AllSooners Oklahoma-ASU Postgame
AllSooners' John Hoover, Ryan Chapman and Randall Sweet break down Oklahoma's 73-0 victory over Arkansas State on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023.
Transcript
00:00 Hey, what's up everybody?
00:01 We're here at Owen Field.
00:03 Man, what a game.
00:04 73 to nothing, Oklahoma opens the 2023 college football season.
00:09 Year two of the Brent Benton Belairs has begun with a thunderclap.
00:13 73 nothing over Arkansas State.
00:15 Man, so much to talk about today, so much to get to.
00:18 We'll try to get it all in here at all sooners.
00:21 I wanna start with the obvious.
00:23 They spent the entire off season and the preseason and the spring season and
00:27 the weight room season talking about being better on third down.
00:31 How do we be better on third down was the question.
00:33 Brent Venables got asked a lot, probably by his players,
00:36 certainly by the media.
00:38 The question is, how are they better on third down?
00:41 Ryan, they were significantly better against Arkansas State today on both
00:45 offense and defense.
00:47 >> Yeah, let's start with the offense, 11 of 14, that's what they finished.
00:50 The first third down they did not convert officially after the face mask was
00:55 the last third down for Oklahoma's offense of the first half.
00:58 So it was steady, and it didn't really matter, John,
01:01 whether it was a third and four and Drake Stoops was hit for a 14 yard game.
01:05 There was no Dylan Gabriel missed anybody on third down today,
01:08 whether it was leaving it to those guys up front.
01:12 And I asked Dylan Gabriel, I noticed something during the game move.
01:14 It seemed like Oklahoma slowed the tempo down a bit right before those third downs.
01:18 And I asked Dylan Gabriel about that, and he said basically,
01:21 they're not about tempo, tempo, tempo.
01:23 It's about controlling the game and controlling how they wanna play.
01:26 Oklahoma did that today, and you saw that offensively on the defensive side of
01:30 the football, all that depth, everything.
01:32 It panned out as they held a pretty poor Arkansas State offense to two of 12 on
01:37 third down, there was one big play, a 42 yard, I believe,
01:41 catch that Brent Minnable said was basically a mental bust in the post game
01:45 press conference.
01:45 But you saw a really consistent level of play, a really consistent level of
01:50 physicality that Brent Minnable's like that he didn't necessarily see
01:53 from this team a year ago.
01:54 >> Yeah, 642 yards for the Oklahoma offense, 208 for
01:58 the Arkansas State offense.
02:00 So you saw a real disparity in talent.
02:02 I'm not gonna say coaching, not yet, but just across the board.
02:06 It was boot, it was the heel of the boot to Arkansas State's face, basically.
02:12 It was pretty rough.
02:13 And one of those reasons that Oklahoma's offense was so efficient,
02:18 so effective on third down, you saw a lot of Drake Stoops catches as Ryan mentioned
02:22 and so on and so forth.
02:23 Gavin Freeman, I think, had a big one as well.
02:26 Was because of the play of the wide receivers, Randall.
02:28 >> Yeah, I mean, we kind of talked about it all off season.
02:31 This wide receiver room is a real question mark on the Oklahoma offense.
02:35 They don't have a lot of guys who have production and
02:38 they don't have a lot of guys who have production at Oklahoma.
02:41 But that didn't seem to be a problem today.
02:43 We saw Andrew Anthony, a guy who, playing his first career game in Oklahoma,
02:47 getting in the starting lineup.
02:48 Not only did he make a huge catch, a long catch on the first drive of the game, but
02:52 he had countless pass interference penalties that could have been touchdowns or
02:55 deep gains after that.
02:57 So if you add up those penalty yards, he was a big time player for the Sooners today.
03:01 Obviously, we saw Gavin Freeman catch a touchdown, 82 yard punt return touchdown.
03:05 We heard about him all summer, so
03:07 should we really be surprised that he's playing this well?
03:09 And then some other names, you mentioned Drake Stoops,
03:12 he caught the first touchdown of the game.
03:14 Jaden Gibson made two incredible catches, one in the back of the end zone and
03:17 one that got him down on about the one yard line.
03:19 Jaquez Pettaway, playing his first ever OU game, he looked great out there.
03:24 I mean, him and Jackson Arnold, you think that that's gonna be a great duo going
03:27 forward, those two freshmen,
03:29 they really seem to have a good feel for each other there.
03:31 So in that receiver room, we kinda wondered how they would look, and
03:36 at least in week one against Arkansas State, they looked phenomenal.
03:38 >> The receivers came into this season with Drake Stoops with 80 career catches,
03:42 and Jalil Farouk, I think, had 39 last year, something like that.
03:45 It wasn't a big number.
03:46 Nobody else, Gavin Freeman, had three.
03:49 Nobody else had contributed.
03:51 About midway through the first quarter, maybe early second quarter,
03:54 I looked down on the field and I said, geez,
03:55 who's gonna lead this team in receiving this year?
03:57 Is it gonna be Anthony?
03:58 Is it gonna be Stoops?
03:59 Is it gonna be Freeman?
04:01 A bunch of, and it's here, it's the freshmen, Jaquez Pettaway today,
04:04 with nine catches.
04:05 So only six yards per catch, but you could tell what we had talked about
04:09 previously many times was the receivers look like they're green and
04:13 we don't trust them to make a bunch of plays.
04:15 These guys were out here making plays today.
04:17 Again, Arkansas State, but Jackson Arnold, quarterback, and
04:22 Dylan Gabriel, starting quarterback, look like they've got a little bit of
04:25 an embarrassment of riches at the receiver position.
