Yeah, Sooner fans should panic.
The talent disparity on the field yesterday was the widest I've seen in Texas' favor. The only comparable talent disparity in my lifetime was probably 1987, when OU was ranked #1, and the line for the game was something obscene... like 30 points... and they fucking covered. Oof.
The rosters of the two schools have made seismic shifts in the last 30 months or so, and they've been in opposite directions. OU has a lot less talent than they did under Riley. We have a lot more talent overall compared to the Herman years. Herman had a number of NFL players, but also a LOT of JAGs, and we had BIG drop-offs from starter to backup at almost every spot.
Our roster right now is pretty ridiculous. I mean, you could take our backup QB and a couple of "backup" WR, and all three would start at most every program in the country.
The OU offense is Shawn Watson-era bad. I mean, they don't have a line, they don't have a QB, they don't have skill guys, they don't have a system, they don't know what they fuck they're doing, and they don't have a plan to fix it.
As others have said: Venables was a really great DC in an era you could steal signals. Right now he's totally getting outclassed in every phase of this rivalry game, and it's pretty obvious that he has no fucking idea how to fix it. Mississippi Fucking State had better players, a better gameplan, and better execution vs Texas than OU did in the game they've been scheming up for 365 days.
And yeah, I'm aware that their entire WR room was out yesterday. But several of those guys who were out were pretty JAG-ish. And I'm not sure having them play would have made it worlds better. What were they going to do with those WR - call MORE drop-back passes and have Hawkins make MORE downfield throws while running for his life? That translates into more sacks, more incompletions, more possessions thanks to those clock-stopping incompletions. Very high chances for strip sacks and picks.
They'd probably have been better off yesterday running zone reads or down-the-line option football. Those couldn't have failed any harder than that little delayed misdirection handoff and a bunch of QB draws.
Yes, I'm gloating.