Joel Klatt defends Spencer Rattler amid fan criticism

One of the more surprising happenings this college football season is the Oklahoma offense, or lack thereof. The Sooners’ offensive attack has been a constant in recent years, but this year it is sputtering. 

Oklahoma is 4-0, but they have averaged just 26.3 points against FBS opponents this year, and 19.5 against their two Power Five foes, West Virginia and Nebraska.

Criticism has been targeted at quarterback Spencer Rattler, and on Saturday night, Oklahoma fans started chanting for true freshman quarterback Caleb Williams. But is the blame placed on the redshirt sophomore warranted? Fox’s Joel Klatt broke it down on Wednesday.

Klatt believes that the lowest point total of head coach Lincoln Riley’s tenure, 16 scored against West Virginia on Saturday, and the general offensive struggles are due to the Sooners’ inability to run the ball.

Oklahoma is avergaing just 161 yards on the ground per game after mounting more than 217 yards per contest from 2017-2019. Even last year, with a schedule that was exclusively Big 12 games except for one, the Sooners averaged 179.7 rushing yards per game.

The inability to run the ball sets off a chain reaction. 

“If you don’t have any run game, then you don’t have play action pass,” Klatt said. “The play action pass is where [Oklahoma is] explosive. This is the way Lincoln Riley gets those big plays… When you have no play action pass and no ability to run the ball, you become one-dimensional, and you have no ability to protect the passer.”

The result? It becomes very difficult to win games. At the core of the Sooners’ running struggles is the offensive line.

“Not only is the offensive line not getting the defensive line targeted, but then they’re not moving them when they do block them,” Klatt added. “When that happens, you can’t run the ball.”

Klatt continued to break down plays, demonstrating the problems with rushing and Rattler’s lack of time to throw the ball, despite often having open receivers down field. Klatt ended the segment with a request for Oklahoma fans to look more closely at the problems with the offense before blaming an easy scapegoat, the quarterback. 

“Spencer Rattler wasn’t the problem on Saturday night,” Klatt said. “I know you wanted to score more points, and you wanted to take it out on the quarterback. But the backup quarterback’s not going to do anything different in those situations. Why? Because he would’ve had Mountaineers in his lap just like Rattler did.”

Oklahoma faces Kansas State this weekend, and the Wildcats are second in the Big 12 in rushing yards allowed per game at just 75.3. Oklahoma offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh and Riley will need to adapt their game plan, or it could be a long afternoon for the Sooners offense.

The game kicks off at 2:30 p.m. CT and will be televised on Fox. Oklahoma is a 10.5-point favorite as of Thursday morning.