy on the field. First game, a couple times, there was some hesitation and looking for some things, and this game he was decisive and ran through it. He was close a couple of times to coming out with some big ones. And I don't think he had any busts in the pass protection at all. It was 100 percent there."
Wilson said his comments last week about Peterson being "a man" and admitting he didn't play well -- despite 208 total yards, two touchdowns and the game-deciding play -- were blown out of proportion and were not meant to be a negative criticism.
"It wasn't a challenge, other than that's how we're coaching that guy, to keep playing hard," Wilson said. "He's a tremendous practice player and loves to play. Practices hard and plays hard. I just thought in this game, he looked a lot more like him, with taking that football at the defense and feeding it in there and feeding it."
Peterson would certainly have surpassed 200 yards, though, if there would have been more room to run. That's something the blockers will spend a lot of time on this week.
"When (defenses) pack everybody up there and he gets through, there's no back end support," Wilson said.
"They'll get a better challenge this week, and we're going to need them to be better this week as we go out to Oregon."
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John E. Hoover 581-8384
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Online: Read other stories about OU football and the OU blog by writers John Hoover and Guerin Emig at www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra..