There's been plenty of controversy surrounding Oklahoma Sooners offensive coordinator Seth Littrell's inauspicious start to the 2024 season. The Sooners' offense is one of the worst in the country just a year after finishing top-ten in virtually every metric.
While the injury bug bit the unit and they faced plenty of turnover, the offense looked disorganized and poorly coached throughout the beginning of this season, peaking with a clunker of a performance against Tennessee until late.
However, against Auburn, there were some promising signs that maybe, just maybe , Littrell has started to learn from his mistakes.
First, it does need to be noted that the Sooners did bench Jackson Arnold, who frequently put the offense in bad spots and turned the ball over in each game of the season, including three disastrous ones against Tennessee.
The unit has also not had their starting offensive line since the first drive against Temple, and they have been missing multiple starting wide receivers. Not all of their struggles are entirely on Littrell.
However, as I noted in a piece a couple of weeks ago, there were things the offense should be doing to make things easier that they just weren't doing. The motion rates were odd and poorly timed, there were too many RPOs, and they were failing to play to the strengths of their players.
That was the case, up until some encouraging signs against Auburn.
Brent Venables harped on them calling too many RPOs and it was making things too complicated for the young players in their offense. Littrell listened.
Against Tulane in Week 3, Oklahoma called 38 RPOs. Against Tennessee, that number fell to 15, and then just 12 against Auburn.
The Sooners also shifted their run game to more of Littrell's style. For the first time this season, the Sooners became a gap-run team.
They started popping runs a bit more against Auburn, despite playing a good defense. Oklahoma boasted its highest EPA/Rush outside of Temple as well. It helped that Michael Hawkins added a threat on the ground, but simplifying their run game helped both their running back (only Javontae Barnes got carries against Auburn) and their offensive line last Saturday.
The Sooners also popped quite a bit of explosive plays this week and missed a couple more. Hawkins' 40-yard touchdown run to open the game and his 60-yard pass to JJ Hester in the fourth quarter were Oklahoma's two longest plays of the season.
There were quite a few other plays taken away due to penalties. Oklahoma had a 48-yard pass in the first quarter taken away due to an offensive pass interference call that would have set them up at the Auburn 24. Instead, they had to punt. They had a touchdown wiped off due to an illegal shift (that may or may not have happened) that would have made the score 14-14. Instead, they had to kick a field goal.
In the third quarter, Oklahoma hit a 35-yard pass to move into Auburn territory. Gavin Sawchuk broke a big run to the Auburn 15 that was called back due to a holding penalty. Then, a penalty backed them up to a 2nd and 15 at the Auburn 40 and they turned the ball over on downs.
While penalties and attention to detail are part of the job description for a coordinator, virtually all of these penalties came from the tight end room, coached by co-OC Joe Jon Finley. It was Finley's room that held the offense back (once again, as that room has struggled in every game this season).
Hawkins also missed his fair share of plays that would have been big gains, and player error/execution is expected to happen with as many young players as the Sooners are trotting out this season. However, Littrell called his best game of the season, and that's important to note.
If there's anything I'd like for him to improve, his script was a little too run-run-pass for me. Oklahoma started five drives in run-run-pass, scoring on just one of them. This can work if the team can run the ball well, but the Sooners have done anything but that this year. Giving Hawkins more passes on early downs to create some cheap yards early and avoid third-and-long would be the next step in evolving the offense.
While I'm still not sold on Littrell being the offensive coordinator for Oklahoma past this season, he earned himself some breathing room against a talented Auburn defense.
How he sustains and evolves it from there will be key to determining his job security.
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