David Earl
9/18/2006, 02:58 PM
Overview
It is hard to know exactly where to start. This much I know. I’m not going to spend an enormous amount of time analyzing the team play, at least not as much as I originally planned. I’ll make some comments, as you’ll soon see, but most of my time will be devoted to comments toward the end of this game review.
For now, suffice to say the Sooners played pretty well on offense, though there were some problems. And the defense played really well for about a quarter and a half. Special teams were pretty solid. Overall, the team showed more than just a flicker of being back on the national stage. That flicker was snuffed out, however, not by Oregon, but by game officials. Whether or not the fire can be rekindled is yet to be seen.
Offense
Other than failing to punch the ball in for a TD as opposed to settling for FG’s and having a little penalty trouble, I’d say the offense played really well.
The illegal formation penalty that took back TD pass early on was a killer. Then we had a couple of false start penalties and a holding penalty after UO fumbled the punt. People, we had the ball first and goal on UO’s 2 yard line and had to settle for a FG. That’s not good.
Wilson has shown a real willingness to pass on first down this season. The play calling has been really hard to guess, for the most part. However, there was an early stretch in the UO game where we were consistently running on first and second down. I’m sure Wilson was trying to establish Peterson. When that wasn’t working Wilson went back to the short and medium passes Paul likes and that helped get the ground game going.
QB
Paul had a really good game. Yeah, he overthrew Kelly on early deep ball. Paul’s going to do that sort of thing a good bit. Just know that’s going to happen, but he’s also going to hit the target. Remember, when under pressure he kept passing well and staying cool. At the end of the day Paul led the offense to hang some points.
Paul needs to feel pressure a little better. He did have a nice scramble late in the second quarter, though a holding against the o-line took it all away. He made a great throw in the third, waiting till just the right time to catch Iglesias on a deep post. It was a gutsy throw that required patience.
Paul threw into tight coverage to Kelly a few times and that was making me a little nervous. However, for the most part he threw the ball smart and accurate enough. Paul seems to do best with short to medium throws and an occasional medium to long pass mixed in. He continues to be a strength of this team and is showing what it means to be a true Sooner.
RB
Pleasant got a lot of action at FB. He caught a little action in the passing game, nabbing a couple of passes thrown his way. I’m not sure he’s blocking as well as Clapp. On some plays Pleasant would make a nice block and on others he’d miss. Speaking of Clapp, I thought he was going to play. Not sure what the deal was there.
Adrian Peterson took over the game in the fourth quarter. He was unbelievable, an absolute monster. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; enjoy watching this young man play. Players this special don’t come along often.
Peterson continues to work on blitz blocking. Sometimes he does pretty well and sometimes he misses the block on a blitzer.
WR/TE
Eldridge got his first catch of the season, I believe. He continues to impress with his blocking skills. I wish we’d had a little more TE action in the passing game, but UO defense may have keyed there a little.
Iglesias had a great catch and fought hard for yards in the third quarter. Kelly had an absolute circus in the third quarter. He was trying to walk a tightrope down the sidelines and appeared to be headed for pay dirt. I thought he stepped out and the officials agreed. The pass was behind Kelly and he one-handed batted it around, juggling it back and forth, finally hauling it in. Even without the TD, it was a huge play on third and long. Other guys did a good job catching and turning up field. The passing game wasn’t always great, but it was formidable.
OL
An early holding call on Cooper took us out of the redzone. We wound up getting a FG on that drive. Pass protection and run blocking were not strong early, but improved as the game wore on. Considering where this group has come from and their youth I’m pretty pleased with where they’re at. I know there’s some penalty trouble and the inside run is not there, but they’re coming along.
Defense
The defense played well through part of the second quarter, most of the third and part of the fourth. The total was about a quarter and a half worth of good play. Other than that there was the same old poor tackling, getting pushed around and out gapped. The defense gave up 187 yards in the first quarter and I think over 500 for the game. This is just not acceptable.
We don’t know how good the UO offense is because they’ve yet to be tested. By that I mean their first two opponents didn’t test them and neither did the Sooner defense. UO appears to have a pretty good offense, maybe great. I don’t know. I do know our defense is not good. Our national rankings are abysmal. These are not editorial comments. These are facts readily observable by a casual glance at national statistics.
