6 Oklahoma Sooners to watch vs. the Iowa State Cyclones
Oklahoma can improve to 5-0 on Saturday evening and continue to build on their turnaround effort. The Sooners will host their Big 12 foes, the Iowa State Cyclones, one last time this weekend.
Both teams come into the game with wins. The Cyclones showed a little life offensively in their win over Oklahoma State. The Sooners continued to show off their defensive improvement with a stingy win over Cincinnati.
How Oklahoma handles the ever-increasing hype behind its defense and the increased meaning with each passing week, will be fascinating. There’s also the game that looms ahead of them next week. Avoiding looking ahead to Texas will be pivotal.
For Oklahoma to come out on top and avoid being upset at home, they’ll need to play their game from start to finish. Here are six players we believe will be key come Saturday as Oklahoma looks to go 2-0 in Big 12 play.
Gavin Sawchuk, RB
Oklahoma is looking for a bell-cow running back. Before they find that, can they find someone in the room who has some juice and routinely hit a big play?
Over the season’s first four games, the Sooners have left some meat on the bone in the ground game. The blocking hasn’t been spectacular, but there have been times when running backs didn’t hit the hole hard enough or missed a cutback.
Sawchuk is the fastest guy in the RB room. Against what should primarily be a three-man front from Iowa State, the Sooners should look to exploit the edges. Using Sawchuk’s speed is a good way to do that.
Adepoju Adebawore, EDGE
You’re doing something right when your head coach publicly advocates for more playing time.
Five-star freshman EDGE Adepoju Adebawore has caught the eye of his teammates and coaches, and Brent Venables knows he needs more snaps.
We highlighted a lot of Adebawore’s season here.
Among Sooners who have rushed the passer at least five times this season, Adebawore has the highest pass-rush win rate at 20%. He’s starting to put things together and becoming a weapon for this defense. Hopefully, we will see him more this weekend.
Dillon Gabriel, QB
Dillon Gabriel is in his second Big 12 campaign, and we saw him have a solid performance on the road against Cincinnati. He’ll need to be better completing the easy plays when he has the opportunity to convert.
He missed some would-be scores against the Bearcats.
His opportunities may be limited with Iowa State playing their 3-3-5, which is built to stop explosive passing offenses. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t be diced up underneath and in the intermediate passing game.
Jaren Kanak, LB
Sophomore linebacker Jaren Kanak is starting to put it together. He suffered a scary injury that sent him to the hospital. He checked out okay and looks ready to go.
It’ll be interesting to see how much he plays come Saturday and if the Sooners are more cautious in easing him back into action.
He’s playing some very inspired ball of late, and combining him with Stutsman gives Oklahoma one heck of a duo at linebacker.
Walter Rouse, LT
Through four games, Walter Rouse has allowed just three pressures. He’s been a steady presence at left tackle. Oklahoma needed to find someone good enough to replace Anton Harrison and be at least 80 percent the player he was. It feels safe to say they have in Rouse.
He held up well against a terrific Cincy offensive line, and we’re interested to see how he stacks up against John Heacock’s defense. Iowa State’s defensive coordinator will throw exotic blitzes, stunts, and other stuff at the Sooners to generate pressure. Rouse and the offensive line will have to be keyed in to keep Dillon Gabriel clean.
Dasan McCullough, Cheetah
Oklahoma’s top transfer had his first full game of action. He looked the part. He held up well in coverage and looked good in run defense. He played 49 snaps, and McCullough finished second on the team Saturday (behind Danny Stutsman) with seven total tackles.
In what should be his second Sooners’start, we’ll watch how he builds on last week’s performance.
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