This zone defense alone is not working

[MamaMia]

I was at the game. They had men open all day. Tech fans were cheering the success before the plays were even over.

I'm not in the mood to point fingers but like I've said for years, until we change it up and throw some man to man in the mix and start being able to defend against the pass, we will never ever win a National Championship. The bottom line is...we're a good team except for the fact that we cant defend against the pass.

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Crabtree

On the Oklahoma secondary:
"I just think they were in zone the whole time. We did a good job executing on our plays. In the second half we didn't score and put up any numbers, so I was a little disappointed about that, but we did our job and came out with a 'W'."

[sooner59]

I hope Venables gets the Arkansas job......or anywhere else. I havent been a fan of him since '04 in the SUC NC loss. The '03 K-state Big XII champ. game wasnt my favorite either. I mean, I think he does a great job against the run, but just not against the pass. This wasnt really all about this game, it was a long time coming. I like the guy, but he is due for a head coaching job, especially b/c he is so marketable being young, a good recruiter, and the DC at OU. I just think its time for him to move on and be a head coach. He will be ok, too. Im just not going to miss him unless our D is worse, which doesnt seem that likely.

[Curly Bill]

I hope Venables gets the Arkansas job and be a head coach. Im just not going to miss him unless our D is worse, which doesnt seem that likely.

So, you wouldn't miss him (neither would I for that matter), but you hope he gets the Arkansas job? That doesn't make a great deal of sense, because if we think he's doing a poor enough job to want him gone then why do we think Arkansas would hire him? I don't give the Arkansas peeps credit for being overly smart, but they are not going to hire Venables.

[tommieharris91]

I guess if we could find some guys who can man up and take a reciever 1-on-1, we could free up a backer or two to put more pressure on the QB. I was pretty pleased to see that we didn't have a down where we rushed only 3 guys.

Also, it seems that being physical is how to beat the Tceh offense. Zone is not a physical defense. Bob's teams that were physical with Tech typically man-handled them by forcing a lot of turnovers, limiting yardage, and keeping their scoring down. I didn't see much of that tonight, and I don't think I have seen much of that this season.

I get the feeling that having Sam in the entire game wouldn't have helped this much. We would have had a better chance to win, but we really needed to get urgent, especially in the 1st half, and stop this team.

[Ever]

I get the feeling that having Sam in the entire game wouldn't have helped this much. We would have had a better chance to win, but we really needed to get urgent, especially in the 1st half, and stop this team.

I get the feeling that having Sam would have changed everything. Ultimately, I think the defense would have been much better had they been given time to rest in between possessions and Hazle, God love him for his effort, just wasn't able to do it early on. Everyone, defense, offense, coaches, seemed to panic when Sam sat down.

"What if" at this stage, I suppose. :(

[sooner59]

So, you wouldn't miss him (neither would I for that matter), but you hope he gets the Arkansas job? That doesn't make a great deal of sense, because if we think he's doing a poor enough job to want him gone then why do we think Arkansas would hire him? I don't give the Arkansas peeps credit for being overly smart, but they are not going to hire Venables.

I wasnt reading too much into that, I just heard today during the LSU game that the AD-to-be or something like that at Arkansas worked under Joe Castiglione and Venables was definitely going to be a name on the ballot. That all I was basing that on. I just hope he gets a head coaching job somewhere soon, b/c he is losing street cred by the minute as a DC.

[tulsaoilerfan]

IMO, if Venables was that great of a coordinator he would have a head coaching gig by now; Stoops has lost Leach, Mangino, and Long from the offensive side of the ball, and of course little bro from the defense, but not Venables

[Curly Bill]

I just hope he gets a head coaching job somewhere soon, b/c he is losing street cred by the minute as a DC.

Yeah, I think this took some more of the shiny off of his coaching star.

[SoonerKnight]

And what team is able to stop TT? Either thay are lucky enough to slowem down so they can score more points or TT wins!!
This team is not that bad! TT is a good team! Yes, I would like to see more on the D how about hiring a co-D coordinator before you get rid of the guy that's been there so long?

[The_Red_Patriot]

Give me a break. We couldnt get anything going on offense until the 4th qtr. We had no momentum on the offensive side.

Our D shut them down in the 4th qtr, our offense had 3 tries in the Tech redzone to score, we only converted once.

But yea, lets blame it on Brent.

[OUinFLA]

IMO if we had played Tech man to man, they would have scored about 70 on us.

First, they run a no-huddle offense.
Second they have about 8 receivers they can shuffle in and out at will.

We would have been confused trying to man up in that short of a time frame.

Third, I dont think we have the talent and speed to man up against an offense like Techs where everyone but the center is capable of catching the ball, or Leach won't recruit them.

The only way I see teams beat Tech is:
Outscore them in a shoot out.
Have such a dominating pass rush that Graham doesn't have time to check receivers.
Play them about even somewhere other than Lubbock
Or..... catch them on an off night.

