Amendments from last week mayfield resembles manziel in a lot of ways - bad mechanics, bad arm position, a cannon, logic defying great accuracy. he is only missing one thing - elusiveness - and that sends him from super exciting to "he's not going to finish the season" status. dude needs to stop running the ball. A tennessee fan said it best - "Is Mayfield covered in grease?". He isn't elusive, he's slippery. Still takes too many hits though mayfield didn't really start playing well until that guy on the akron sideline headbutted him to slow him down Once again, he didn't start playing well until he got blasted out of bounds. Seriously, have someone on the other team do it before the game next time Right side of the OL Very similar to last week, they wore out the Tennessee front by giving them success early and then controlled them late. Not the best attack plan in the world but it works. tight ends got their quota of receptions for the year in one game No receptions but a PI. Bonus! secondary run support was pretty bad in the few opportunities they had to come up. hitting guys 15 yards downfield is not a recipe for success. Still needs work (although it was 10 yards downfield) Other Notes We need to do something about this FF no recovery thing. I know the refs yanked 1 away but 3 FF and us getting none is frustrating. Last year, one of biggest glaring weaknesses was the 19 forced fumbles and only 7 recoveries. We need a new punt returner. Shepherd is too valuable to be back there and he doesn't make the best decisions on the non-returnable balls. Penalties, Turnovers, and Field Position - the keys to winning on the road. We lost all 3 by a wide margin and still came out with a W because of the 4th key -> Defense. Not sure why replay officials hate Durron Neal so much Last week Offense the right side of our OL is pretty bad. that #90 wore down in the second quarter, but in the 1st quarter he was living in our backfield. some of our best runs were when we let kasitati's guy overpenetrate and run behind him. mayfield is going to send someone to the hospital this season during a TD celebration and it might be himself where did we find this baxter kid? he is kind of a mini josh norman - someone who makes everyone around him seem better than they are wide receivers are 100% better than last year (even with the drops). massive kudos for that move... mayfield didn't really start playing well until that guy on the akron sideline headbutted him to slow him down mayfield resembles manziel in a lot of ways - bad mechanics, bad arm position, a cannon, logic defying great accuracy. he is only missing one thing - elusiveness - and that sends him from super exciting to "he's not going to finish the season" status. dude needs to stop running the ball. he hit a receiver in the chest north of 80% of his throws. so many drops his best throw is still the back shoulder. unfortunately, only one receiver (neal) knows how to catch one of them. both running backs are really good, but with this OL they'll be lucky to have many yards. In the first half, there were 2-3 DL in the backfield on every play shepherd needs to start getting on the ground. he takes way too much awkward punishment for 1 extra yard. getting upended on that punt return, legs cut out of bounds, body slammed on that long reception... tight ends got their quota of receptions for the year in one game Defense it is amazing how players don't really change over their career. sanchez has never been able to handle defensive success. we go 5 series without allowing a 1st down and then he falls asleep and bites on a double move. i'm upgrading our linebackers from bottom 2 to bottom 5 in the conference. they still can't finish plays on the opponent side of the line of scrimmage, but they made a couple of plays that would have previously gone for big yards. their tackling still annoys me (why do you always give them 3 more yards?). their getting off blocks still annoys me. but they are improved over last year. barely. when akron started running the ball, they went to the typical blueprint for success against us. leave 2 DL free and putting OL on the linebackers. one of the DL is blocked by scheme, the other is left 1 on 1 in space with a running back and no support. works. every. time. saddest play I saw was one akron OL blocking all 3 of our linebackers best play was devonte bond running on late and the QB running right into him our pass defense is really bad. we were busting coverages left and right. had Bowden ran that Pohl guy all game they might have had 21+ points. Dimon did pretty well for being undersized, the question is whether he can keep it up against better teams stryker may be getting the nickname "drive by" soon. he needs to hit the qb not run past them DL overall was pretty good. we had some pretty good explosion into the backfield secondary run support was pretty bad in the few opportunities they had to come up. hitting guys 15 yards downfield is not a recipe for success.
I totally agree about Shep and punt returns. He's much too valuable to lose. I think we see more of Joe Mixon back there soon...
My biggest takeaway is that we desperately need another receiver to step and win some contested routes. Tennessee was up in our face all day, and aside from Shepard (who really didn't do anything until the fourth quarter), we were never able to make them pay. You can't have a successful spread offense if you aren't able to beat people on the outside when they decide to play aggressive man coverage on your receivers. I was hoping that Westbrook would develop into this type of player, but he seemed overwhelmed by the size of the stage yesterday (had a fumble, another catch where he looked like he was going to fumble, several drops -- including one that resulted in an INT, and a crucial holding penalty late). As exciting as the end of the game was, we can't rely on "Mayfield breaks out of 2 sack attempts and heaves it up to a WR who draws a holding or pass interference penalty" as a consistent gameplan for moving the ball. I can guarantee you that TCU is going to play the same style of aggressive coverage in the secondary, and if we don't have an answer to it, it'll be a long day. The offensive line is a work in progress, which I think is to be expected given the number of new starters, but we could have helped them out a lot if the WR's had been able to loosen things up a bit by making some big plays. Also, I know that Mixon is a dynamic talent who needs to touch the ball in space at least 5 times a game, but Perine needs to be the primary runner, at least in big situations. He has better much better vision and is better at picking up the tough yards between the tackles. Obviously we want to keep Perine fresh whenever possible, but it's clear that he's our best runner.
As a layman, my main two takeaways were, our O line is very poor, and every receiver not named Shepard has a lot of work to do. I don't know what they have to do to get these receivers coached up, but man last night felt an awful lot like last year, except Shepard wasn't injured and Mayfield was basically a magician in the 4th Q.
As we have seen for years with the conference officiating crews, it all depends on how they decide to call the game. The "in your jock" defense is very effective if the officials are not calling PI, illegal contact and holding like they seem to at times. If they call breathing on the receiver as PI then it is a long day for the secondary.
I'm just savoring the victory and a little Sooner magic right now...Don't you guys go messin' with my cosmic balance...
That's true to an extent, but it's never a good idea to have an offensive system where you are depending on the refs to call the game a certain way. Guys gotta step up and beat their man. Create separation, and find a way to make the catch. And then break some tackles and make some yards after the catch. That's what TCU and Baylor make a living on, and it's what we used to be able to do back in 2000 when we last ran this type of offense.
Our LBs impressed me, but yeah some of the run defense was a little late to the party. This defense is solid all the way through. Front line, LBs, and DBs are all top tier D-1 studs. If they stay healthy, I have pretty huge expectations of them. Yes, yes, yes, and YES. The VOLS punter was just unbelievably great all night. We played backed up against our own goal for 2.5 quarters, and couldn't get out of our own way most of that time. Perine needs to be a North-South runner. Sending him around the end seems less effective than sending him straight up the field. Mixon is violent as hell. Unfortunately for those guys, one of them needs to hang around to shag the whiffed blocks and occasional pass blitzes until this line grows up. Or Baker Mayfield is going to be running for his life all year long. If Tennessee isn't too demoralized, I think we'll look back and realize how great this game was. They are a super talented team and didn't make nearly as many mistakes as we did when they were fresh. BGSU blew up Maryland Saturday, after Tennessee overlooked them on the way to the OU game. If they were more balanced, meaning effective in the passing game, or turned their QB loose to run more, this would've been different.
I was sitting up in GG on Saturday griping about Shep all night. We'd be dead without him as a receiver but he wasn't doing anything in the return game.
