Most teams open their starting game against a small school to get the opening day miscues out of the way. That is exactly what the Oklahoma Sooners did against Arkansas State. Oklahoma started off their opening game against Arkansas State with a 73-0 win. In Week 2, the Sooners face off against the SMU Mustangs at home. Here is a preview and predictions of Oklahoma vs. SMU in Week 2.
The Oklahoma Sooners
Let’s start with the Sooners, the obvious favorite to win this game. Their offense was explosive in Week 1 as they put up 28 points in the first quarter alone. Dillon Gabriel went 19-22 with 308 yards through the air and threw for 2 touchdowns. This was only a first-half stat, as he was pulled for the second half.
Gavin Freeman, the Big 12 co-Special Teams Player of the Week, started off his first touch of the season with a spark. He returned a punt 82 yards for a touchdown totaling 119 yards and his first career receiving touchdown.
The offense was able to put in a plethora of running backs in the backfield. Oklahoma tallied up 220 rushing yards and six touchdowns for the team. Needless to say, nobody was worried about this offense coming out and scoring, but the defense was a different story.
This defense greatly improved by targeting the transfer portal, bringing in guys like Reggie Pearson, Dasan McCullough, and Jonah Laulu. Brent Venables knew that a large part of this defense’s struggle was the players needed to fit his system. The Sooners’ defense looked bigger and more athletic, and they understood their assignments more than last season.
Overall, the defense was able to hold the Red Wolves to just 160 yards passing and another 48 in rushing. Not a bad performance from this, hopefully, new and improved defense.
SMU Mustangs
Looking at SMU, they are looking to put together a good campaign as they get ready for the ACC in 2024. Their offense looked good as QB Preston Stone threw a solid 62.2% for 248 yards and 3 touchdowns. LJ Johnson Jr. had himself a day as well with 128 rushing yards, and a touchdown with just 14 carries.
The offense didn’t compare to Oklahoma’s, but they walked out of Week 1 with a 38-14 victory over Louisiana Tech. SMU’s defense didn’t look bad either. With one pick-six from the big man, Kori Roberson, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking they can slow down this Oklahoma offense.
Picks and Predictions
Looking at the odds for this game on DraftKings right now, the spread is -16 for Oklahoma. If these two teams look anything like they did a week ago, we can expect Oklahoma to win by far more than that spread. It’s not like the Sooner defense will struggle to keep SMU low-scoring, and we all know that their offense will look to put this game away early like they did last week.
The total for this game is sitting around 68 points. This is one that I would shy away from, but knowing that the Oklahoma offense will probably put up close to 50+ by themselves, I would lean toward the over.
Diving deeper into some of these picks, I would even venture to take the pick that Oklahoma will be up by double digits by halftime. Right now, there’s a first-half pick that you could take Oklahoma -9.5 at half for -108 odds. These picks all seem very certain to me, personally.
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