Widescreen
9/17/2006, 03:25 PM
I'm going to set aside the idiocy from yesterday. We all know (including the duck coaches and fans) that we got royally screwed - no need to comment on that.
Coming into the season, we all heard how this could be Stoops' best defense yet due to returning starters and experience. We suspected there would be some struggles offensively because of an inexperienced OL and QB who's been playing WR for a year. After 3 games, you can see various patterns emerge - not that we know where we will be in 8 games, but you can see the things we are weak on and will have to work on a lot to get better.
Defense
There was an article in the Daily Oklahoman right before the season started where (I think it was) Birdine who was wanting to break the Sooner record for sacks in a career. How many sacks do we have as a team? Our interior DL is basically non-existent - the OL gets through to our linebackers on nearly every play which causes gaping holes for even average RB's to run through. The loss of DD was apparently much more devestating than I would've thought because he routinely got doubled which allowed our ends to cause havoc. As a result, our ends aren't doing much of anything - so much for Birdine's goal. This lack of pass rush also puts our secondary at risk as the opposing QB has a bunch of time to survey the field and wait for a receiver to break free. I strongly believe our secondary would be much better if we had any kind of representative pass rush (see last year).
Offense
Any offensive difficulties we've had this year have fallen right at the feet of our OL. Am I surprised? Not really. Am I surprised that it's this bad? Yes. These guys can get absolutely no push until late in the game when the defense is getting tired. Peterson spends most of the 1st half either running wide or banging his head against a defensive wall. There was at least 1 green jersey in our backfield on nearly every play yesterday - even when they weren't blitzing. But the real killer is the penalties. We had 1st-and-goal 3 times inside the UO 10 yard line and had to kick field goals. Folks, that's the difference between winning and losing. If you can't have the discipline when you're 1st-and-goal at the 2 to not false start, you don't deserve to win. And it wasn't the crowd at Autzen that caused it - we were doing the same crap last week at home. You know its bad when your only senior on the OL is killing you. PT throws too high, too hard, or too far sometimes - we all expected that. Overall he's playing well so it's not him. Peterson is a man among boys and continues to show why he's the best RB in football. Our receivers are very impressive individually and as a group. No worries there. But if we continue to have year-after-year of subpar OL play, we're not going to be much of a factor nationally.
My current prediction is that UT will not have to throw a single pass to beat us. Their strength is their OL and they should be able to manhandle us and run straight up the gut all game long. I feel like washing my mouth out with soap for saying it because I don't think UT is that much better than us. But one of their main strengths plays right into one of our main weaknesses.
Feel free to neg away. I'm a big boy and can take it. Just my opinion and I hope that when the season's over I can look back at this post and see how far we've come. Time will tell.
Boomer Sooner
Coming into the season, we all heard how this could be Stoops' best defense yet due to returning starters and experience. We suspected there would be some struggles offensively because of an inexperienced OL and QB who's been playing WR for a year. After 3 games, you can see various patterns emerge - not that we know where we will be in 8 games, but you can see the things we are weak on and will have to work on a lot to get better.
Defense
There was an article in the Daily Oklahoman right before the season started where (I think it was) Birdine who was wanting to break the Sooner record for sacks in a career. How many sacks do we have as a team? Our interior DL is basically non-existent - the OL gets through to our linebackers on nearly every play which causes gaping holes for even average RB's to run through. The loss of DD was apparently much more devestating than I would've thought because he routinely got doubled which allowed our ends to cause havoc. As a result, our ends aren't doing much of anything - so much for Birdine's goal. This lack of pass rush also puts our secondary at risk as the opposing QB has a bunch of time to survey the field and wait for a receiver to break free. I strongly believe our secondary would be much better if we had any kind of representative pass rush (see last year).
Offense
Any offensive difficulties we've had this year have fallen right at the feet of our OL. Am I surprised? Not really. Am I surprised that it's this bad? Yes. These guys can get absolutely no push until late in the game when the defense is getting tired. Peterson spends most of the 1st half either running wide or banging his head against a defensive wall. There was at least 1 green jersey in our backfield on nearly every play yesterday - even when they weren't blitzing. But the real killer is the penalties. We had 1st-and-goal 3 times inside the UO 10 yard line and had to kick field goals. Folks, that's the difference between winning and losing. If you can't have the discipline when you're 1st-and-goal at the 2 to not false start, you don't deserve to win. And it wasn't the crowd at Autzen that caused it - we were doing the same crap last week at home. You know its bad when your only senior on the OL is killing you. PT throws too high, too hard, or too far sometimes - we all expected that. Overall he's playing well so it's not him. Peterson is a man among boys and continues to show why he's the best RB in football. Our receivers are very impressive individually and as a group. No worries there. But if we continue to have year-after-year of subpar OL play, we're not going to be much of a factor nationally.
My current prediction is that UT will not have to throw a single pass to beat us. Their strength is their OL and they should be able to manhandle us and run straight up the gut all game long. I feel like washing my mouth out with soap for saying it because I don't think UT is that much better than us. But one of their main strengths plays right into one of our main weaknesses.
Feel free to neg away. I'm a big boy and can take it. Just my opinion and I hope that when the season's over I can look back at this post and see how far we've come. Time will tell.
Boomer Sooner