Is it coaching? Is it players? Is it recruiting? Is it all the above? I’m just not smart enough to say. Earlier in the season I commented that I haven’t given up on BV yet as a defensive coordinator. That statement is getting harder to make. Even if we have some talent issues on defense (and I’m not convinced we do) we have enough talent to be better than we’re playing. I’m glad to have Venables and I want him to do well. I’m just wondering if he’s a great position coach but not a great coordinator.
DL
These guys are not getting consistent penetration against the run or pass. I’m sorry, they’re just not. There are times they’re absolutely getting blown off the ball. There are times o-linemen are pushing through and blocking LB’s five yards downfield.
I know there are occasionally good plays. Coleman blew up an inside shovel. Granger sometimes looks like the answer. But there’s nothing consistent. The ends are playing well, but weak tackle play is hurting them.
LB
Latimer dropped an early would-be INT. How much might that have changed the game? It’s impossible to say. Rufus caused a key fumble in the third when UO was driving. It was a close call, but it looked like the ball was coming out before the runner’s knee hit. The ruling was there was not enough conclusive evidence to overturn the call.
Where is the run support in the middle? Part of this is on the front four, but it seems like Latimer is not getting off blocks or is coming in low and getting pushed down. The run defense up the middle looks very vulnerable.
DB
We’re having tackling woes back here too, especially at safety. Our corners are looking better and Harris is playing well. He had the two interceptions. (I’m not holding that last TD against him.) The secondary was having trouble with quick slants and slip screens. UO feasted on those short passes in this game.
Walker had excellent defense in the endzone on UO’s second drive, which saved a TD. Marcus does well trying to defend those tall WR’s. Marcus came to play.
Holmes got a little action but didn’t cover as well. He had a really nice tackle on a slip screen. I know, it’s sad when we’re all excited that somebody actually tackled well on a play.
Smith finally got a chance to defend against some passes and looked good early. He wasn’t afraid to hit UO’s big TE on one play, in spite of the laws of physics being against him.
Special Teams
The first punt was not great, but Cohen redeemed himself on the second punt sending the ball 52 yards and continued to punt well. Hartley seems to kick well under pressure. He nailed several. I don’t know if the block on that last one was due to low trajectory or if the guys up front didn’t hold their ground well enough. I’m not convinced it matters. We have every reason to believe the ball could have gone through the uprights and the refs would have signaled first down Oregon.
The guys had a big fumble recovery on that punt late in the second quarter. Coverage on kicks and punts was pretty impressive. Reggie Smith was electric on his last return. Do you think if he’d gotten to pay dirt somebody would have found their yellow hanky? I do.
Zebras
Brace yourselves, you people.
In every game there are questionable calls, and there are outright bad calls. In my game reviews I pick out a few of these and complain. It’s always intended as tongue-in-cheek. I like throwing around phrases like “wicked zebras” and such. The guys are human and in a high speed game they will miss calls. They’ll do it every time. When they’re doing their best to get it right, they’ll often get it wrong. We all know it and it’s fun to joke around about it.
Refs getting calls wrong is all part of the game. Sometimes it goes in your favor. Sometimes it’s against you. In the long run, that sort of thing tends to balance out.
We saw this sort of thing in the OU/UO game Saturday. Through the course of the game there were calls like this, calls where it looked at least questionable; and they went both ways. That is fine, that’s all part of the game. But what happened toward the closing seconds of game had nothing to do with questionable calls.
I’m not the sort of person to blame a loss on bad officiating. I’ll complain about bad calls in this section of game reports for grins, but that’s about it. I haven’t said much about the home cooking served up in Lubbock last year. I figure the TD call was at least debatable. The fourth down call on that same drive was bad, but I haven’t said too much about it.
I’m not the sort of person to be a poor sport. If my team loses, I usually forget about it and move on pretty quickly. I’ll write reviews and discuss it as a pastime but I see no reason for me to get upset about a game. That’s what college football is for me. A hobby. So for me, blaming officials and getting upset about a loss detracts from the purpose, to relax. Please view my following comments through that lens.
The infamous pass interference on the tipped ball was a bad call and the review official didn’t catch the obvious. That is sad, but in my mind is not the most egregious crime in this game.
