My Take of the Game [Archive] - SoonerFans.com Message Boards

MR2-Sooner86

1/9/2009, 02:13 AM

This is just my opinion of what I saw of the game. Take it however you like.

I feel our offense, not our defense, lost this football game. Wait, did I just say that?

I don't blame the players but more of the coaches on play calling and handling of the offense.

(1) Is the game about to end? What was with the hail marry type passes down the field? It seems we were trying to do a KO knockout on Florida at the beginning. Does it matter? Just get the touchdown! Are we trying to win a contest by getting the most fancy TD highlights on Sports Center?

(2) They keep talking about our no huddle and the "speed" of our offense. Fox even went so far to put a little clock to show how fast we were. Yeah, 25-30 seconds in between plays as our players kept looking up really showed how "fast" we were on offense. Noticed how they took the clock down after a while?
I thought the purpose of a "no huddle" offense was to speed things up and knock defenses on their ***. What's the point when you line up and then go into a "huddle" with the coaches on the sideline for a good 30 seconds?

(3) To go with point 2, when we actually did the hurry up and speed attack of our offense, then we stopped. Why? We're being productive and really knocking Florida on their ***, then we slow it back down and let them play catch up. It's like a boxer who's beating the hell out of his opponent and has a chance to knock him out but then stands back and analyzes the final punch which gives his opponent a chance to come back and start hitting on him. That's what Florida did.

(4) Talking about Florida getting a chance to come back, that's what we did in the red zone. We darted down the field before they could blink twice and then stood there, and stood there. We got a play and...oh wait, lets change it. Ok that's a good play lets try it again. Wait, lets change it. The whole time Florida is lined up, ready, and good to go against whatever we throw at them. We should have been up 21-7 going into the half.

(5) Did anybody expect that from our defense? I was surprised as hell they shut down Florida the way they did. They didn't shut them down like our 2000 team did of FSU but they contained Florida as long as they could and gave the ball back to our offense several times. I mean we got two interceptions that should have been an easy 14 points.

Finally, I can't believe you people. We're a laughing stock of the college football world now. We've lost 5 BCS games in a row. We've lost 3 of the last 4 National Championships we've been in. Big Game Bob looks like he has lost the touch and can't win it anymore.
And you know what? I wouldn't trade this for anything or rather be a fan of some other school. I love watching this team play. I love having Stoops as a coach. I love being a Sooner. **** happens. You can't win them all, it's impossible. Even if you are on top, there are several people just waiting to knock you off. I would have loved for this to be our 10th, not 8th, championship trophy to play for but it's not. We're still at 7. I mean look, Florida just won number 3 tonight and they won number 2 just a couple of years ago. Their first championship was a little over a decade ago! So we're not doing too bad.

BOOMER SOONER!!!

tbl

1/9/2009, 02:40 AM

I concur.

SteelCitySooner

1/9/2009, 02:42 AM

ditto

Leroy Lizard

1/9/2009, 02:53 AM

(1) Is the game about to end? What was with the hail marry type passes down the field? It seems we were trying to do a KO knockout on Florida at the beginning. Does it matter? Just get the touchdown! Are we trying to win a contest by getting the most fancy TD highlights on Sports Center?

The passes I saw were the same ones we have always relied on. OU is a quick strike offense that thrives on the big play.

BaSwitz

1/9/2009, 03:37 AM

The passes I saw were the same ones we have always relied on. OU is a quick strike offense that thrives on the big play.

I concur. I just wish we would have thrown to Gresh more. Especially inside the five before the half. I don't blame Sam for the picks, those were just great plays by the Gator secondary. I thought they would blitz more in the second half and they showed alot of blitz. They dropped back and had pretty good coverage on our wides. I also think we should have thrown a few more to Brown. They did a great job on defense though and my hats off to them.

Crucifax Autumn

1/9/2009, 03:45 AM

my nuts off to them too!

...oh...

you said hats

Cappy

1/9/2009, 03:47 AM

(2) They keep talking about our no huddle and the "speed" of our offense. Fox even went so far to put a little clock to show how fast we were. Yeah, 25-30 seconds in between plays as our players kept looking up really showed how "fast" we were on offense. Noticed how they took the clock down after a while?
I thought the purpose of a "no huddle" offense was to speed things up and knock defenses on their ***. What's the point when you line up and then go into a "huddle" with the coaches on the sideline for a good 30 seconds?

The big advantage of our no huddle approach is not so much the speed, but that we don't need to substitute when we do it. Our players like Eldredge, Clapp, Murray, and Broyles are versatile enough to line up in numerous positions without letting the defense substitute allowing us to get favorable match-ups all over the field. Once the defense lines up, the coaches then have time to look at where they think the defense is vulnerable and change the play, or just the blocking scheme.

The passes I saw were the same ones we have always relied on. OU is a quick strike offense that thrives on the big play.

Wish there would have been a bubble screen to Broyles or Iglesias in the second half at least though...

