Question for some one who knows football...

[TheHumanAlphabet]

What did aTm do differently last night on defense that they hadn't all season?

Why couldn't we adjust to it after we saw what they were doing?


I am really wondering, I think things should be easier, but since I am not a coach, I know nothing about how to game plan and regroup later...

[BoulderSooner79]

aTm has been stout against the run all season and was giving up less than 100 yards/game on the ground. Their pass defense was 101st in the country and we are supposed to be a strong passing offense. So running up the middle 4 times at the goal line with our weakness against their strength, may not have been the best plan - but at least we did it on 3 occasions just to be sure.

The fact we were not effective in the air is the sad part for me. What is OUr main strength if it's not passing? They covered the short stuff which *must* have opened up medium and deeper stuff, but we could protect long enough to hit them. Other teams have moved easily against the aggies via the pass.

EDIT: caveat - I probably don't meet your "knows football" requirement

[StoopTroup]

Why couldn't we adjust to it after we saw what they were doing?

After you just get over the fact we lost and re-watch the game...things become apparent to me that last night's game was a well defended Home Stand for A&M. They are proud of defending Kyle Field and it's a hell of a place to be the visitor.

They had a few guys really playing well. I think you could even hear the announcers say they had some of their guys back for this game that had been injured. The games A&M had lost were to Mizzou, Arkansas and lil Brother. They lost all 3 of those in a row but played 3 very good teams. They didn't lose to a bunch of unranked teams.

We did adjust. We made a bunch of mistakes and failed to close the deal on more TD opportunities than you would have thought we might have had going into this game. There's no other way to put it than we beat ourselves and they played well enough to hold us off.

[jumperstop]

After you just get over the fact we lost and re-watch the game...things become apparent to me that last night's game was a well defended Home Stand for A&M. They are proud of defending Kyle Field and it's a hell of a place to be the visitor.

They had a few guys really playing well. I think you could even hear the announcers say they had some of their guys back for this game that had been injured. The games A&M had lost were to Mizzou, Arkansas and lil Brother. They lost all 3 of those in a row but played 3 very good teams. They didn't lose to a bunch of unranked teams.

We did adjust. We made a bunch of mistakes and failed to close the deal on more TD opportunities than you would have thought we might have had going into this game. There's no other way to put it than we beat ourselves and they played well enough to hold us off.

Gah, I'm sick of games where we beat ourselves.

[Sherminator]

We didn't have anyone back, and we were without our leading rusher, Michael. In addition to the 3 losses being to ranked teams, 2 of them were by a score, 1 on a FG at the end of the game. We're a completely different team than we were then anyway, after switching QBs. Jerrod Johnson's throwing shoulder was operated on during the off season and it apparently didn't heal properly, yet, and his poor play, most notably his turnovers, cost us those 3 games. If we had made the switch earlier, like we should have, we have no more than 1 loss, if not undefeated. You might take that into perspective.

[Collier11]

I think the problem was we didnt adjust, plain and simple. They werent doing anything earth shattering

[jumperstop]

I think the problem was we didnt adjust, plain and simple. They werent doing anything earth shattering

We adjusted in the third quarter, just not the fourth.

[AggieGirl2005]

We didn't have anyone back, and we were without our leading rusher, Michael. In addition to the 3 losses being to ranked teams, 2 of them were by a score, 1 on a FG at the end of the game. We're a completely different team than we were then anyway, after switching QBs. Jerrod Johnson's throwing shoulder was operated on during the off season and it apparently didn't heal properly, yet, and his poor play, most notably his turnovers, cost us those 3 games. If we had made the switch earlier, like we should have, we have no more than 1 loss, if not undefeated. You might take that into perspective.

Yeah but that's our offense...the defense, from what I can tell and I need to rewatch the game sans alcohol and erratic screaming, didn't do anything difference scheme-wise; our boys just executed much, much better than usual. Don't forget, our defense is relatively young and this is our DC's (and most of the D staff's) first year. We're running a new, more complicated defensive scheme, the 3-4, and players like Von Miller have been reassigned from previous roles. I think we just finally got our stuff together after playing so many games and were really ramped up to play OU. We had very few missed tackles compared to previous games.

Also, it's somewhat difficult to adjust to the 3-4 relative to other Ds. That's why I love it - you never know what's coming at you. Landry is a great QB but sensitive to pressure and our type of defense will leave him hearing footsteps, so it worked for us.

[SOONER44EVER]

In the 3rd quarter when the Aggies quit trying to run the ball our D looked pretty good. In the 4th quarter they started running again and the D couldn't stop them. It was more about what they did and didn't do than what we did IMO.

[StoopTroup]

We didn't have anyone back, and we were without our leading rusher, Michael. In addition to the 3 losses being to ranked teams, 2 of them were by a score, 1 on a FG at the end of the game. We're a completely different team than we were then anyway, after switching QBs. Jerrod Johnson's throwing shoulder was operated on during the off season and it apparently didn't heal properly, yet, and his poor play, most notably his turnovers, cost us those 3 games. If we had made the switch earlier, like we should have, we have no more than 1 loss, if not undefeated. You might take that into perspective.

Just tossing out what the announcers threw out. You make my point though. Those 3 losses could very well have been wins. You guys are a solid Team and at home...not even close to a gimme. I think lots of OUr fans thought you were a bunch of chumps. Tamu has played pretty good football and did what it took to take us down last night. Losing to oSu? That one hurt I bet.

[AggieGirl2005]

In the 3rd quarter when the Aggies quit trying to run the ball our D looked pretty good. In the 4th quarter they started running again and the D couldn't stop them. It was more about what they did and didn't do than what we did IMO.