What happened on the onside kick was not poor officiating. It was unbridled cheating. There’s a lot of talk about the Oregon players interfering with Kelly’s opportunity to catch the kick. That’s a valid point that should have rendered possession to OU. There’s talk about UO players touching the ball before it traveled 10 yards. The replay clearly showed this to be the case. This is another valid point that renders possession to OU. While these two factors are telling, to me they are not the most telling events.
We’ve all seen the video where the ball goes into the pile, through the pile and out the back of the pile where Allen Patrick fell on it, rightfully claiming possession for the Sooners. But the officials did not see it that way. Officials ran up to a pile wherein there was no football and proceeded to signal first down Oregon. On what basis?! Was the football in an Oregon player’s hands? No. Had it been in their possession? No. It won’t do to say they saw possession and whistled the play dead before Patrick got the ball. The ball never stopped when going through the scrum. The ball rattled around in the pile and shot out the back where Patrick got it. There is no reasonable basis upon which officials could award possession to Oregon... Unless the decision was already made to give Oregon the ball. The way this was called is very telling.
I know. Everybody is sick of conspiracy theories. Everybody says questionable calls happen. It’s part of the game. Listen! The game is defined by its rules. What happened with the onside kick was not “part of the game”. It was in spite of the rules that define the game. What if the ball had clearly gone to Kelly, he catches it and the refs said it was Oregon’s ball? Is that part of the game? You think that is ridiculous? That’s basically what happened. Patrick recovered the ball for OU, showed it to the refs, they ignored that and gave Oregon the ball.
Now I can hear some of you saying OU should have played well enough to not put themselves in a position where the game was in officials’ hands. I’ve often made similar statements about bad calls. But on Saturday OU did precisely that. OU did what OU needed to do to win. OU recovered the kick. The officials took the ball from Allen Patrick and gave it to Oregon. That is cheating. There is nothing to call it but cheating. I don’t mean a third grade kid screaming “you cheated” cause his team lost. I mean the refs disregarded the rules and cheated.
Was it conference loyalty? Was it gambling money? Was it Nike? I don’t know. What I do know is what happened was not poor officiating. Poor officiating is when refs let holding go then call it. Poor officiating is when refs call pass interference when they shouldn’t have or fail to call it when they should. Poor officiating is when fast things happen in a fast game and officials don’t get it right. It is physically impossible for refs to always get it right. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
I can’t tell you how many fans, Tech fans, UT fans, fans of several schools have told me they were mad at what happened. I can tell you why they were mad. It wasn’t because they love OU. They hate OU. It’s because they, like me, love college football.
There’s a reason I don’t like professional wrestling. If I wanted to watch a fake fight I put in Rocky or Karate Kid. But I’m not interested in that. I am interested in college football. However, on Saturday, September 16, 2006, college football took another giant step away from being a competition and toward being a scripted joke.
Anybody wanting to counsel me to let it go, bad calls happen, keep your counsel to yourself. This isn’t about the game played last Saturday. This isn’t about the 2006 season. This isn’t about OU. This is about college football. The game I love is dying. I can handle losing a game against the Ducks or any other team. But do we have to lose the sport in the process?! Duck fans, this is your loss too! This is a loss for other Pac 10 fans! Big 12, Big 10, SEC, all rise up! Take note! What happened in the OU/UO game Saturday effects us all.
Summary
We all know OU got robbed. So did Oregon. The story is no longer about two teams fighting tooth and nail. What might have been a storied comeback, Duck Magic or a narrow Sooner win, is now about Pac 10 officials who are frauds, charlatans, rogues, criminals and more. I call upon Oregon fans to join in the outrage. You’ve seen the video. You know what happened. Be honest, you really know. You can keep your victory; just help us keep the game.
I believe OU can bounce back. I believe the Sooners can pull together and make plays the rest of the season. I’m just trying to believe it will make a difference.
As you can tell, this game review is not just about the game, it’s about the state of our sport. I know I sound a little gloomy. But there’s something here that gives me hope. I’m not the only one in America that loves college football. Maybe, just maybe, somebody with enough resources and influence can step in and do something. In the meantime, I’ll keep wearing crimson and hoping for the best. Boomer Sooner!
