5 takeaways from Oklahoma Sooners loss to Missouri – Sooners Wire

The Oklahoma Sooners gave away a winnable game. Whether it was not cashing in early with a first-and-goal opportunity in the first half, or letting the game slip away in the final two minutes, the Sooners did everything they could to keep themselves from winning the game.
With the game on the line late, Missouri’s star players Luther Burden and Theo Wease made the plays and Oklahoma’s star players didn’t. And with that the Sooners drop to 5-5 on the season with games against Alabama and LSU remaining on the schedule.
Yikes.
This loss hurt more than others as the Sooners had a seven-point lead with two minutes to play. Not only did the defense let the lead get away, the offense then gave Missouri the game winning score. On a night when everything could go wrong, everything did go wrong, save for the kicking game.
Here are five takeaways from the Sooners loss to Missouri.

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For as much as Brent Venables and his coaching staff talk about protecting the football, the Oklahoma Sooners are one of the worst teams in the country protecting the football. On Saturday, they had four turnovers.
The Sooners have been careless with the football since entering SEC play and were a minus-3 against Missouri on Saturday night. This team isn’t good enough to be negative in the turnover margin and win games.
What’s incredibly alarming is how much they fumble the football. Whether it’s a strength issue or a technical issue, the Sooners can’t seem to keep from fumbling the football. The offense needs to spend time on their grip strength this offseason to better secure the football in 2025.

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If there was a bright spot on offense at all tonight, it was the play of Xavier Robinson and the offensive line in the run game.
When Oklahoma chose to run the ball with running backs, they averaged 4.67 yards per carry led by Robinson’s nine carries for 56 yards. OU’s trio of Robinson, Taylor Tatum, and Sam Franklin carried the ball 18 times for 84 yards. When Oklahoma ran the ball with someone else, they averaged 2.11 yards per carry.
Now some of that is sack yardage that Jackson Arnold took. But he was only sacked three times and that yardage also includes the 26 yards he ran for on the final play of the game.
Oklahoma found success with Tatum in the first half, but it was Robinson’s work on the Sooners fourth-quarter scoring drive that helped them tie the game late. He touched the ball eight times on the drive, accounting for 55 yards (48 rushing, 7 receiving) to get the Sooners into the red zone.
He was dynamite for Oklahoma, providing a boost with his ability to get down hill and take on contact. He picked up three first downs for the Sooners on that drive, including a tough third-and-one.
Robinson needs to be a featured part of the offense moving forward.

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There were signs of improvement from his appearance against South Carolina and in starts against Ole Miss and Maine. That didn’t show up in this game as Arnold looked hesitant and unwilling to throw the football. He only threw for 74 yards on 24 attempts, averaging just 3.1 yards per attempt. He also lost the fumble that gave the Tigers the game-winning score in the final minute.
At this point in the season, Arnold has to be better than he was on Saturday night. Oklahoma’s offense hasn’t been good as it has been riddled with injuries at wide receiver and offensive line. But at some point, your quarterback has to help you and Arnold didn’t do that against the Tigers.
His indecisiveness and unwillingness to throw downfield against Missouri kept Oklahoma from moving the ball. It was the healthiest the wide recevier group had been all season and he couldn’t find a way to get them the ball more and had several misses that should have been completions. Arnold threw just three passes beyond 10 yards and was 0-for-3. When Missouri finally started moving the ball, it was because they were getting the ball downfield. There was no attempt by Arnold to push the ball beyond the first down marker and that made playing offense a whole lot more challenging.
There’s a lot of growth and development that needs to happen at quarterback between Jackson Arnold and Michael Hawkins for the Sooners to field not only a competent offense, but one that can help them compete in 2025.

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As maligned as the offensive line has been this season, it was good enough for the majority of the night against Missouri. The Sooners couldn’t get open in the pass game with much consistency and Arnold was unwilling to throw downfield.
Arnold averaged 2.91 seconds to throw according to Pro Football Focus. Even against the blitz, he averaged 2.7 seconds per attempt. Anything about 2.5 seconds is solid. The offensive line provided Arnold enough time if he were more willing to let it rip. Combine that with the work they did for running backs Robinson and Tatum and overall, it was a good day.
This unit has had its problems, but it had one of its better games of conference play on Saturday night. Shame OU couldn’t take advantage of it.

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Everyone was feeling it after Billy Bowman scooped up the Nate Noel fumble and returned it for a touchdown. We’ve seen multiple times this year, the Sooners get a lead in the final minutes and they close it out.
Well, the opposite happened.
Drew Pyne channeled Tom Brady and drove the Tigers 75 yards on eight plays, spanning 57 seconds to tie the ball game. He hit Theo Wease for a 28-yard catch and run to put Missouri into OU territory.
Then on a third-and-16, Pyne heaved a prayer down the sideline to Luther Burden, who was wide open. The one player you don’t want to leave wide open. He was wide open because Jacobe Johnson fell down, but still, he was wide open. That can’t happen.
Two plays later, Eli Bowen gave up the game-tying touchdown to Theo Wease. Yes, Theo Wease again.
The defense played well enough to win once again, but unfortunately couldn’t come up with one more stop to close out the game. That’s been a theme of this season.
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