Kansas State (2-1) travels to Norman, Okla., on Saturday for a matchup against undefeated No. 6 Oklahoma (3-0) to open Big 12 conference play at 7:00 p.m. CT.

The Sooners are coming off of a blowout win on the road at Nebraska last week, in which the Sooners offense posted 580 total yards, including 312 total rushing yards. Nebraska's defense has been underwhelming this season after being a large reason why the Cornhuskers played many tight games in the 2021 season against more talented foes. But the scheme that Oklahoma's offense is employing in 2022 under first-year offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby is much different than what former Sooner head coach Lincoln Riley organized during his time leading Oklahoma before taking the head coaching position at USC.

Oklahoma quarterback Dillion Gabriel is in his first season with the Sooners, but he's reunited with Lebby after previously playing in the offensive coordinator's system at UCF. Gabriel has thrown for 759 yards this season and seven touchdowns and has yet to play an entire four quarters because of dominant performances by the Sooners.

“Tremendous football player," Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman said of Gabriel. "I watched their three games and followed him when he was at UCF. He’s very confident. He’s got a good arm. Very good athlete, he ran one for 61 yards against Nebraska. He’s a really good player.”

EMAW Online's Alec Busse goes into the film room to examine what made the Oklahoma offense so explosive in its victory over Nebraska last week.

To understand the basic concepts of Oklahoma's offense, it's important to understand what Oklahoma's system is based on. The entire offense is modeled after what Art Briles made famous during his days at Baylor, and Briles' system has become very prevalent in college football because it's quite simple and incredibly successful. The entire offensive scheme is based on one thing: ratios.

The quarterback in a Briles-like offense is tasked with doing before every snap -- identify the safeties. If there are two safeties back, there are enough blockers for the offensive line to block defenders one-on-one on running plays, but it also allows quarterbacks to use the run-pass-option to their advantage. If there is one safety back, that means the offensive line doesn't have enough blockers in one-on-one situations because there is an extra defender in the box. However, that means that one of the wide receivers on the outside, usually lined up outside the numbers, is in a one-on-one situation with a cornerback. Advantage offense.

In this first play, Nebraska has only one safety back, so Gabriel identifies the one-on-one coverage at the top of the screen. He's able to his target for an easy chunk gain of about eight or nine yards.

In this play, there are two safeties back deep. That means it's a favorable situation for running the football because the five offensive linemen are all in one-on-one blocking situations vs. defensive rushers.

This quarterback draw goes 61 yards for a touchdown because of great downfield blocking by Sooner wide receivers and Gabriels' ability to hit the edge, stay in bounds and cut it back to the middle before going into the end zone. Yet, this play isn't designed to be a touchdown. It's simply designed to make a third and seven a chain-moving first down, and it accomplishes that with ease because of the blocking advantage that Oklahoma has upfront.

This time, Nebraska has two safeties back. That means it's an advantageous situation for Oklahoma to either run the ball with Eric Gray or Marcus Major or go to an RPO to a wide receiver who has softer coverage.

Gabriel opts to pull the ball from his running back's grasp to hit a wide receiver on a curl route for a gain of 10-yards to get the Sooners into Nebraska territory. Run-pass-options have become really prevalent in college football because they allow the quarterback to make a play depending on what their eyes tell them to do. Because Gabriel has such a deep understanding of what makes the Sooner offense tick, he's really successful at leading it.

When a receiver is in one-on-one man coverage, there are few routes that work as well as a slant because the defensive back has so little time to make a play to defend the wide receiver.

On this third and six play, Nebraska has one safety deep and one safety in the box. That means man-to-man coverage with the wide receivers, which means a really easy completion to Drake Stoops for a first down.

On this play there is only one safety back, so Gabriel finds a tight end on a short out route that gets just enough yards after the catch to pick up the first down.

Not only is this scheme really difficult to defend for defenses, but Oklahoma is one of the 10 most talented teams in the country, so it becomes even more difficult to bring down playmakers, and as you can see on this play the Nebraska linebacker has one heck of time struggling to make the tackle before the line to gain.

