OUTromBoNado
10/11/2008, 03:39 PM
I'm enough of a man to say "good job" to Texas. This was one of the more exciting RRS I've seen in a few years. Both teams played very well and exploited the other teams' weaknesses. As a Sooner fan, I should be really pissed about the game, but I'm not horribly...except for the fact that since I now live in Texas, I won't be able to get away from hearing about today. Really, it came down to one or two plays either way that decided it today, which I'll get to here in a second.
Now, my negative observations....
(1) Our Kickoff Team really sucks. When the ball was moved back last year, it became pretty apparent to me that we were going to start having trouble. We don't have a kicker than can put the ball out into the endzone. Our coverage team....yeah. It's pretty much the equivalent of trying to hide Roseanne Barr with a handkerchief. I don't care how good your offense is, Kickoff Coverage is the key to winning field position. If you can't win field position, you're screwed. We've already seen earlier this year against Cincy how much trouble that can get us in.
(2) Our O-line is massively overrated and not playing anywhere near their full potential. After their performance last year and how good they should be, it boggles my mind how bad they are playing and how we can't run the ball. These guys are getting pushed around, and they shouldn't be.
(3) A big question mark on D has been LB play. Out LBs weren't great last year, with the exception of Curtis Lofton. Our LBs are good, but nowhere near great. The loss of Ryan Reynolds today made a huge difference. He's really good at plugging the middle and reading the offense.
Our eyes should be open at how Texas exploited the middle with short passes. That's the same type of stuff that Texas Tech does, and you can bet that Okla. St. is going to do the same thing. You don't have to a have running game when you can run the short pass like that. Props to the Texas O-Coordinator for coming up with that wrinkle. I haven't really seen Texas run that this year.
Those short passes helped spread the field and opened the running game. Unfortunately, our D was just on the field for too long. That's been something I've been worried about with such a quick-strike offense as ours. It doesn't give the D much recovery time.
(4) Missed tackles. But, I think that's more an attribute of the quality and strength of the athletes that Texas has.
(4) DeMarco is not the same. Knee injuries, even if rehabbed well, change a player. To be honest, I'm not sure it's a physical thing with him as it might be a mental thing. He seems to be very hesitant when he carries the ball. If he continues to be like this, we need to really find a killer RB to recruit.
(5) The no-huddle, hurry-up was great. It was working. We were owning their defense. Why the Hell did we quit using it, especially when we were down?
(6) Officiating on all sides were horrible. The two late hits on Colt McCoy by Travis were complete and utter BS. The roughing "hit" on Knall was also BS. Neg me if you want, but you guys know it. He wasn't touched. However, I do think the injury was legit and not an acting job like all the *********s on TV and radio are saying. He was injured on the fake punt, and I think he hurt himself more when he spun around trying to avoid contact. If you want to say that Knall did a great acting job, then you better give McCoy the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
I don't know what to say about the non-INT in the endzone. Spots for both teams were mind-boggling.
The positives from the game:
(1) Brian Jackson...wow. That guy is really good. He's taken away most of my questions regarding our secondary.
(2) Ryan Broyles continues to impress me.
(3) Big Easy continues to play really well.
(4) I loved the fake punt call. Yes, we failed to get the first down, but that was less than a foot. It's one of those things that makes you a hero or a zero. People have thought that Bob had lost the "Riverboat Gambler" label. Personally, I thought it was a great call. Sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't.
To summarize, you can look at 2 or 3 plays that really made the difference in this game. The kickoff return was huge. Take that away, that's potentially 7 points that Texas doesn't get. The non-INT call in the endzone resulted in 3 points. That's the 10-point margin of victory right there. The non-INT gave Texas the lead and all of the momentum. Maybe we get the first down on the Fake Punt. Who knows what happens if they went the other way. I don't think the refs blew the game for us, but there were bad calls and some really huge plays that made a giant difference.
Yeah, we should all be pissed that we lost. It's Texas. At the same time, we just lost to the #5-ranked team. Yes, we were #1, but I would much rather lose to a Top 5 team (especially Texas) rather than a Top 20 or non-ranked team.
Texas is pretty much going through Murderer's Row. They've still got Mizzou, Okla. St., and Tech. If they make it through that, they could potentially play Mizzou again for the Big 12, and that would be really impressive if they win all of those games. Of course, they also might not make it through. It's a long season, and there's still a lot of huge football games to play.
