NORMAN — Seth Littrell would be the first to tell you OU’s offense didn’t play well on Saturday night.
The Sooners’ offensive coordinator, fresh off his team’s frustrating performance, stood at the lectern postgame and answered every question, taking ownership of the program’s worst offensive performance since their 2022 blowout loss in the Red River Rivalry.
While he largely strayed from pointing to specific fixes that needed to be made, he said it’d be a long night in the film room trying to identify them himself.
“It always starts with me,” Littrell said following the Sooners’ narrow 16-12 victory over Houston. “I’m never going to throw our guys under the bus, because, I’m the one week in week out, it’s my job to put them in the right situations to be successful.
“I’ll take that.”
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OU’s offense didn’t play well enough to win, scoring its lowest point total against an unranked nonconference opponent since a 17-10 loss to TCU in 2005. Head coach Brent Venables said as much when he told SEC Network postgame that his team “deserved to lose.”
Even after the Sooners blew out Temple 51-3 in Week 1, questions whirled about the offense’s “vanilla” play and lack of big plays.
One thing Littrell did point to afterward was OU’s inability to move the chains on third down.The Sooners were 1 for 12 on third down against the Owls and weren’t much better against the Cougars, converting 4 of their 14 tries.
Littrell’s offense also isn’t getting it done on first and second downs. The Sooners’ average third-down distance vs. Houston was 8.7 yards.
“You’ve got to be explosive and I don’t think we’ve been near explosive as of to date,” Littrell said.
The outcome of the Sooners’ offensive drives during the last 40-plus minutes of regulation:
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Punt.
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Punt.
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Punt.
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Interception.
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Punt.
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Missed field goal.
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Punt.
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Punt.
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LIttrell’s offense was outscored by OU’s defense 2-0 in the second half. The offensive line is still banged up, the Sooners are thin at receiver and they clearly haven’t found their identity two regular season games into Littrell’s tenure.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” Venables said of the offense’s disconnect. “So,we’ve got to go back and reevaluate a lot of things, but there’s some opportunities there in the game that allowed us to get a rhythm, and we missed some of those opportunities, so we’ll have to go back and look at that.”
Arnold completed 19 of 32 passes for 174 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Arnold’s biggest plays through the air were for 33, 28 and 15 yards and he averaged 9.15 yards per completion.
“(It was) just a bad night in general,” Arnold said. “A lot of mistakes. A lot of sloppiness. A lot of misses by me. Stuff we’ve gotta get better at and improve on this next week.”
Venables acknowledged Saturday night likely went just as Houston coach Willie Fritz scripted, besides the end result. Littrell didn’t immediately notice the Cougars aiming to control the ball, but he questioned what the need would be given the Sooners couldn’t move the ball anyway.
Another glaring shortcoming in the game was OU’s struggles to get their best playmakers involved. Littrell tried a number of different things to get wide receiver Deion Burks in space, including jet sweeps, but the freakish athlete finished with just 53 receiving yards.
Littrell, a former running back, vowed to run the ball down teams’ throats when he was elevated to play caller. The Sooners’ longest rush Saturday night went for 13 yards.
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When Venables wrapped his on-field interviews, he took a deep sigh of relief and embraced OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. in a handshake and a hug. Despite the lackluster offensive performance, a win is a win.
The man who improved to just 18-10 as a head coach will take them any way he can get them and that was evident by some of the first words he uttered postgame.
Grateful for victory.
Especially during a wild Week 2 where Notre Dame and Auburn can’t say the same and Tulane — who travels to Norman at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday — took No. 16 Kansas State to the wire.
“We have to get a whole heck of a lot better,” Venbales said. “Quickly.”
That starts on offense. Littrell has been doing this for a long time, including six previous seasons as a coordinator and seven as a head coach.
He’s confident in the players he’s coaching and he’s up for the task to correct his mistakes.
“Listen, I understand,” Littrell said. “I’m from Oklahoma. I’ve been born and raised here. I played here. I get it. There are high standards here, and if there weren’t, I wouldn’t want to be here.
“I have high standards of this university, of this program, and so I know exactly what that looks like.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Seth Littrell owns OU football’s lackluster performance vs. Houston
