✌🏽 Happy Wednesday, friends. Let’s ride.

🤔 Trivia: Which former Oklahoma player set the school single-game record for sacks during a 1994 contest against Texas Tech? [Answer in footnotes]

🏈 Keeping the faith

This chaotic college football season has led Oklahoma and Texas Tech down unexpected paths that will intersect at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The Red Raiders, who are 5-3 and fresh off of a loss to K-State, just fired their head coach, Matt Wells, who made it all of two-and-a-half seasons in Lubbock.

The Sooners, who are 8-0 and fresh off of an ungly win over Kansas, are undefeated but have yet to look like a team with a perfect record.

OU’s struggled to find balance between a defense that has slowly regressed since a strong start to the season and an offense that has gotten better drastically as the year has grown older.

A 35-23 victory over Kansas didn’t spark any more confidence in the team from the outside. OU coach Lincoln Riley sees it differently.

“I can very clearly see this thing coming together,” Riley said during his Tuesday news conference. “… No doubt our expectations there are incredibly high. But I think we’ve got the group to reach it. I’ll be very surprised if we don’t.”

Riley only has to get the Sooners ready for a November gauntlet of Baylor, Iowa State and Oklahoma State. If OU qualifies for the Big 12 championship game, it is likely to see one of those three again in Arlington, Texas.

Winning a Big 12 championship might seem preposterous to some at this point. It’d be hard to blame anyone, considering OU’s recent defensive struggles against inferior offenses.

But, again, Riley has not lost faith in his team, even if the defense hasn’t looked right in weeks.

“I see the defense played very well for us early in the season,” Riley said. “I see no reason why this defense cannot play very well the back half of this season. I see some things starting to come together that give me a high sense of confidence that it’s going to get done. I feel like we have the right people in the room to get it done.”

The Sooners have overcome worse versions of themselves in the past to get to the College Football Playoff. Perhaps Riley has a sense of he’s been here before. But … 35-23 against Kansas?

Not good.

Other highlights from Riley’s Tuesday news conference:

• Riley on Texas Tech firing Matt Wells: “Tough to hear the news about [him]. He’s become a good friend. I got to know him a little bit before being in this league and then certainly throughout the different events in this league. [He’s] one of the great guys in coaching, a heckuva ball coach, and no question he’s going to get his chance to continue to lead really good programs in the future.”

• Riley on Caleb Williams’ decision-making when the deep shot isn’t there: “We can’t let emotions of the game or wanting just the desire to make a big play for the team or any of that supersede just going through your reads and taking the ball where it needs to go. And so, that’s certainly something he can do better, I can do a better job with. Hasn’t been awful, but needs to be better.”

• Riley on team’s apparent struggles to fix issues: “We haven’t quite put it together, but we’re closer than you guys think and we’re probably a little bit closer than the fan base, national perception, all that thinks. I’ve been around here long enough that if you keep winning, then things tend to kind of work themselves out. And we’ve had eight chances. We’ve done it eight times. We’ve got the longest winning streak in the country. The sky is not falling. Don’t write us off just yet.”

🎧 New podcast!

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal sports editor Carlos Silva Jr. joins the program to talk about the Matt Wells situation, Texas Tech’s trajectory as a program and if the Sooners should be on upset alert.

Where you can subscribe to the Eyes on Oklahoma podcast:

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• Stitcher

• Google

• TuneIn

Listen now

🤕 Injury update

OU defensive tackle Jalen Redmond didn’t play this past weekend but could have if needed, according to Riley.

Riley’s words: “Had him there in an emergency scenario. But we do anticipate having him available this week.”

Both receivers Mario Williams and Mike Woods have been limited in practice and weren’t close to being able to play last Saturday. Riley still hopes to have both back this week.

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⏰ On this day

Sixty-five years ago today, Oklahoma crushed Notre Dame 40-0 in South Bend, Indiana. The win marked OU’s first over Notre Dame in school history.