NORMAN - At Notre Dame.
Home versus TCU.
Texas in Dallas.
About the time players reported for practice last month, this three-game stretch in Oklahoma's schedule seemed disagreeable at best and torturous at worst, given the Sooners were breaking in new players to fit new roles created by new schemes in both their offense and defense.
They figured to get somewhat comfortable over three fairly friendly home games to open the season, and they have. Wins over Louisiana-Monroe, West Virginia and Tulsa make the Sooners 3-0 heading into their Sept. 28 trip to Notre Dame.
"There's a ton to coach up on," coach Bob Stoops said after last week's 51-20 victory over Tulsa, "but I like the direction we're going and the way it's progressing."
The coaches at Notre Dame, TCU and Texas would struggle to say the same. The three teams expected to give OU fits are a combined 4-5, with varying degrees of early-season problems.
Inconsistent Irish
The 2-1 Fighting Irish had to rally to defeat Big Ten softie Purdue 31-24 last week.
"We're still finding out who's the middle linebacker, who's playing safety, who's playing wide receiver," Irish coach Brian Kelly said the day after Purdue. "Gaining an identity defensively, changing a starting quarterback from last year to this year, I knew it was going to take us a little time to get the pieces together."
Last year, Kelly knew what he had in middle linebacker Manti Te'o and safety Zeke Motta, captains and leading tacklers that they were. He had Everett Golson, a freshman quarterback poised enough to engineer a 30-13 victory at OU.
Now, Te'o and Motta are in the NFL. Golson is suspended from school.
Golson's replacement, Tommy Rees, has had his uneven moments leading an inconsistent offense that scored just three points in the first half at Purdue. And while Notre Dame's defensive numbers aren't bad, they are nowhere near what they were a year ago. The Irish gave up 460 yards in a 41-30 loss Sept. 7 at Michigan.
The Sooners might just top the 13 they scored on Notre Dame last year, particularly now that Blake Bell has arrived to rescue the passing game. Combine Bell's emergence with that of an OU defense that could trouble Rees, and there is a real opportunity for the Sooners to win this game for the first time in 57 years.
Frog warts
From South Bend, it's back home to face TCU. The Horned Frogs' 20-10 loss at Texas Tech last Thursday left them 1-2 overall, a step behind in the Big 12 Conference race, and with a head coach more angst-ridden than Kelly.
"I'm not gonna throw coaches underneath the bus. I'm not gonna throw players underneath the bus ... We need to have better leadership and we need to have better coaching, and that starts with the head coach," Gary Patterson said on the Big 12 teleconference Monday. "This is one of those situations where when things aren't going the way you want to, whether it's players, coaches, fans, everybody has a reason why you didn't do the things you needed to do. We need to fix some of those things."
Mostly, the Frogs need to fix an offense that ranks eighth in the league in rushing, ninth in passing and ninth in total offense. Patterson has already switched quarterbacks twice - Trevone Boykin replaced Casey Pachall during a season-opening loss to LSU, then again after Pachall broke his arm during TCU's victory over Southeastern Louisiana on Sept. 7.
With Pachall sidelined another several weeks, it's Boykin's offense moving forward. Meaning, OU should be able load up to stop the run when the Frogs visit Norman on Oct. 5.
It won't be easy for the Sooners to string together scoring drives that day. It never is against Patterson's defenders. But Pachall's injury and the disconcerting start to TCU's season sets up to make OU's overall job a little easier than previously expected.
The sighs of Texas
Right now, it's hard to imagine OU's job against Texas on Oct. 12 being too tough. The Longhorns have struggled to hold up against Stoops' Sooners even with fortified players boasting a winning record. This year's group is a 1-2 mess.
The offense has taken injury hits at quarterback, receiver and on the line. The defense, 114th-ranked overall and 121st against the run, is simply taking on water. So is the coaching staff.
Mack Brown sacrificed defensive coordinator Manny Diaz after a 40-21 loss at BYU on Sept. 7. The Longhorns responded last Saturday by losing to Mississippi 44-23.
Now Brown is responding to questions about his own job security.
"All I can do is worry about what I can control," he said on the Big 12 teleconference. "Nobody here is blinking."
Nobody in Norman is, either, not at the sight of burnt orange in the Cotton Bowl in three weeks. Between then and now, OU faces Notre Dame and TCU.
If you suggest that what once seemed like a hard three-game grind has softened considerably, Stoops will scoff.
"How could going to Notre Dame be easy?" he said this week. "They're an incredibly tough, good football team with great quarterback play. It'll be a huge challenge ...
"TCU, before the year, I heard everyone talking about how they had a chance to be (Big 12) champions.
"They're all good. In our eyes, anyone can beat anybody. When you're the one that has to play, you know that. You just have to be at your best."
Sure. But it helps to know that since practice and predictions have given way to games and realities, it's clear that Notre Dame, TCU and Texas haven't been at theirs.
OU up next
At Notre Dame
2:30 p.m. Sept. 28
TV: KJRH-9/2
Radio: KMOD fm97.5, KTBZ am1430
tulsaworld.com
VIDEO: OU, OSU coverage
Tulsa World sports columnist John E. Hoover and sports editor Michael Peters talk about the OSU-SI investigation and Blake Bell's breakout game at quarterback for OU.
tulsaworld.com/sportsextra
Guerin Emig 918-581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: On Second Thought
OU
The final two games are May 16 and 17 at ONEOK Field in Tulsa. Each of the Tulsa starts are at 7 p.m.
