OU football grades vs. Missouri as Sooners' defense slows Ahmad Hardy
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NORMAN — The Sooners don’t have a secret sauce. They do just enough offensively, dominate defensively and come up with a big play or two on special teams.
That was the formula Saturday afternoon in OU’s 17-6 win against Missouri.
Let’s get to the grades.
Slowing Ahmad Hardy: A+
The Missouri tailback entered the game not only leading the nation with 1,346 rushing yards but also ranking tops in the country with 937 yards after contact, according to Pro Football Focus.
Against the OU defense, Hardy ran decent but not crazy.
I’ll let the good folks at Pro Football Focus provide an exact number for yards after contact, but of Hardy’s 57 rushing yards Saturday — his second lowest total in a game this season — I’d estimate that 15 came after the Sooners made first contact.
When the Sooners got to Hardy, they largely got him to the ground.
That was key to holding Missouri to a season-low 70 rushing yards, more than 170 yards below its average entering the game, 241.7 yards.
— Jenni Carlson, columnist
Peyton Bowen: A
Peyton Bowen almost blocked Missouri’s first field goal attempt. There was no almost on Missouri’s second attempt. Bowen got his full hand on it.
It was an especially big play given that Missouri initially looked to be going for it on a fourth-and-3 deep in Sooner territory. Eli Drinkwitz and Brent Venables traded timeouts, and ultimately Drinkwitz decided to kick.
Bowen made another big play by deflecting a deep ball in the third quarter, but his special teams swat was one of the key moments of the day.
– Joe Mussatto, columnist
John Mateer: C
Not sure what to make of the OU quarterback anymore. He’s definitely not what he was a year ago at Washington State and clearly not what he showed before his thumb either. But these days, going 14 of 30 passing for 173 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions while adding 60 yards rushing is pretty average for Mateer.
And in the end when OU needed to run clock and ice the game, Mateer was strong. He had five runs for 26 yards on the Sooners’ final possession.
The drive melted nearly four minutes off the clock and put Missouri in a no-win situation against the OU defense.
Bottom line, Mateer doesn’t look like he’s capable of winning the Sooners games, but right now, he isn’t costing them victories either.
— Jenni Carlson, columnist
Isaiah Sategna III: A
There wasn’t much going through the air for the Sooners. Not until Isaiah Sategna housed a slant route 87 yards for a touchdown.
Sategna is the only explosive element on this OU offense.
He had three catches for 109 yards. OU’s second-leading wide receiver was Keontez Lewis with 12 yards.
— Joe Mussatto, columnist
Dumb penalties: F
Against an opponent well-equipped in shortening the game, you have to play as clean a game as possible.
Don’t hurt yourself, in other words.
And the OU defense committed a pair of unnecessary and unforced personal fouls in the first half that ultimately didn’t cost the Sooners in the win-loss column but were nevertheless unacceptable.
The first came early in the second quarter after a third-and-7 play on which the Sooners had actually forced an incompletion. OU was about to get the ball back, but when Missouri receiver Brett Norfleet ended up sprawled out of bounds on the Sooner sideline, PJ Adebawore decided to stand over Norfleet. Or maybe it was Danny Okoye. The officials announced an unsportsmanlike penalty, initially called on Adebawore that was switched to Okoye, but the official play-by-play said Adebawore was the guilty party.
Either way, first down Missouri.
A bit later in the quarter, OU blocked a Missouri field goal on a heck of a play by Bowen, but in the aftermath, Gracen Halton tackled a Tiger and wouldn’t let him up. It drew another unsportsmanlike that forced a struggling OU offense to start on its own 10.
Just not smart in either instance.
— Jenni Carlson, columnist
OU running backs: Absent (except for X-Rob)
Missouri running backs combined for 22 carries in the first half. OU running backs? Two carries. Xavier Robinson had them both. For a total of 7 yards.
With Robinson and freshman Tory Blaylock both battling injuries, OU is awfully thin at the position. Jaydn Ott has been a season-long no-show. Jovantae Barnes appears portal-bound. Taylor Tatum is on the team only in theory.
Robinson gutted out a pretty good performance as the lone back Saturday. Blaylock played a handful of snaps but didn’t record a carry.
Robinson ran for 42 yards on 12 carries. He had a team-high four receptions.
– Joe Mussatto, columnist
Grayson Miller: A+
Player of the game?
Not even kidding.
Miller punted nine times for 404(!) yards. An average of 45 yards per boot. He had five punts of 50-plus yards and four times he pinned the Tigers inside the 20-yard line.
Miller averaged 5 more yards per punt than his counterpart, Missouri punter Connor Weselman.
That adds up in a field-possession game.
– Joe Mussatto, columnist
Uniforms matchup: D
Let me start by saying, I’m not anti-anthracite. The deep gray that lots of teams have taken to wearing as an alternate uniform color isn’t necessarily bad. But when it’s impossible to read the numbers? Then anthracite is terrible.
And it is darn near impossible to read the numbers on OU’s Unity alternates. That’s never good, and it’s even worse when the name on the back of every jersey is UNITY.
Uniforms are worn so we can tell who’s who — and it was impossible with the Sooners.
Missouri could’ve helped matters a bit, but instead of the Tigers wearing their traditional black helmet with block M, they went with a white helmet. White helmets and white jerseys rarely look good together.
About the only good thing about this uniform matchup was Missouri’s gold shorts.
— Jenni Carlson, columnist
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at @jennicarlsonok.bsky.social and twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football grades vs. Mizzou as Sooners stifle Ahmad Hardy, Tigers
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