FrostySooner

1/9/2009, 04:26 AM

I definitely think that this game would have been different if we would have went into the locker room up 21-7. I can't beleive that we basically ran the same play 4 times in a row on the seven yard line. I was looking for a playaction pass or a rollout by Bradford, but instead, we tried to run straight up the middle. I know that the run game was working, but we could have been a little more creative in the play calling column there. The INT right before the half was simply luck. How that ball didn't touch the ground, I will never know, but it didn't. Simply put, if we would have put up 31 points tonight, we would have won the game, but oh well, life goes on and I am already counting the days until next year. The Sooners will roll on. Congrats to the players and coaches for a fine season.

Rusher

1/9/2009, 05:49 AM

I thought the killer was that they stopped doing the "no-huddle" routines. It seems like they were running no huddle, but everytime they always have to check with the sideline. That killed it. Gators got some time to settle their D. This was the key of shutting down OU's offense. It wasn't Gator that shut down OU's offense, it's OU themselves.

When they ran the high tempo plays that gave OU their first touchdown, they should have stuck with that.

Another thing was the way they handle the game pressure. It seemed like OU freaked out that they didn't score as many points as they'd like to on the first half, while Gators seemed to be ready to play it all the way through the 4th quarter (ie. Alabama SEC title game). They were spoiled with 20+ points per quarter and it definitely affected their psyche on the 2nd half.

Don't get me wrong. With a little great plays here and there we would have won.

And yeah, Harvey bailed Tebow out. A lot.

rubyspirit

1/9/2009, 05:52 AM

I don't blame the players but more of the coaches on play calling and handling of the offense.

I agree. The no huddle should be a quicker approach. When we went faster, Florida couldn't keep up. When we change plays 3 times!!!!! there were problems.

wishbonesooner

1/9/2009, 06:19 AM

Our hurry up was working. For whatever reason, we just stopped. Not having a huddle means what? If you're still standing there and the defense gets set, what did you gain? Weird.

PujolsFan

1/9/2009, 08:11 AM

While I do agree w/what you're saying about the no-huddle and the uptempo offense OU has been running all season... and the fact that we seemed to stop, check the sidelines for (what felt like) 10 minutes to get a check... and then run the play...

Uhh... did anyone else get p!ssed when the refs seemed to continually stop us, hold up play and then make some sort of l@me@ss excuse as to "resetting the chains" or "resetting the play clock" or... even a few times they never said anything... just stopped OU after a nice quick play... and seemed to let UF get their D set up and ready to go... THEN let OU run the play. Heck, there were a couple times that the OU line was set and ready to go w/UF's D line standing in our backfield trying to get back across the line and the refs simply blew their whistle... and let F's D get set and then run the play.

I thought the Reffing of this game ROYALLY SUXD DONKEYB@LLS!!! But, hey maybe I'm just a sore losur....

ashley

1/9/2009, 08:13 AM

They had about five or six big plays and that not bad for all their speed and skill. Our offense not getting it in when they should have plus two bad calls did us in.

Flagstaffsooner

1/9/2009, 08:20 AM

Not to mention that Iglesias couldnt catch a cold if he was in the middle of a snot circle.

TripleOption14

1/9/2009, 08:28 AM

1. Inability to get off the field on 3rd down was HUGE!!! When its 3 and long and you can't stop them thats a tell-tell sign.

2. We had NO big plays on offense. The Gators had 3 or 4 big plays.

3. And finally, leaving pts. on the field. There were 10pts. for sure left on the field by OU last night. Although 7 or the 10pts was just d@mn fool bad luck. I mean honestly, 9 times outta 10 that ball that was picked off at the 1 yard line hits the ground.

soonerfan69

1/9/2009, 09:30 AM

play calling lost this game

gotpoi73

1/9/2009, 09:45 AM

not getting any points on our last 2 drives of the 1st half, was the difference. then unfortunately the 4th quarter pass that went through juaqin's hands...game over.. great effort though! i'm still proud of them

abOUtwinning

1/9/2009, 09:56 AM

cheezyq

1/9/2009, 10:27 AM

1. No huddle - part of the problem was the reviews between nearly every play, the injury timeouts, and refs taking their time getting the ball to the spot. One time, a Florida defender slapped the ball before we lined up, which should have resulted in an unsportsmanlike penalty, but we still scored anyway.

2. The no huddle is NOT what makes our offense so unique and explosive. What makes it unique and explosive is that we can line up under center and run an I-formation at you and go for 10-15 yards, and the next play we can play action, and then we can line up in the spread out of the shotgun. We screwed ourselves most of the time by just going with the spread and staying in shotgun, telegraphing to the defense what we were going to do. When we lined up in I-formation or single-back under center, we were dominating UF. For some unholy reason, we were infatuated with the shotgun spread, just as we were against LSU in 2003/4.

3. Playcalling - we should have taken the field goal on both drives. In a big game like this, you take the points every time.

4. The defense was GREAT until we stopped jamming the line to stop the run. We needed to put the pressure on Tebow to throw. We got away from that in the 2nd half, and gave up 17 points as a result.

soonerfan69

1/9/2009, 11:12 AM

trying to run a stretch play on 4th and goal against a fast defense was stupid and why the hell didn't they keep their LB's more to the middle where they kept running time after time

Circle City Gator

1/9/2009, 11:24 AM

You stuck with the no-huddle. It's just that Florida was ready. If we weren't, Bradford would have run the play. Once we were set up, though, he looked to the sideline for changes in the call based on the way the defense lined up.