“Oklahoma is working on peppering the rock” to get back to forcing turnovers against Maine

NORMAN – Oklahoma’s defense hopes to reverse a trend on Saturday.

The Sooners failed to force a turnover against South Carolina two weeks ago, and the only takeaway from the game against Ole Miss was the receiver JJ Hester moved the football to recover OU’s own fumble.

With the FCS’s The Maine Black Bears (4-4, 2-3 CAA) are coming to townOklahoma (4-4, 1-4 SEC) needs to help its offense regain some momentum on the defensive side of the football ahead of the Sooners’ final three conference games in November.

“We have to force turnovers,” OU coach Brent Venables said on Tuesday. “… That’s a winning formula and how to win, force turnovers, complement each other and give the offense a short field.”

Maine will give the Sooners a chance to take the ball away on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

The Black Bears have fumbled 12 times this year and lost five of them to the opponent and the quarterback Carter Peevy threw four picks in 2024.

Despite the losing streak over the last two weeks, OU still ranks 19th in the country in forced turnovers. Nine of those recoveries were fumble recoveries, while Oklahoma’s secondary picked off opposing quarterbacks six times.

And while the defense can’t play outside the structure of every single play to generate big plays, the linebacker is Kip Lewis said the defense needs to be prepared to make the Black Bears pay when mistakes happen.

“We need to get more into the details,” Lewis said Monday. “Opportunities arise, we must seize them and not waste them and be able to capitalize on them.”

Amid OU’s offensive struggles, the defense put tremendous pressure on itself to give the ball away with a short field or outright score.

Lewis’ pick-six turned the tide against Auburn, and while plays like this can’t be counted on every week, the Sooners believe they can be more aggressive during practice to put themselves in a better position and on Saturday To force ball losses.

“We also just talked about that and the weeks leading up to it because we knew we had to (force) some turnovers,” defensive end said R Mason Thomas said. “…At the beginning (of the year) we were on fire, and then that wasn’t the case anymore. We’ve been losing turnover margin the last couple of weeks, so a big emphasis has been on peppering the rock and getting the ball back to our offense.”

Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart did an excellent job taking care of the football last week, but the Sooners were able to limit themselves Lane Kiffins powerful attack.

If OU can match the same intensity it played with in the first half against the Rebels, the defense believes it can get back on track before taking on Missouri.

“We played really well in the first half,” Lewis said. “We need to stay strong and make sure we have competitive stamina throughout the game. We just have to stay competitive throughout the game and make sure we improve our details.”