A Down Year For Oklahoma Football

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusmail
Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

The 2014 calendar year began on the right foot for the Oklahoma Sooners football program. The Sooners entered the entered 2014 Sugar Bowl as huge underdogs as they were set to square off against the Alabama Crimson Tide. The Sooners would beat the Tide that night in New Orleans primarily on the right arm of freshman quarterback Trevor Knight who shredded Alabama’s defense for 348 passing yards and four passing touchdowns in Oklahoma’s 45-31 victory. And with Knight set to be the Sooners starting quarterback for the 2014 college football season, things were looking up in Norman, Oklahoma.

http://pics.mcclatchyinteractive.com/wire_photos/ky4f3o/picture5154198/alternates/FREE_960/666Russell%20Athletic%20Bowl%20Football.JPEGThe Sooners began this season ranked fourth in the Associated Press Poll and with it they were not only favorites to win the Big 12 Conference, but also to participate in the College Football Playoff. But this season wouldn’t be that cut and dry for Sooners head football coach Bob Stoops and his team. The Sooners would finish fourth in the Big 12 while losing to TCU, Kansas State, and Baylor who all finished ahead of them in the conference standings. Oklahoma’s regular season would end with a home loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys. This marked the first time that the Sooners lost the Bedlam Game at home to the Cowboys since 2001. But in spite of the way that the regular season finished for Boomer Sooner, all wasn’t lost as they had an opportunity to end on a positive note as they clashed with the Clemson Tigers out of the Atlantic Coast Conference earlier this week in the Russell Athletic Bowl. However while Oklahoma was sleepwalking to begin the game, Clemson was wide awake and they would take care of the groggy Sooners as it was over before it started with a decisive 40-6 victory for the guys in orange. The loss to Clemson marked Oklahoma’s second bowl loss in the past three years as they were throttled by the Texas A&M Aggies in the 2013 Cotton Bowl by the score of 41-13. This is the second five loss season for Oklahoma since 2009, but all isn’t lost in Norman as they would follow that campaign up the next season by winning the Big 12. But for Stoops he now has to hear the criticism, fairly or unfairly until next September when Oklahoma begins the college football season with a home game against the Akron Zips.

But Stoops has been one of the best at rallying the troops while consistently producing a national title contender. And at Oklahoma, there’s always a wealth of talent waiting in the wings.

http://cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/154/files/2014/09/samaje-perine-ncaa-football-oklahoma-west-virginia3-850x560.jpg

Semaje Perine

Freshman running back Samaje Perine erupted this past season to show that he is the next in the long line of great running backs for the Sooners. Perine finished the season with 1,713 rushing yards and 21 rushing touchdowns. Perine also set a single-game Football Bowl Subdivision record on November 22 when he rushed for 427 yards versus the Kansas Jayhawks. Knight was unable to have the big impact that was expected of him at the start of the season and that can be attributed to the fact that Oklahoma didn’t have the impact players at wide receivers like they have had in years past as they didn’t have a player gain at least 1,000 receiving yards for the third consecutive season.

Defensively the Sooners will finish 2014 ranked 53rd in the nation in total defense as they had six games where they surrendered at least 30 points. For Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops he can rest on the notion that the majority of his top talent on defense were underclassmen and there is something to build off of. Linebackers Dominique Alexander and Jordan Evans were the top two tacklers for the Sooners this season and they are both set to be juniors next season and the same can be said for defensive back Zack Sanchez who led the team in interceptions with six.

According to ESPN.com, Oklahoma has the 20th ranked recruiting class for 2015 and you can expect Stoops and his staff to attempt to get more talent before National Signing Day. The Big 12 will once again be tough in 2015 and Stoops and his Sooners cannot afford to get lost in the shuffle, but Stoops knows how to develop players thus all is not lost in Norman.

Source: Cfbstats.com, CFBschedules.com, Sports-reference.com

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusmail
Facebooktwittergoogle_plus
By | 2015-01-03T10:50:56+00:00 January 3rd, 2015|Categories: College Football|Tags: , , |0 Comments

About the Author:

Leave A Comment