It is hard to know exactly where to start. This much I know. I’m not going to spend an enormous amount of time analyzing the team play, at least not as much as I originally planned. I’ll make some comments, as you’ll soon see, but most of my time will be devoted to comments toward the end of this game review.
For now, suffice to say the Sooners played pretty well on offense, though there were some problems. And the defense played really well for about a quarter and a half. Special teams were pretty solid. Overall, the team showed more than just a flicker of being back on the national stage. That flicker was snuffed out, however, not by Oregon, but by game officials. Whether or not the fire can be rekindled is yet to be seen.
Offense
Other than failing to punch the ball in for a TD as opposed to settling for FG’s and having a little penalty trouble, I’d say the offense played really well.
The illegal formation penalty that took back TD pass early on was a killer. Then we had a couple of false start penalties and a holding penalty after UO fumbled the punt. People, we had the ball first and goal on UO’s 2 yard line and had to settle for a FG. That’s not good.
Wilson has shown a real willingness to pass on first down this season. The play calling has been really hard to guess, for the most part. However, there was an early stretch in the UO game where we were consistently running on first and second down. I’m sure Wilson was trying to establish Peterson. When that wasn’t working Wilson went back to the short and medium passes Paul likes and that helped get the ground game going.
QB
Paul had a really good game. Yeah, he overthrew Kelly on early deep ball. Paul’s going to do that sort of thing a good bit. Just know that’s going to happen, but he’s also going to hit the target. Remember, when under pressure he kept passing well and staying cool. At the end of the day Paul led the offense to hang some points.
Paul needs to feel pressure a little better. He did have a nice scramble late in the second quarter, though a holding against the o-line took it all away. He made a great throw in the third, waiting till just the right time to catch Iglesias on a deep post. It was a gutsy throw that required patience.
Paul threw into tight coverage to Kelly a few times and that was making me a little nervous. However, for the most part he threw the ball smart and accurate enough. Paul seems to do best with short to medium throws and an occasional medium to long pass mixed in. He continues to be a strength of this team and is showing what it means to be a true Sooner.
RB
Pleasant got a lot of action at FB. He caught a little action in the passing game, nabbing a couple of passes thrown his way. I’m not sure he’s blocking as well as Clapp. On some plays Pleasant would make a nice block and on others he’d miss. Speaking of Clapp, I thought he was going to play. Not sure what the deal was there.
Adrian Peterson took over the game in the fourth quarter. He was unbelievable, an absolute monster. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; enjoy watching this young man play. Players this special don’t come along often.
Peterson continues to work on blitz blocking. Sometimes he does pretty well and sometimes he misses the block on a blitzer.
WR/TE
Eldridge got his first catch of the season, I believe. He continues to impress with his blocking skills. I wish we’d had a little more TE action in the passing game, but UO defense may have keyed there a little.
Iglesias had a great catch and fought hard for yards in the third quarter. Kelly had an absolute circus in the third quarter. He was trying to walk a tightrope down the sidelines and appeared to be headed for pay dirt. I thought he stepped out and the officials agreed. The pass was behind Kelly and he one-handed batted it around, juggling it back and forth, finally hauling it in. Even without the TD, it was a huge play on third and long. Other guys did a good job catching and turning up field. The passing game wasn’t always great, but it was formidable.
OL
An early holding call on Cooper took us out of the redzone. We wound up getting a FG on that drive. Pass protection and run blocking were not strong early, but improved as the game wore on. Considering where this group has come from and their youth I’m pretty pleased with where they’re at. I know there’s some penalty trouble and the inside run is not there, but they’re coming along.
Defense
The defense played well through part of the second quarter, most of the third and part of the fourth. The total was about a quarter and a half worth of good play. Other than that there was the same old poor tackling, getting pushed around and out gapped. The defense gave up 187 yards in the first quarter and I think over 500 for the game. This is just not acceptable.
We don’t know how good the UO offense is because they’ve yet to be tested. By that I mean their first two opponents didn’t test them and neither did the Sooner defense. UO appears to have a pretty good offense, maybe great. I don’t know. I do know our defense is not good. Our national rankings are abysmal. These are not editorial comments. These are facts readily observable by a casual glance at national statistics.