04:28 They didn't really utilize much of the tight end today.
04:30 I think a couple of catches by those guys,
04:31 couple of nice plays with the ball in their hands.
04:34 But the quarterbacks were phenomenal today.
04:38 >> Well-oiled machine through the air, 19 of 22 for Dylan Gabriel,
04:42 11 of 11 for Jackson Arnold.
04:44 >> 11 of 11.
04:45 >> In case you're keeping score at home, that is three balls hitting the turf,
04:48 nothing else.
04:49 Couple of touchdowns through the air for Gabriel, one for Arnold,
04:51 both getting one on the ground.
04:53 And I know everyone was excited to see Jackson Arnold, and
04:56 he looked as comfortable as could be.
04:58 In the post game, he kind of laughed.
05:00 Everyone was asking, do you have nerves?
05:01 He's the guy that's talked about getting nervous before, and he's like, well,
05:04 when you're up by that much at halftime coming into the game,
05:06 you kind of know there's a no pressure situation.
05:08 So the birthday boy got that done.
05:10 He even got a little bit dirty.
05:12 He had talked to Jeff Levy on the sideline during the game about wanting
05:15 to run the football, and Jeff Levy said, okay, fine,
05:17 we want to get him roughed up, see how he responds to that.
05:19 So check that box and got an extended run, which is what Oklahoma needs from
05:23 Jackson Arnold to get this kind of experience at the non-conference in case
05:26 he is unfortunately called upon during the regular season.
05:29 But when Dylan Gabriel's out here throwing darts left, right, and
05:33 center, not inaccurate, it didn't look like much of any trouble or
05:37 anything like that for Dylan Gabriel.
05:38 No one has to worry about Jackson Arnold being called upon to replace anybody
05:42 because Gabriel was letting it fly and drawing those pass interferences with
05:45 Andrew Lengthy, like you said, Randall.
05:47 He was accurate.
05:48 He was letting his guys make plays.
05:50 It was a really, really, really accurate and
05:52 just cool, calm, collected performance from Dylan Gabriel.
05:55 It'll be interesting to see if next week,
05:57 those guys are called upon a little bit more with an SMU offense across them that
06:01 can really score.
06:02 >> You look at one of the reasons that they're 30 of 33 passing the football.
06:07 There was no pressure on the Oklahoma quarterbacks.
06:09 The offensive line, I thought, did a great job.
06:12 Someone else who did a great job was Arkansas State's offensive line.
06:15 There was no pressure on the Arkansas State quarterbacks.
06:17 Only one sack and it came late in the game.
06:19 If Brent Venables were here, he would nitpick and
06:22 he would nitpick a lot of things.
06:23 We're gonna help him.
06:24 We're gonna nitpick the pass rush.
06:26 There's not much to pick from, but that's one of the things.
06:29 Even though my man Danny Stutzman said I would give our team, our defense,
06:33 he said, a 60, a D minus.
06:36 He said he grades crazy and Venables grades even harder.
06:40 But that pass rush was a little bit lacking today.
06:42 Tell us why.
06:43 >> Yeah, Brent Venables said in the post game press conference that he wasn't too
06:47 worried about the pass rush.
06:49 I think his exact quote was, you guys didn't get to see it, but
06:51 those guys are doing well.
06:52 Something to that effect.
06:54 But he did say that Arkansas State was keeping in eight a lot to use max
06:58 protection, really make sure that that Oklahoma defensive line couldn't get after
07:02 their quarterback.
07:03 And I mean, even despite that max protection,
07:06 even despite all that the lack of pressure that OU's defensive line,
07:09 we thought might be able to penetrate, but they weren't able to.
07:12 Arkansas State still didn't have any success throwing the ball.
07:15 I mean, we saw one deep play that Roof and
07:18 Venables kind of mentioned was a coverage bust.
07:20 But despite them not getting that pressure,
07:23 they still performed well in the eyes of Venables and
07:27 they still held Arkansas State's passing offense in check.
07:30 >> I would assume that in the coming weeks when you play teams that aren't
07:35 leaving eight in, that aren't leaving the tight end,
07:36 they're running back in to help that quarterback out.
07:39 I think you could see Rondell Bothred, I think you could see Ethan Downs,
07:42 a handful of guys get to the quarterback.
07:44 I think Ethan Downs was the one who did it today.
07:46 So I would not be surprised in the coming weeks if that defensive line puts up some
07:51 better numbers when maybe the offensive play caller isn't focusing on them as much.
07:57 >> 73-0 was the final score.
07:59 It was the largest margin of victory in an Oklahoma season opener.
08:03 Brent Venable said in 106 years, 108 years, something like that.
08:06 >> 106 years is what he said.
08:07 >> He said there's been a lot of teams through here.
08:09 Team 129 is the one that he's worried about now.
08:12 And frankly, his coaching record is back to 500, seven and seven officially.
08:18 After today, next week, SMU right here, 5 PM game.
08:22 Stick with us here at All Sooners.
08:23 We're gonna have the whole thing covered all week.
08:26 Post game press conference is loading.
08:28 All the players quotes are loading, interviews, stories, box score.
08:35 >> And the podcast cuz we can't possibly fit everything in here to this video.
08:39 >> Certified fresh from right up there in the press box plus.
08:42 We'll be here all week, next week, Monday, Tuesday, throughout the week,
08:45 bringing you coverage of Oklahoma versus SMU.
08:48 Stick right here with allsooners.com.
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