Nah. I've given this game a pretty deep think and we're going to stomp the shit out of them wire-to-wire.
They literally won't be able to do anything on offense. If they favor the run (which they will, because their entire WR corps is injured) we won't stay in dime like we did against MSU. We will adjust our gameplan to match what they're doing. Our defense is better overall than it was last year and their offense is much, much worse. Our DBs in particular have improved, and although the DTs have gotten a bit worse, the fall off is not that bad. Plus we're better at the edges. Almost all CFB games come down to which team has the better QB? They've got a true freshman at QB who, although talented, is not nearly on Ewers' level. Our safeties are going to pick up the slack that we've seen in the run game (mostly from our LBs) and that will be that for them on offense. I'll be shocked if they score more than 10 points.
On the other side of the ball - our offense is in an entirely different league than theirs. We have one of the nastiest o-lines in CFB, we have a veteran QB who can comfortably distribute the ball against pretty much any defense, we have an insane stable WR who are among the best in the country. Our RB room is thin and one of our RBs is prone to turning the ball over. And turnovers are the one thing that might kill us. But I'm not overly preoccupied about that for a few reasons:
(1) If Blue can't get his shit together, bench him. Problem solved. But what if we need Blue's pass blocking? What if we're worried about depth and don't want him to quit on the season?
(2) Just lean on the passing game. Yes, I would rather the offense be balanced and I would rather be "run first," but our passing game is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. It's fucking nuclear. We can bomb it all over the field and I don't see how they'll stop us. Quinn is not perfect, but he's not at all prone to throwing picks. And if they overcommit to stop the pass then that makes the running game that much easier, regardless of Blue's deficiencies. But, more importantly....
(3) I think Blue will clean it up and have a great game. Tashard Choice is still his coach. Dude is still in his contract year. He's had two weeks to think about this and work on things. Blue knows he needs to hit some home runs on the big stage to make an impression on the NFL. He can't afford to have a bad game and I think he will do everything possible to see that he doesn't. And if he still does, despite his best effort, see points (1) and (2).
Their defense is good, but it's not much better than Michigan's, if at all. And Sark STILL hasn't gotten deep in his bag this year. We immediately went vanilla against Michigan when he saw the game over. If we need it - and I don't think we will - Sark can pull out the stops and show OU some shit they haven't prepared for. I'd rather save that for UGA if we can, but we don't have to. There are just too many ways for our offense to beat the best defenses in the country, and OU is not one of those.
We're not sleep walking into this game like we did last year. We are better and they are worse. We are absolutely going to ruin their Saturday and I don't think it will be close.