OUr Sooners played really well today. They just didn't have quite enough for whatever reason, whether it was injury, officiating, or bad luck. This was a very evenly matched game, and OUr guys played well against a great team. This team can still have a great season. So, let's pick up the pieces and beat the crap out of the rest of our schedule.
BOOMER SOONER!
Now, my negative observations....
(1) Our Kickoff Team really sucks. When the ball was moved back last year, it became pretty apparent to me that we were going to start having trouble. We don't have a kicker than can put the ball out into the endzone. Our coverage team....yeah. It's pretty much the equivalent of trying to hide Roseanne Barr with a handkerchief. I don't care how good your offense is, Kickoff Coverage is the key to winning field position. If you can't win field position, you're screwed. We've already seen earlier this year against Cincy how much trouble that can get us in.
(2) Our O-line is massively overrated and not playing anywhere near their full potential. After their performance last year and how good they should be, it boggles my mind how bad they are playing and how we can't run the ball. These guys are getting pushed around, and they shouldn't be.
(3) A big question mark on D has been LB play. Out LBs weren't great last year, with the exception of Curtis Lofton. Our LBs are good, but nowhere near great. The loss of Ryan Reynolds today made a huge difference. He's really good at plugging the middle and reading the offense.
Our eyes should be open at how Texas exploited the middle with short passes. That's the same type of stuff that Texas Tech does, and you can bet that Okla. St. is going to do the same thing. You don't have to a have running game when you can run the short pass like that. Props to the Texas O-Coordinator for coming up with that wrinkle. I haven't really seen Texas run that this year.
Those short passes helped spread the field and opened the running game. Unfortunately, our D was just on the field for too long. That's been something I've been worried about with such a quick-strike offense as ours. It doesn't give the D much recovery time.
(4) Missed tackles. But, I think that's more an attribute of the quality and strength of the athletes that Texas has.
(4) DeMarco is not the same. Knee injuries, even if rehabbed well, change a player. To be honest, I'm not sure it's a physical thing with him as it might be a mental thing. He seems to be very hesitant when he carries the ball. If he continues to be like this, we need to really find a killer RB to recruit.
(5) The no-huddle, hurry-up was great. It was working. We were owning their defense. Why the Hell did we quit using it, especially when we were down?
(6) Officiating on all sides were horrible. The two late hits on Colt McCoy by Travis were complete and utter BS. The roughing "hit" on Knall was also BS. Neg me if you want, but you guys know it. He wasn't touched. However, I do think the injury was legit and not an acting job like all the *********s on TV and radio are saying. He was injured on the fake punt, and I think he hurt himself more when he spun around trying to avoid contact. If you want to say that Knall did a great acting job, then you better give McCoy the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
I don't know what to say about the non-INT in the endzone. Spots for both teams were mind-boggling.
The positives from the game:
(1) Brian Jackson...wow. That guy is really good. He's taken away most of my questions regarding our secondary.
(2) Ryan Broyles continues to impress me.
(3) Big Easy continues to play really well.
(4) I loved the fake punt call. Yes, we failed to get the first down, but that was less than a foot. It's one of those things that makes you a hero or a zero. People have thought that Bob had lost the "Riverboat Gambler" label. Personally, I thought it was a great call. Sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't.
To summarize, you can look at 2 or 3 plays that really made the difference in this game. The kickoff return was huge. Take that away, that's potentially 7 points that Texas doesn't get. The non-INT call in the endzone resulted in 3 points. That's the 10-point margin of victory right there. The non-INT gave Texas the lead and all of the momentum. Maybe we get the first down on the Fake Punt. Who knows what happens if they went the other way. I don't think the refs blew the game for us, but there were bad calls and some really huge plays that made a giant difference.
Yeah, we should all be pissed that we lost. It's Texas. At the same time, we just lost to the #5-ranked team. Yes, we were #1, but I would much rather lose to a Top 5 team (especially Texas) rather than a Top 20 or non-ranked team.
Texas is pretty much going through Murderer's Row. They've still got Mizzou, Okla. St., and Tech. If they make it through that, they could potentially play Mizzou again for the Big 12, and that would be really impressive if they win all of those games. Of course, they also might not make it through. It's a long season, and there's still a lot of huge football games to play.
OUr Sooners played really well today. They just didn't have quite enough for whatever reason, whether it was injury, officiating, or bad luck. This was a very evenly matched game, and OUr guys played well against a great team. This team can still have a great season. So, let's pick up the pieces and beat the crap out of the rest of our schedule.
BOOMER SOONER!