“It’s never just one guy”: What Seth Littrell said about Jackson Arnold and OU’s offense after the win over Houston | Sports

No. 16 Oklahoma (2-0) defeated Houston (0-2) 16-12 in Norman on Saturday.

Here’s what OU offensive coordinator Seth Littrell said after the game:

On the offensive:

“Obviously inconsistent. The game speaks for itself. To be a good offense, you have to be consistent on offense, be disciplined and do the little things to finish drives. Again, on third downs, you weren’t nearly good enough. In those situations, you have to put yourself in good situations and be able to move the chains and put yourself in a position to be successful, and unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight. We put our defense in some bad situations, which is unfortunate, and we have to be a lot better.”

The points that need to be addressed aggressively include:

“It’s third downs. To be successful, you have to stay on the field and be able to move the chains. You can move the ball and find a rhythm, but if you’re not consistent enough during a drive to keep moving the chains, it’s going to be tough. The other thing is when you take advantage of your opportunities on the field, you have to take advantage of those opportunities and walk off the field right there with touchdowns. You’re not always going to be consistent on 14- or 15-play drives, you have to be explosive, and we haven’t been nearly as explosive as we should be. I think we have a great group of guys that work their asses off, I believe that, but that’s not good enough. We have to make sure, one, that they’re coached properly, and two, we have to be more consistent.”

On offensive battles:

“I’ll go back to the film tonight and tomorrow. It’s going to be a long night. Throughout the game, I thought there were some good things, but like everybody else, I thought there were some inconsistent things. Especially with situational football, you just have to trust your job, the way we practice throughout the week. You can’t pressure and we all have to make the plays that are there. We don’t do that consistently, which is frustrating. Listen, it always starts with me. I’m never going to throw our guys under the bus because week in and week out, my job is to put them in the right situations to be successful. So I’ll take that, but at the same time, you’ve got to be able to make plays when there are plays, especially against a team that’s hungry, and the longer you let them stay, the hungrier they get, the more confident they get, and now you’re in an uphill battle. Successful attacks approach their task consistently and in a disciplined manner, and we failed to do that tonight.”

On the lack of improvement in the offense:

“You hope there’s going to be a tremendous improvement from week one to week two. Listen, I’m never going to make excuses or let anyone make them for us. We just weren’t consistent enough tonight and we just need to do a much better job in all areas. I promise you, I’m going to work hard to correct that, but at the same time, it takes everybody. Everybody needs to buckle down and look at themselves in the mirror. Coaches and players alike, we all have a job to do and that job is to hold each other to high standards and right now, we need to be a lot better. I predicted that I was going to see a lot of things on tape tonight and probably in myself that were going to frustrate me. But at the same time, there’s going to be a lot of positive things on film, it’s not going to be big things, it’s going to be little things. A lot of little things pile up on top of each other and the more you pile them up, the harder it is to get out of it and regain momentum.”

About Jackson Arnold:

I don’t believe one player controls or dictates the outcome of a game. I just don’t. I believe we’re all in it together. It’s never one player, it’s never one play, it’s a combination of a lot of things. Jackson knows he’s the quarterback of this team right now and he’s going to take a lot of criticism when we don’t have success, as do I. We’ve had a number of conversations about it. That’s part of the position we’re all in. And he’s a tough kid. He has high standards. He’s very conscientious. He works extremely hard and I have no doubt he’s very competitive and wants to do great things, like all of us. So at the end of the day, it takes 11 guys, a full staff, a lot of guys stepping up and creating plays and situations. So again, it’s up to all of us.”

On the fans’ criticism of the offensive:

“Look, I get that. I’m from Oklahoma. I was born and raised here, I played here and I get that. There are high standards here and if there weren’t, I wouldn’t want to be here. I have high standards for this university, for this program, so I know exactly what that looks like. So whether they hit the panic button or not, that’s not something I can focus on. I can’t worry about that. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve been involved in this sport a long time. I have to focus on doing my job better. I have to focus on what we need to do to be more consistent and become a better football team.”