A Closer Look: #13 Oklahoma Sooners

Game Time/TV: 11:00 am Central/ESPN

The final regular season is this Saturday, in Fort Worth, against the Oklahoma Sooners. For most Frog fans, myself included, this season is far from what we expected. With the injuries and the drug and alcohol issues putting a damper on what could have been a banner year, something the Frogs have still been able to ear is a mountain of respect.

There are not many teams that can go 7-4 after losing 20 key players and fielding a team that is 70% sophomores and freshmen.

Now, the Frogs have the opportunity to finish the season 8-4, a record many fans would have been okay with even with a full roster, and effectively win their season-long battle with attrition.

That comes as a tough task though, as the Sooners come to town ranked #13 in the BCS with a slight chance to win the Big 12.

Needless to say, they’ll be ready.

Landry Jones is going to throw early and often. He’s gone over 500 yards in his past two games, and is averaging 340 passing yards a game, to go along with 27 touchdowns on the season.

Something interesting to note about Landry though: In his first six games of the season, he only threw three interceptions. In the past five games, he’s thrown six.

TCU’s secondary is incredibly adept at picking the ball off, with 20 INT’s on the year, so look for the Frogs to try and capitalize on a Landry miscue.

Landry’s outlandish stats the past two games can be partially credited to an injured Damien Williams, who, after looking healthy again against Baylor and West Virginia, didn’t look like himself against Oklahoma State.

Backup tailback Brennan Clay had a fantastic day when Williams went down against Iowa State, but in splitting time with Williams he hasn’t been too terribly fantastic.

With the way the Frogs run defense has been playing the past few weeks, I’m not very concerned about OU’s running game.

Especially when you consider that Devonte Fields was hoping for an offer from OU that came too late, and should be playing with a mighty chip on his shoulder. I see Fields taking it to an unseen level of beast mode this Saturday.

On the flip side, much like the Longhorns, the Sooners leave a lot to be desired when it comes to stopping the run.

They’re allowing 186 yards on the ground per game, including six games where they gave up over 200 yards rushing. One of those games was against West Virginia, when Tavon Austin broke free for 344 yards on the ground, and the Mountaineers posted 458 rushing yards overall.

If TCU can execute the zone read like they did down in Austin, there’s no reason they can’t get to 200 yards again in this game.

Passing may be a different story though, as the Sooners have the best passing defense in the Big 12 when it comes to yards allowed.

Frankly, that’s OK, because the Frogs don’t throw that much, but there will need to be some semblance of balance if TCU wants to keep OU from loading up the box.

It’s going to take a very well executed game from the Frogs to pull this one out, and avoid the first losing record at Amon G. Carter stadium since 1997, when they went 1-4, with the only win coming against SMU. That season, the SMU victory kept the Frogs from going 0-11. It also kept SMU from going to a bowl game, so we’ll call that season a success.

The last time the Frogs were 3-3 at home was in 1998, when they defeated Air Force, Vanderbilt and Fresno State, while losing to Oklahoma, Wyoming and Rice. The Frogs finished that season 7-5.