After Rough Start, Oklahoma's Tackling has Improved

While Oklahoma’s defense didn’t perform poorly overall in the first two games of the season, there was a troubling trend among the group.

Missed tackles.

In the win over UTEP to start the season and the loss at Michigan the next week the Sooners had a combined 36 missed tackles according to Pro Football Focus.

During last season’s run to the College Football Playoff, the Sooners had more than 13 missed tackles just twice and never had more than 18 in a game.

Oklahoma had 15 missed tackles against the Miners in the season opener — including two from the usually reliable Taylor Wein — and then had an eye-popping 21 against the Wolverines. 

Linebacker Owen Heinecke, who missed just 16 tackles all of last season and never had more than two in a game, missed seven against Michigan.

But over the last two weeks, though the offense has been atrocious, the defense has made significant strides in one of the two major areas where they’d struggled to start the season.

And in the other — creating turnovers — they at least took a step forward against Georgia in getting two takeaways.

But the biggest, and most sustainable, improvement for the Sooners has come in the tackling realm.

Oklahoma has missed just 13 tackles over the last two games.

That’s better than all but one two-game span from last season.

In wins over Tennessee and Alabama last November, a signature stretch that helped vault the Sooners into the CFP, they combined to miss just 11 tackles.

Against Georgia last week, though they got beat 41-13, Oklahoma had just four missed tackles.

That was the Sooners’ lowest missed tackle mark of the last two seasons.

In the wake of the missed tackling problems early in the season, OU defenders said they were confident those issues would be corrected quickly.

“I don’t think it’s really been a huge struggle, but I think we have a lot of young guys playing and new guys playing,” safety Peyton Bowen said after the Michigan loss. “They just want to make plays right now, and there’s nothing wrong with it — until there is something wrong with it. … So we just have to keep our leverage … and that will ultimately lead us to better positioning on tackling.”

It appears that message has sunk in.

Linebacker Kip Lewis has been one of the surest tacklers the Sooners have had over the last two seasons. He has just two missed tackles so far this season — though he missed the win over New Mexico due to injury.

“Tackling is all just about attitude,” Lewis said of the tackling improvements over the last two games. “So kind of just changing our attitudes, saying that we’re not gonna miss anymore. So I think that was just kind of the key part.”