Losing the close games
Oklahoma’s 21-20 loss to Miami underscored a disturbing trend in Sooner football.
Its play in close games.
The Sooners have lost both close games this year, a pair of 1-point losses.
In 2008, OU played in two relatively close games, and lost of them. 45-35 to Texas; 24-14 to Florida in the national championship.
The trend goes further.
In 2007, OU lost 2 of 3 games decided by single digits. While the Sooners beat Texas 28-21, OU lost to Colorado 27-24 and Texas Tech 34-27.
Throw in the 2006 season 43-42 Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State, and OU is 1-7 in its last eight close games.
Now that number isn’t quite fair. OU has won 11 games in three straight years, and has blown out most of the competition. For example, last year’s Bedlam game was technically close until OU pulled away in the fourth quarter and won by 20.
But in games that have come down to the final 1-2 drives, the Sooners haven’t been clutch lately.
“We have to learn to finish in the end,” said defensive tackle Gerald McCoy. “That’s two games in a row where it’s been in our hands at the end. We just didn’t take over. We got to change that. We will.”
The Sooners better.
Regardless of whether and when Sam Bradford returns at QB, OU is not going to win games the way it did last year, blowing people out one after the other.
With a tough conference schedule ahead and all the adversity in injuries offensively, this team is going to have to win some grinders.
In order to avoid disaster, OU needs to take a cue from the 2005 and 2006 teams. Teams that were not as talented as the 2007 and 2008 Sooners; but teams that figured out how to win close games.
After starting the year 2-3, the 2005 Sooners defeated Baylor 37-30, Nebraska on the road 31-24, Texas A&M 36-30 and Oregon 17-14 in the Holiday Bowl. After the 2-3 start, the only close-game loss came at Texas Tech, though the Red Raiders needed a controversial call to win 23-21.
After beginning the season 3-2, ,the 2006 Sooners reeled off 8 straight wins. Among those were a 17-16 victory over Texas A&M in College Station and a 27-21 win over Oklahoma State in Stillwater.
The 2009 Sooners are going to have win the same way. If they do, this season can be salvaged; a fourth straight Big 12 title could even be accomplished.
But if they don’t, 2009 could be a long, long season.
-JT
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Those close losses are on the road, or away from Norman. I would like to see the stats on how many road teams lose close games overall ? I would bet the road team loses most of the time.
This is meaningless without a standard for comparison.
why is it at the Miami game the announcers talked about the weak OU offence and who wasn’t playing who was out. Give some cedit to Brody Eldridge. Played a good game
The Sooners aren’t clutch in close games and they aren’t good in big games. The players come and the players go, but the coaches remain the same. I wonder where the responsibility lies.
What’s wrong Lynn, can’t dispute the facts so you attack the person?
The blog and and Randall are correct, the coaches are the issue here. As long as this staff is together, particularly Wilson and Venerables, OU will not regularly win games against equally talented teams.
[...] put up eye popping statistics against ordinary competition, but fail miserably in the tough games. The Sooners are 1-7 in recent close games. And that doesn’t include games like Florida and Texas last year, or all the way back to the [...]
At present, Keving Wilson and Brent Venables are causing once upon a time “Big Game Bob” to suffer from dwarfism.