Yes your blitzing scared the crap out of me all night. I was actually missing Jerrod's experience with defenses right about then

[StoopTroup]

Gah, I'm sick of games where we beat ourselves.

2 losses is better than 5...no matter what some folks think.

[SOONER44EVER]

Yes your blitzing scared the crap out of me all night. I was actually missing Jerrod's experience with defenses right about then

I wondered why ya'll abandoned the run in the 3rd quarter. Then I hoped you continue it in the 4th. You didn't. We lost.

[AggieGirl2005]

Losing to oSu? That one hurt I bet.

Yes :( especially since it was lost on a walkoff field goal after an interception. A really hard loss with big consequence.

[TXBOOMER]

2 losses is better than 5...no matter what some folks think.

True. But it sucks knowing you are more than likely going to lose when we go on the road. This year next year and the year after etc. No end in sight. Poor catching, poor blocking, poor tackling, poor kicking, etc. when we go on the road. Just need to get use to it and quit getting our hopes up for adding anymore NC's any time soon.

[StoopTroup]

But it sucks knowing you are more than likely going to lose when we go on the road.

So many of you keep saying this and it boggles my mind. Nobody and I mean Nobody wants it to be more likely at Home. We even have a pretty good streak going in Norman. Since we go to so many lengths to defend that Home front and our guys love playing there and winning there....it's just going to be that we are more likely to lose on the road.

The two teams we have lost to aren't slackers either. If we'd have lost to Cincinnati I might be a bit less stand offish about all this but we pulled off that Road win. It wasn't pretty...but we won. Essentially we beat the whorns on the Road too. We aren't 5-4...we're 7-2.

We have issues....but I knew that before we lost to Mizzou. I just thought we might continue to win ugly. I was wrong and we lost two games. I never thought we were the Best Team in the Nation and definitely didn't think we deserved to be BCS#1. It was awesome to be BCS #1 as everyone that wasn't a Sooner just about had an aneurysm when it was announced.

I continue to root this Team on and hopefully our Win streak in Waco will be intact Saturday Night.

[SOONER44EVER]

We are an elite program that is barely above .500 on the road over the past 5 years and almost guaranteed to play poorly on the road every time. :(

[StoopTroup]

We should schedule more Home games then

[MeMyself&Me]

We had very few missed tackles compared to previous games.

This was the biggest thing I noticed different about aTm last night. It's been years since I've seen aTm tackle that well in space... like they had glue all over their hands. :(

[Scott D]

I'm thinking that having a healthy(ier) Von Miller certainly helped.

[AggieGirl2005]

I'm thinking that having a healthy(ier) Von Miller certainly helped.

Yeah but freshman Damontre Moore is really good too - potentially better in some people's minds. He really stepped up while Miller was out. It's like losing Christine Michael but still having Cyrus Gray.

[Scott D]

Yeah but freshman Damontre Moore is really good too - potentially better in some people's minds. He really stepped up while Miller was out. It's like losing Christine Michael but still having Cyrus Gray.

perhaps, but it looks like the blocking was expecting a gimpy Miller.

[SouthFortySooner]

aTm played well. No matter how bad I felt about the missed throws or missed catches those young men felt much worse.

[cvsooner]

All in all, to me, with the exception of 2007 Colorado and 2009 Tech, our road losses have been to pretty good teams. We just screwed up at Colorado, and had total meltdown at Tech. (I notice Mizzou melted down at Tech yesterday....funny how that happens.) And I still don't count 2005 Tech or 2006 Oregon as road losses.

We had our chances to win yesterday and left 38 points on the field...sure thing TDs on the fake field goal (you have got to catch that, Hanna), Jones overthrows Stills, and then the three 1st and goals...which do puzzle me. We don't have a run-pass option, or anything, to get outside, rather than going right up the gut? Boggles the mind.

Really, this was Missouri 2.0. We simply aren't playing well enough to win consistently on the raod. I've said it before: you have to have four things to win away: good, smart QB play, be able to run the ball, don't lose the turnover ratio, and good defense and special teams.

Jones had his problems, especially in the first quarter, but he played okay. Maybe well enough to win. Not particularly smart: the safety he has to catch that snap. It's a little high but it's on him. He had a fumble that was just stupid, and got lucky imho on the reversed fumble/pass call, and should have run for a first down a couple of times. Wilson gets criticized with some justification for lackluster playcalling at times, but he was calling plays that got us to first and goal four times. Not sure why he then continues to try to bang it in, but there it is.

I also think it's odd that Heupel never gets criticized for not having Jones a bit farther along...Jones is a good QB but will probably never be a great QB.

Our run game, outside of spurts in the second half, never was much. Neither DM or Finch were on, and I think that's mostly the line/TEs. WRs actually blocked pretty well.

We did win the turnover section and should have had at least two more picks.

Special teams were mixed; Tress Way mostly punted well but one was really short, we returned the ball well, ran the fake FG to perfection up to actually making the catch, and O'Hara nailed the one kick. On the downside, another TD returned for points and that terrible knuckle ball kick. But special teams mostly didn't do us in.

Defense played...okay outside a couple of drives. I think they might have played better if we had the lead, but...who knows. Didn't play well enough. JKM has highlighted elsewhere our poor linebacker play (esp. one guy), and that's probably the key...though Carter, despite his ability to lay people out, is the weakest link in the secondary.

And with all that, we still had chances to win. A&M made the plays they had to at the right time to win the game. If we pull off the fake FG...would have been interesting to see the outcome then. Or if we make a couple of those first and goal situations.

Bob's got his work cut out for him.