Is it coaching? Is it players? Is it recruiting? Is it all the above? I’m just not smart enough to say. Earlier in the season I commented that I haven’t given up on BV yet as a defensive coordinator. That statement is getting harder to make. Even if we have some talent issues on defense (and I’m not convinced we do) we have enough talent to be better than we’re playing. I’m glad to have Venables and I want him to do well. I’m just wondering if he’s a great position coach but not a great coordinator.
DL
These guys are not getting consistent penetration against the run or pass. I’m sorry, they’re just not. There are times they’re absolutely getting blown off the ball. There are times o-linemen are pushing through and blocking LB’s five yards downfield.
I know there are occasionally good plays. Coleman blew up an inside shovel. Granger sometimes looks like the answer. But there’s nothing consistent. The ends are playing well, but weak tackle play is hurting them.
LB
Latimer dropped an early would-be INT. How much might that have changed the game? It’s impossible to say. Rufus caused a key fumble in the third when UO was driving. It was a close call, but it looked like the ball was coming out before the runner’s knee hit. The ruling was there was not enough conclusive evidence to overturn the call.
Where is the run support in the middle? Part of this is on the front four, but it seems like Latimer is not getting off blocks or is coming in low and getting pushed down. The run defense up the middle looks very vulnerable.
DB
We’re having tackling woes back here too, especially at safety. Our corners are looking better and Harris is playing well. He had the two interceptions. (I’m not holding that last TD against him.) The secondary was having trouble with quick slants and slip screens. UO feasted on those short passes in this game.
Walker had excellent defense in the endzone on UO’s second drive, which saved a TD. Marcus does well trying to defend those tall WR’s. Marcus came to play.
Holmes got a little action but didn’t cover as well. He had a really nice tackle on a slip screen. I know, it’s sad when we’re all excited that somebody actually tackled well on a play.
Smith finally got a chance to defend against some passes and looked good early. He wasn’t afraid to hit UO’s big TE on one play, in spite of the laws of physics being against him.
Special Teams
The first punt was not great, but Cohen redeemed himself on the second punt sending the ball 52 yards and continued to punt well. Hartley seems to kick well under pressure. He nailed several. I don’t know if the block on that last one was due to low trajectory or if the guys up front didn’t hold their ground well enough. I’m not convinced it matters. We have every reason to believe the ball could have gone through the uprights and the refs would have signaled first down Oregon.
The guys had a big fumble recovery on that punt late in the second quarter. Coverage on kicks and punts was pretty impressive. Reggie Smith was electric on his last return. Do you think if he’d gotten to pay dirt somebody would have found their yellow hanky? I do.
Zebras
Brace yourselves, you people.
In every game there are questionable calls, and there are outright bad calls. In my game reviews I pick out a few of these and complain. It’s always intended as tongue-in-cheek. I like throwing around phrases like “wicked zebras” and such. The guys are human and in a high speed game they will miss calls. They’ll do it every time. When they’re doing their best to get it right, they’ll often get it wrong. We all know it and it’s fun to joke around about it.
Refs getting calls wrong is all part of the game. Sometimes it goes in your favor. Sometimes it’s against you. In the long run, that sort of thing tends to balance out.
We saw this sort of thing in the OU/UO game Saturday. Through the course of the game there were calls like this, calls where it looked at least questionable; and they went both ways. That is fine, that’s all part of the game. But what happened toward the closing seconds of game had nothing to do with questionable calls.
I’m not the sort of person to blame a loss on bad officiating. I’ll complain about bad calls in this section of game reports for grins, but that’s about it. I haven’t said much about the home cooking served up in Lubbock last year. I figure the TD call was at least debatable. The fourth down call on that same drive was bad, but I haven’t said too much about it.
I’m not the sort of person to be a poor sport. If my team loses, I usually forget about it and move on pretty quickly. I’ll write reviews and discuss it as a pastime but I see no reason for me to get upset about a game. That’s what college football is for me. A hobby. So for me, blaming officials and getting upset about a loss detracts from the purpose, to relax. Please view my following comments through that lens.
The infamous pass interference on the tipped ball was a bad call and the review official didn’t catch the obvious. That is sad, but in my mind is not the most egregious crime in this game.
