Just about every team comes to a point in its season where success and failure teeters in the balance, waiting to be nudged one way or the other.
For the last six seasons, Oklahoma has been able to tip the scales toward success when it counted most.
This season could be different.
Saturday’s 41-24 loss to UCLA dropped the Sooners to 1-2 for the first time since 1997, kicking them them out of the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since 1999.
The team that has dominated the Big 12 since 2000 is now the conference’s only team with a losing record.
Clearly, the Sooners are at a crossroads. But coach Bob Stoops still believes his team can find the right path.
“We’re not done,” he said. “I know what all will be written. We’re a work in progress and we’re fighting that and we’re not quitting. We’re going to keep pushing and make improvements each week. If we do, we’ve got a chance to be a good team.”
That makes this week a very critical one for the Sooners. This is their first off week of the season. In the past, times like these were used for working on future opponents. Instead, OU will spend its off week taking a good look at itself.
“We’re going to get back to basics, back to fundamentals.” offensive coordinator Chuck Long said.
It’s a coaching cliché, but it’s where the Sooners’ attention has to be after three non-conference games that were anything but fundamentally sound.
Against the Bruins, OU committed three turnovers, upping its season total to nine. Perhaps equally alarming is the number of times the Sooners have pounced on their own fumbles. There’s no doubt ball security is going to be an issue this week and beyond.
It was the difference against UCLA and the continuation of a trend that has stunted any growth OU’s offense has tried to make this season.
“It’s something we can control,” offensive lineman Davin Joseph said. “Ball security is the No. 1 goal we have up on our board right now and we just can’t accomplish it.”
It’s a problem the Sooners haven’t had to deal with in the past. Last year’s team only gave the ball up 18 times in 13 games.
“It has been unlike us,” Stoops said. “Unfortunately, it’s like us now.”
Most of the problems have occurred during the snap between center Chris Chester and quarterback Rhett Bomar.
Long believes some of it is experience related. Bomar, a redshirt freshman, played almost exclusively out of the shotgun prior to coming to OU and this is the first season where he’s taken the bulk of the snaps from under center.
Also, Chester became the starting center just two weeks ago. He and Bomar, for whatever reason, have struggled with their timing.
Of course most teams solve such problems in August. OU’s have hung around well into September.
The Sooners are hoping greener pastures await in October.
“We can’t sit here and make excuses and point fingers,” fullback J.D. Runnels said. “We have to get better. We have to move on.”
John Shinn366-3536jshinn@normantranscript.com
OU Sports
Sooners at a crossroads
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