The pass rush part is not easy, how many passes did Graham make last night within 2 seconds of taking the snap? There isn't a pass rush around that can put pressure on a qb that can make that quick a pass. That's how good pro qb's take care of a blitz. Heck, I think Tech could have beat us last night running nothing but the 2 second blitz type pass play.

And since we couldn't cover any of the receivers on the 2 second quick pass, how do you think we have the talent to cover them man to man on the shotgun or 5 step drop?

I think we needed the combination of matching them score for score with a potent offense ( which we didnt have for 3 quarters) and with a decent pass rush (which we also didn't have for 3 quarters)

Besides, Graham was able to scramble around in the backfield for 10 seconds on any play he chose to, and with Tech's receiving corps, they have the talent to get to an open spot.

Take Tech's offense, toss in OU's running backs and OU's typical defense, and they'd "play any sucka, anywhere, anytime" and win 95% of the time.

[getrdone]

mama mia
good post-we did play some man coverage. one that sticks out is in the first half on 4th and short-reggie smith is in man cov. on the #1 receiver on the left. he lines up fundamentally wrong (either poor coaching or poor playing), at that point he is beat by alignment and stance. It is an easy throw for the qb-wr simply runs underneath-crosses the face of the db-easy first down.

we either have a lot of poor coaching or poor playing-and yes I coach fb and work for a head coach that is a db guru-has coached db's that play on Sunday.

[jduggle]

getrdone is right on the money....this is a poorly coached team. It was poorly coached last year and it continues to be poorly coached this year.

If you watch Crabtree's TD where he catches the ball in the corner of the endzone it tells the whole story. There was no mystery as to what TTech was going to do. They lined Crabtree out wide and we set up in our standard cover 2. Crabtree runs right through the zone while our our guys try their hardest to stay disciplined in their assignments. In so doing, no one covers Crabtree and he is left wide open for a TD.

It's the scheme.. it's the coaching...it's the knowledge of how you play secondary against a spread offense and in particular one with a great wide receiver.

I really don't know who to blame but it doesn't really matter....Stoops is the headcoach and one of these days he has to face the facts that his defensive philosophy does not work. I'm sure many will say they made adjustments at half time and they did well in the 2nd half. That's garbage. Stoops' staff is supposed to be one of the best and they should know exactly what to do at the start of the game. This defense looked clueless.

[OKC-SLC]

Mizzou killed TT by bringing pressure on Harrell all game. Picked him off 4 times and won by 30.

We brought extra men at him during the first three possessions, and it resulted in a pick-6, a punt, and a FG after giving them the short field on the fumble.

[tanjou]

Mizzou killed TT by bringing pressure on Harrell all game. Picked him off 4 times and won by 30.

We brought extra men at him during the first three possessions, and it resulted in a pick-6, a punt, and a FG after giving them the short field on the fumble.
This is the case. We inexplicably started rushing three linemen after sending five or six after him every play. Then, surprise, linebackers couldn't cover receivers or corners and safeties were playing off too much. The rest is history.

You can blame Bradford's injury if you like, but the offense went on to score 27 points. Not great, but the defense didn't start playing well enough or correctly to stop the scoring until the second half. Had they done so in the first half, the game would have been winnable.

[2k2 c5]

Quote : I get the feeling that having Sam in the entire game wouldn't have helped this much. We would have had a better chance to win, but we really needed to get urgent, especially in the 1st half, and stop this team.[/QUOTE]

It seemed to me that the air went out of our balloon after we lost Sam to the bench. With him in, I believe the since of urgency would have warmed up quickly.

All season, however, it seems our guys have not done well at handing off across the zones. I don't know why but we seem tokeep up with the coverage til then.

[getrdone]

hey thanks for the props jduggle

[adoniijahsooner]

hey thanks for the props jduggle

You guys do realize that tech scored only one touchdown in the second half and that came off of a turnover. If the offense pounds the ball from the start of the game until the clock reads zero, we are praising BV for his adjustments at the half. considering that our offense was three and out in the first half and fumbling the first snap from scrimmage we have to give this d a break. In the colorado game they were on the field all day as well because of a inept offense. Kevin Wilson and the O should take a hit as well.

[IronSooner]

All in all it was another full-team loss. O needed to stay on the field longer. It's really really hard to play defense so long against an offense like that. Don't forget the D has to turn around and run after the pass. You get tired much quicker that way.

I've disliked our secondary for the past couple years, in that we seem to play cover 2 nearly exclusively. We disguise blitzes, but the guys in coverage always do the same things. QBs know where the holes are, where to throw, and surprise, do fine against it. I understand playing zone when you don't have the horses to man-up on people, but why we can't man up on teams at this point is beyond me. Seems like mixing zone (maybe even cover 3, I dunno) with man would help. At least everyone watching wouldn't know where to throw the ball.

[Jason White's Third Knee]

'sup Joe?

I agree. We needed to score more. We looked very undisciplined. Stupid ball. Why isn't it round?