What happened on the onside kick was not poor officiating. It was unbridled cheating. There’s a lot of talk about the Oregon players interfering with Kelly’s opportunity to catch the kick. That’s a valid point that should have rendered possession to OU. There’s talk about UO players touching the ball before it traveled 10 yards. The replay clearly showed this to be the case. This is another valid point that renders possession to OU. While these two factors are telling, to me they are not the most telling events.
We’ve all seen the video where the ball goes into the pile, through the pile and out the back of the pile where Allen Patrick fell on it, rightfully claiming possession for the Sooners. But the officials did not see it that way. Officials ran up to a pile wherein there was no football and proceeded to signal first down Oregon. On what basis?! Was the football in an Oregon player’s hands? No. Had it been in their possession? No. It won’t do to say they saw possession and whistled the play dead before Patrick got the ball. The ball never stopped when going through the scrum. The ball rattled around in the pile and shot out the back where Patrick got it. There is no reasonable basis upon which officials could award possession to Oregon... Unless the decision was already made to give Oregon the ball. The way this was called is very telling.
I know. Everybody is sick of conspiracy theories. Everybody says questionable calls happen. It’s part of the game. Listen! The game is defined by its rules. What happened with the onside kick was not “part of the game”. It was in spite of the rules that define the game. What if the ball had clearly gone to Kelly, he catches it and the refs said it was Oregon’s ball? Is that part of the game? You think that is ridiculous? That’s basically what happened. Patrick recovered the ball for OU, showed it to the refs, they ignored that and gave Oregon the ball.
Now I can hear some of you saying OU should have played well enough to not put themselves in a position where the game was in officials’ hands. I’ve often made similar statements about bad calls. But on Saturday OU did precisely that. OU did what OU needed to do to win. OU recovered the kick. The officials took the ball from Allen Patrick and gave it to Oregon. That is cheating. There is nothing to call it but cheating. I don’t mean a third grade kid screaming “you cheated” cause his team lost. I mean the refs disregarded the rules and cheated.
Was it conference loyalty? Was it gambling money? Was it Nike? I don’t know. What I do know is what happened was not poor officiating. Poor officiating is when refs let holding go then call it. Poor officiating is when refs call pass interference when they shouldn’t have or fail to call it when they should. Poor officiating is when fast things happen in a fast game and officials don’t get it right. It is physically impossible for refs to always get it right. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
I can’t tell you how many fans, Tech fans, UT fans, fans of several schools have told me they were mad at what happened. I can tell you why they were mad. It wasn’t because they love OU. They hate OU. It’s because they, like me, love college football.
There’s a reason I don’t like professional wrestling. If I wanted to watch a fake fight I put in Rocky or Karate Kid. But I’m not interested in that. I am interested in college football. However, on Saturday, September 16, 2006, college football took another giant step away from being a competition and toward being a scripted joke.
Anybody wanting to counsel me to let it go, bad calls happen, keep your counsel to yourself. This isn’t about the game played last Saturday. This isn’t about the 2006 season. This isn’t about OU. This is about college football. The game I love is dying. I can handle losing a game against the Ducks or any other team. But do we have to lose the sport in the process?! Duck fans, this is your loss too! This is a loss for other Pac 10 fans! Big 12, Big 10, SEC, all rise up! Take note! What happened in the OU/UO game Saturday effects us all.
Summary
We all know OU got robbed. So did Oregon. The story is no longer about two teams fighting tooth and nail. What might have been a storied comeback, Duck Magic or a narrow Sooner win, is now about Pac 10 officials who are frauds, charlatans, rogues, criminals and more. I call upon Oregon fans to join in the outrage. You’ve seen the video. You know what happened. Be honest, you really know. You can keep your victory; just help us keep the game.
I believe OU can bounce back. I believe the Sooners can pull together and make plays the rest of the season. I’m just trying to believe it will make a difference.
As you can tell, this game review is not just about the game, it’s about the state of our sport. I know I sound a little gloomy. But there’s something here that gives me hope. I’m not the only one in America that loves college football. Maybe, just maybe, somebody with enough resources and influence can step in and do something. In the meantime, I’ll keep wearing crimson and hoping for the best. Boomer Sooner!