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Oklahoma hasn’t won much on the road this season, and a trip to Lubbock doesn’t exactly help the situation.
The Sooners, who have a 1-4 road record that includes two neutral site losses, play Texas Tech at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium, where coach Bob Stoops hasn’t won since 2003.
“We know the past two times we’ve been down there we’ve lost,” said OU running back DeMarco Murray. “Last year we beat them here at home, but it’s always a crazy time when playing down in Lubbock. Their fans are pretty crazy. I think we need to be immune to it and settle down.”
The Red Raiders (6-4, 3-3 in Big 12 Conference play) won in 2005 when former running back Taurean Henderson scored a depending-on-which-camera-angle-you-look-at last-second touchdown just a few plays after receiver Danny Amendola converted a controversial fourth down.
Then in 2007, the Sooners (6-4, 4-2 in Big 12 play) were ranked No. 4 in the nation with then-redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Bradford under center. But he left the game with a concussion in the first quarter and Tech rolled to a 34-27 win.
With the Sooners trying to avoid losing three football games in Lubbock for the first time, Tech linebacker Bront Bird said he can understand how teams want to get at least one win before a particular group of seniors leave.
He referred to the Red Raiders’ struggles in Stillwater, Okla., where they lost to Oklahoma State 24-17 last week.
“No one likes to have that label on them: ‘Well you can’t win in a certain city,’ or, ‘You can’t win at this stadium,’ or, ‘You are not capable of that,’ or, ‘You haven’t done it in the last six trips,’ or whatever it is,” Bird said. “No one likes that, and everybody would like to be able to remove that label from their team.”
Which is what the Sooners will be trying to do, Bird said, and it doesn’t matter that they’ve lost four games for the first time since 2005.
It’s still Oklahoma, and no one understands that better than Tech coach Mike Leach, who coached under Bob Stoops in 1999 before coming to Lubbock. Since then, Stoops has won seven of nine meetings between the two coaches.
As far as OU’s struggles on the road, Stoops pointed to turnovers. The Sooners have 17 turnovers on the road while only forcing 11. At home, they have committed five and forced 12.
“You have to look at everything,” Stoops said. “The opponent probably makes a difference, the style of defenses you’re going against, the number of turnovers you get. Whether you’re at home or on the road it all goes together.”
With redshirt freshman Landry Jones looking more comfortable each week, the Sooner offense has slowly been coming around.
The Sooner defense has been among the nation’s best, statistically, all season, but the offense just racked up 32 first downs and 640 total yards in a 65-10 rout of Texas A&M.
The same Aggies who demolished Tech 52-30 earlier this season, prompting Leach to comment on the “fat little girlfriends” telling his players that a 66-14 win against Kansas State (who thrashed A&M similarly) automatically equals a victory against the in-state rival.
But if there is one “hole” Tech can attack it’s the offensive line, which has seen nine players all season and couldn’t protect Bradford enough to keep him healthy.
But Bird’s not buying any weakness on the offensive line.
“Well people said the same thing about (Texas) A&M and they came in here and blocked better than they ever had on film,” he said. “So you can never underestimate anybody in the Big 12.”
The Red Raiders are third in the nation with 33 sacks; defensive end Brandon Sharpe leads the team with 11.5. Tech’s pressure on the quarterback is a major storyline in a season filled with defensive triumphs and offensive misfortune — something not commonly seen under Leach.
A lot of that has to do with his uncertainty at quarterback. He said he may have shuffled quarterbacks too much against Oklahoma State, when he took out Taylor Potts in the second quarter, replaced him with a hobbled Steven Sheffield and put Potts back in late in the game.
The depth chart released on Thursday revealed that Potts will start against the Sooners.
And based on Leach’s comments this past week, expect Potts to stay in the whole game.
Then there is the record.
Tied with former coach Spike Dykes at 82, Leach is one win away from becoming the all-time winningest football coach in Tech history.
And on senior day at Jones AT&T Stadium, players such as right tackle Marlon Winn would love to put him in sole possession of that record. Not only would a win give Leach the record, but it would give Tech a seventh victory to become bowl eligible.
“A bowl game is important, but it’s just not our biggest issue right now,” Winn said. “Our biggest issue is Oklahoma coming up and that is kind of all we are really worried about right now.”
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