Oklahoma fails to complete this pass to their best wide receiver Marvin Mims, but the Sooners are able to draw a pass interference penalty on the Nebraska defensive back. Again, there's only one safety back deep, so the Sooners know they have an advantage in the passing attack.

Gabriel sees that Mims gets behind his defender and attempts to exploit it for a touchdown on a play that would have gone more than 50-yards had it been completed for a touchdown.

This play is a great example of how effective an RPO can be for Oklahoma when they're looking to get a solid gain. You'll notice on this play that Gabriel fakes the handoff, which causes the Nebraska linebacker to follow his eyes. That leads to the Oklahoma tight end being wide open because of the misstep the Cornhusker linebacker takes.

The result is an easy gain of about 13 or 14 yards after being brought down.

Eye discipline is going to be key for Kansas State's defense this week on RPO plays. They can't get caught looking at the wrong thing because it will lead to Oklahoma, and specifically Gabriel, carving them up for gains similar to this one.

This double-pass play is a beautiful design from Lebby. Usually, when you see a double-pass play the second pass goes across the field or it's a drastic misdirection play, think of the "Philly Special" the Eagles ran in the Super Bowl.

But this play isn't either of those things. Lebby has this play schemed for the running back to run up the seam after the screen pass, and because the linebackers are going to commit to the screen pass Major is going to come wide open up the seam for the easiest touchdown catch he's ever going to have in his life.

The play design is tremendous.

There's one safety back on this play, and that means all four of these wide receivers are going to be in one-on-one coverage. So on first and 15, Gabriel's man at the top of the screen runs a deep curl route. Bang. Pass completed for about 10 yards. Then, the wide receiver does a nice job of turning the ball upfield and using a stiff arm to gain about 10 more yards before being shoved out of bounds.

When Gabriel sees the one-to-one ratio is he going to throw the football -- in most cases. And because the route concepts don't have to be complicated to lead to large gains, Oklahoma's wide receivers are regularly finding ways to get open.

Under Riley, Oklahoma's running attack was a gap scheme based on the ability of guards and tackles pulling. Gap rushing schemes design plays for tailbacks to run through specific holes in order to gain yards.

Now, Oklahoma runs a zone rushing scheme, which allows the running backs to choose where to run and what holes to attack. In short, a zone running scheme gives backs more freedom in where they choose to run.

On this RPO, Gabriel sees that Nebraska has his primary target covered pretty well. So he decides to hand it off to Gray, and because of the job Oklahoma does in their one-on-one blocking assignments he's able to gain close to 25 yards before getting bullied out of bounds by a couple of Nebraska defenders.

There are two safeties back on this rushing play to Gray, which means Oklahoma is in a favorable situation to block would-be tacklers.

Notice how every single Oklahoma offensive lineman is putting a hat on a hat? It's one-on-one blocking assignments, and they don't need to hold the blocks for an extended period of time because the Sooners aren't running a gap scheme where a specific hole needs to be hit by the tailback.

Gray is the every down back that Oklahoma relies on for most of their rushing downs. But Major is a more physical, heavier-hitting tailback that is also tough to bring down. The diversity in Oklahoma's rushing attack only makes it more difficult to bring down the running backs.

Here's one final play to show how Oklahoma will attack a defense when two safeties are back deep. The Sooner offensive line has all of their assignments met in the blocking schemes and Gray is able to split a pair of Nebraska tacklers before scampering into the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown gain.

Defending this kind of offense is really, really difficult and it's why Briles' system has become one of the most popular base offenses in college football over the last several years.

To effectively defend this kind of offense, it's important for Kansas State defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman to disguise coverages with his defensive backs. If K-State's defensive backs camp in one place pre-snap, Oklahoma will likely torch the Wildcat defense.

However, if Klanderman is able to properly disguise coverages and he's able to effectively move his safeties around, then Kansas State could confuse Gabriel, which could lead to mistakes and turnovers.

Look for Kansas State to move Kobe Savage, Josh Hayes, Ekow Boye-Doe and Julius Brents all across the field in hopes of finding ways to make Gabriel's eyes lie to him. If Kansas State can do that, the defense could keep the Wildcats in a position to capitalize.