- Looking for a College Football Playoff sleeper? Consider Oklahoma, after its takedown of Michigan.
- Oklahoma’s defense delivers an effort reminiscent of how Brent Venables’ defenses played at Clemson.
- John Mateer helps revive Sooners’ offense with daring throws and dogged runs.
NORMAN, OK – Here inside the Palace on the Prairie, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain, takes place one of college football’s most iconic traditions.
Two gorgeous white ponies, named “Boomer” and “Sooner,” pull a prairie schooner across the field whenever the home team scores. And in Oklahoma’s heyday, when the points came aplenty, those ponies better have been well fed and hydrated, because they cruised that wagon across the field like it was their personal play pen.
Then, the points dried up, the losses mounted, and the Sooner Schooner could have had a broken axle for as little as it moved last season, and the ponies might as well have been out to pasture.
The wagon’s rolling again, after an offseason overhaul inside Oklahoma’s program came to fruition in the Sooners’ first showdown with a ranked opponent.
Oklahoma’s offense showed just enough punch, and the No. 24 Sooners defense packed a haymaker in a 24-13 smothering of No. 13 Michigan. The dominating performance announced Oklahoma’s presence as a worthy College Football Playoff sleeper.
The Sooners had Michigan in a vise all night. If not for one 75-yard run, the Wolverines never would’ve crossed the goal line. One of Michigan’s field goals came after Oklahoma muffed a punt.
Coach Brent Venables grabbed the dial and turned down the heat on his hot seat with this complete performance, in what felt like a must-win game for a coach who’d produced two losing records within his first three seasons at this blue blood.
After this performance, give that man another raise and contract extension! Just kidding, but, seriously, the Sooners played like an improved team.
Oklahoma defense a throwback showing for Brent Venables
This must have been the type of defensive performance Oklahoma envisioned when it hired Venables. When Kendal Daniels destroyed Michigan’s Justice Haynes on a screen pass, it would have counted as the stiffest hit of the entire Lincoln Riley era. BOOM-er, Sooner.
Who can say how good Michigan’s offense will prove to be? It looked a mess last season. True freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood offers promise, but he lacked the polish to handle a defense of this caliber, in his first road start. The Sooners never allowed Underwood to find a rhythm, and he misfired among the few times he had open targets.
As well as Oklahoma’s defense played, it needed its offense to hold up its end of the bargain. In a reverse of last season, it did.
If Oklahoma’s 24 points don’t sound like an outburst, consider the opponent. Michigan’s defense has ranked among the nation’s best for years. Also, consider the rut out of which this offense crawled. Oklahoma failed to produce more than 20 points in six games last season.
Venables aimed to rectify that by hiring a new offensive coordinator and landing a coveted transfer quarterback, John Mateer, along with a few other playmakers.
Venables also decided he’d call the defense himself after that unit failed to meet his standard last year.
In a make-or-break season, if Venables was going to go down, he’d go down doing what he does best – orchestrating the defense. That defense kept Underwood under duress, with a performance that evoked memories of Venables’ destructive defenses at Clemson.
John Mateer shows off big-play abilities
Venables earned some goodwill, or at least seeded some optimism, with how he handled the offseason, but preseason vibes can evaporate within just a few hours of a single Saturday. Ask Billy Napier about that.
Oklahoma’s performance should breed confidence. It showed that the preseason narrative about the Sooners possessing enough talent to pursue a playoff bid might have merit.
Oklahoma’s offense didn’t ignite a barrage of fireworks like the teams from yesteryear that gave “Boomer” and “Sooner” a workout. But, it made enough plays to complement the defense.
Mateer showed his elusiveness while leading the team in rushing, and he slipped away from a pass rusher before firing an arrow up the sideline to transfer wideout Isaiah Sategna III to set up a second-half touchdown that Oklahoma desperately needed.
Mateer missed some throws, and he was fortunate to only be intercepted once. In one brutal sequence, Mateer couldn’t connect with an open target on a flea-flicker, and after throwing two more incompletions while harassed by pass rushers, Oklahoma missed a field goal that would’ve made this win more comfortable.
But, Mateer also made some daring completions and dogged runs. The man’s got big-play capabilities, just as he showed quarterbacking Washington State. Pair Mateer with a healthy Deion Burks and the versatile Sategna, and Oklahoma has the ingredients of an offense that went M.I.A. all throughout 2024.
Mateer led Oklahoma on an impressive 8-minute march late in the fourth quarter that ended in a field goal, allowing Sooners fans to exhale.
Those final Oklahoma points sent the white ponies onto the field once more, pulling a wagon that’s cruising through the Palace again, revived by a transfer quarterback and a menacing defense.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
(This story was updated to change a video.)