Oklahoma Sooners, Jackson Arnold need more help in these three areas to improve their offense

The Oklahoma Sooners' offense has been a significant cause for concern over their first two weeks.

Oklahoma sits 80th in EPA/Play, 105th(!) in yards/play, and 109th in success rate after playing Temple and Houston . This level of play is downright unacceptable at Oklahoma, and they better get right quickly with SEC play right around the corner.

They've battled numerous injuries on the offensive line and at wide receiver, significantly affecting their struggles on offense. However, I think there are some schematic things the Sooners need to tweak moving forward to help make things easier for the players who can play, especially QB Jackson Arnold.

Lack of Creativity On Third Down

The Sooners' inability to convert on third down has been abysmal this season. They converted just 1-of-12 against Temple and went 4-of-14 against Houston.

Part of this is their poor play on early downs. Their average third-down distance is a whopping 8.6 yards, something that is just way too much for a young quarterback to deal with even without the injuries on the o-line and receiver corps.

However, even when they do get to third downs, the play calls are unimaginative. Just six plays on their third downs have any sort of motion, which is simply startling. Oklahoma has so many young receivers playing that have struggled to separate in pure man coverage situations. Deploying motion frees them up more easily and can make life easier for Jackson Arnold as well.

What makes this even more odd is that Oklahoma uses plenty of motion. They used motion on 29 of their plays against Houston (43.5%) but that number dropped to just two (and it might just be one, looking at the film) on third downs. What's worse is that they scored a touchdown on one of those plays, their second and final one of the game.

Houston called Cover 0 or Cover 1 on nearly half of their plays against Oklahoma and was perfectly content sitting in man coverage. Why the Sooners didn't make any sort of adjustments to help beat that is baffling.

I'd like to see even more motion moving forward as well. Their numbers jumped up from 17 plays with motion against Temple to 29 against Houston, but they should continue to call more and more.

While the Sooners certainly have to improve on early downs, they can do so much more to help themselves out on third downs moving forward.

Poor Route Creativity

While the Sooners are relying on plenty of young players, there's a distinct lack of offensive creativity with their routes.

Take a look at this table of their most run routes against Houston, broken down by receiver.

Sooners Routes By Receiver

PFF

Their top three receivers from last week (and probably this week against Tulane) combined for 90 routes run against Houston. 54 of those 90 were vertical style routes (hitches, go's, curls, corners). Hitch routes, yes, hitch routes were their most targeted route last week with eight targets. No other route got more than three targets.

For a team facing so much man coverage, this kind of bland stemming keeps the offense from really doing much. Deion Burks running nine hitch routes is a waste of his skill set.

The Sooners had just two "crosser" routes against Houston and their receivers combined for six "over" routes. Their top three wide receivers combined for nine slants+in routes.

How is this a thing? Oklahoma's offense should be much more dynamic than this. For offensive coordinator Seth Littrell to be such an Air Raid quarterback, their playbook not featuring a lot of Mesh is a stunning choice.

Related: In-state college head coach goes to bat for Oklahoma Sooners' new offensive coordinator Seth Littrell

Oklahoma can't just expect their receivers to win on these routes, especially ones that require both good stemming from receivers to create separation but also good timing and chemistry with the quarterback to maximize these plays.

Understandably, they might not want to put a lot of pressure on their young wide receivers, but they simply have to be more creative here.

Not only is Oklahoma's strictly vertical offense limiting the areas they can hit, but it's also not allowing them to create after the catch.

Against Houston, Oklahoma had 81 yards after their catch, with RB Jovantae Barnes and TE Jake Roberts leading the way with 26 and 25 respectively. Their wide receivers? 28 in total, with 22 coming from Deion Burks. Against Temple, Oklahoma had just 27 yards after the catch.

Teams have zero respect for Oklahoma's passing game beyond 10 yards. Things will settle down for Jackson Arnold, but this is doing him zero favors.

Unstable Run Game

Part of Oklahoma's issue is having to rely on Jackson Arnold to solve everything. While he's undeniably talented, this is Arnold's first season as the starter (in an offense that so far hasn't been remotely QB-friendly). He just won't have found answers for everything this quickly.

To help ease the burden, Oklahoma has to start being better at running the ball. It doesn't help that they have consistently battled loaded boxes due to the lack of respect given to their passing game, but the Sooners have just a 40.7% success rate on runs (71st in CFB).

Their per-play numbers look better than their success rates at 40th in EPA/Rush and 48th in Yards/Rush, but their run selection has been odd. They know they're facing loaded boxes frequently, but the Sooners ran on first/second down and long (6+) 20 times vs Houston. They gained just 60 total yards on those runs.

They will also just abandon the run too often. Across both games, they've attempted just 65 runs, with Jackson Arnold holding 22 of those attempts. I counted 14 drives where a running back touched the ball one or fewer times in that drive. It's just not balanced at all either, and it forces the entire offense to run through Jackson Arnold.

Additionally, there's no reason why Arnold needs to lead the team in rushing attempts. It's not even like his scrambling is inflating this with just five scrambles across both games. If you remove those scrambles, he still leads the team in attempts.

I get it, Jackson Arnold is a good athlete, and having that +1 in the run game is important. However, at this rate, they're just exposing him to too many hits. They have talent at running back, use it.