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Hey guys and gals Monday mornings are always pretty rough coming off of a loss. Like a lot of you, I was none too pleased with the outcome Saturday afternoon. I gave myself a 24 hour ban from any message boards because I noticed my tweets were getting more and more cutting towards the end of the game. Late last night I started in on Trench Warfare. I read K’s post on the first defensive possession and Jordan’s thoughts as well. Like them, and more specifically Jordan, I share their feelings about what happened on Saturday. I’m not mad. I’m just very disappointed.
I’m disappointed that our defense, who hangs its hat on attacking/pressure/blitzing, played what appeared to me to be a prevent defense most of the day. We made Trevone Boykin look like Cam Newton, and treated their receivers like they were Torrey Smith (Ravens), Jeremy Maclin (Eagles) and DeSean Jackson (Redskins). I named three of the fastest receivers I know of in the NFL, because that’s how we played TCU’s guys (who aren’t the three fastest receivers in the NFL). We played off all day long. So rather than pressing their receivers and forcing Boykin to be accurate, thus making it more difficult through blitzes, we played a ‘mush rush’ defense that gave him all day long to throw the ball. A ‘mush rush’ is used when you’re very afraid of what the QB can do to you running the football. You don’t push up the field too hard, so it doesn’t create lanes for the QB to escape.
Basically, we were so worried about what they were going to do that we failed to focus on what we were going to do. More specifically we failed to focus on doing what we do well. Dropping Eric Striker in coverage is not what you want to do. The most gifted pass rusher in the country needs to do just that…rush the passer. Even with rushing only half the time, he still got two sacks Saturday. In rushing only three guys most of the day, it created double team opportunities and gave Boykin all day to throw.
Offensively, I’m disappointed because we got outplayed quite a bit and again we aren’t doing what we do well. I’ll show you some specific examples of both later today when TW goes up. The thing that bothers me most is that we run called QB draws quite a bit, but yet we don’t allow Trevor to pull the ball on the zone read. I could go back in all five games we’ve played this year and show where Trevor could have 1,000 yards rushing by now if we’d let him pull the ball on the zone read. Still, we’re too arrogant in our thinking. Hey we’re Oklahoma, so we don’t need schematic advantages. We’ll just run half the zone read, give it 100% of the time and ignore the fact that we have a dynamic runner at the QB position.
Furthering our square peg in a round hole approach, we’ll ignore the fact that he is more accurate on the run and have him stay in the pocket unless he’s pressured out of it. Let’s not design any bootleg or sprint out type calls or anything like that. So not only did we get out played in a lot of areas, we don’t know who we are.
I’ve quoted Sun Tzu before on here and Saturday was Exhibit A as to why I feel that applies. We didn’t know the enemy, and we for sure didn’t know ourselves. We gave Boykin and co. too much credit for their ability to burn us deep. Rather than attacking him and forcing turnovers, we played afraid and he beat us. Also, we still don’t have any idea of who we are offensively. Zone read give, Sterling go deep. I’ll give some specific examples in Trench Warfare, but that’s my two cents. I’ve said it all before, and as K pointed out, against a well coached team it burned us. I’m sick to my stomach about it. I wish I didn’t have to go break it down, but out of duty to you guys I have and will.
We’re clearly more talented, but we just forget who we are. We worry too much about what they might do instead of dictating to them what we’re going to do.
82 Comments
Bad way to start on Monday. A lot o things went wrong on Offense I can’t tell I it’s TK or the lack of WR’s not named Shepard. Defense looked shaky and I agree néed Striker to do what he does best. Also we need Ahmad Thomas to be a playmaker on the back end more.
I like Thomas as a talent but he doesn’t look too comfortable out there. Then again, outside of Q, I dont know what other safety is more game ready either.
I think this week is on TK myself. Last week he was having drops left and right but this week Neal caught about everything thrown his way and TK bounce passed the ball to Young on 3 – 4 plays he was wide open! Next week can’t get here fast enough!
How much, if at all, did Parker play? I’d like to see more of him, especially against the spread teams.
I thought Evans played pretty well, but I’m not sure about Alexander. He sure seems to be getting lost in the shuffle this year.
Schematically speaking, why did we never have enough guys outside to cover their option play when they ran it? Seems like we always had one LB trying to cover both the QB and the pitch man. That can’t be right.
They could’ve run that option a lot more than they did. We had no answer for it.
I screamed all day at the TV. Couldn’t believe the defensive game plan to not bull rush/blitz Boykin to get him out of sinc. Then to have our corners playing 10 yards off the ball just giving them short passes and slants with impunity. WTF!?!? Offensively it seemed JH couldn’t figure out what to do and when you couple that with a quarterback that is not having a very good day spelled disaster. Run the damn ball when your QB is having a bad day but quit giving it to Ross up the middle. He does not have the vision or power to get through the line of scrimmage.
Heupel made me nuts Sat. We all knew TK was not hot. In fact, he was ice cold. And he kept throwing it. If you think about it, Heupel did the same thing when we got down at WVU. It’s like he gets scared and throws the ball by default. He must think it’s the only way to get yards, the only way we can possibly catch up and win. (I believe) It took some Stoops coaching to settle him down at WVU and run the ball. I dont know why that didn’t happen Sat, but it sure was ugly.
Way to often, Boykin had so much time to throw, and no pressure. If people feared Knight as a runner and gave him all day to throw he’d be golden.
Yeah, I watched Boykin sit back there all day and wondered where the D was that played in the Tenn game.
The Stoops brothers go to sleep at least once a year. This year the TCU game was their first EGG of the season and hopefully it is the last!!!
They contained Striker on the edge in the 1st half. We should have realized this quickly and focused on the inside lanes. I feel like Mike’s scheme was *technically* was okay, except that our guys consistently missed tackles. You cannot do that with a guy like Boykin and live to see the day. It was like watching the Aggie game all over.
Striker’s the kind of talent who we should consider lining up all over the line. He should try all their OL and find their weakest link (usually the slowest one or one most susceptible to his speed or moves).
We let TCU play their game and to their strengths and we did not play anywhere near ours. I get the concern that running Knight a lot may get him injured, but you can run smart and take care of yourself as a runner. Slide more. Run to the sidelines and get out of bounds quickly etc. I dont see the point of not utilizing your QB’s best asset, which is his mobility. If we wanted a pocket passer for Josh to tinker with, why are we recruiting dual threat running QB?
Asking TK to play in the pocket and become a surgeon passing from there is just asking for trouble, and it suggests to me that this past Saturday will happen again and again if things don’t change. There was not much in our playbook that I liked on Saturday. We dont have the CBs to ask them to cover for 5+ seconds 30-50 times a game and expect to not get burnt. We have an elite front 7 rushing the passer. That’s what makes our CBs effective – pressure. Just so frustrating.
JY – Love your thoughts on this. Each week, we’ve got to insert ourselves as part of the game. Saturday seemed like a TCU informercial and we were the faceless, nameless bystander in the background. We need to “be us” – play to our strengths and stop negating them without provocation.
Defense had chances to make plays & just failed to do so until the very end, Dom’s dropped pick 6 was probably the biggest play of the game, especially when they didn’t drop the pick 6 they had… The offense completely collapsed in the 2nd half.. Running Trevor was not the answer, he got tired, beat up & that lead to lazy footwork & errant throws in the 2nd half.. We only need him to be a threat running we don’t need 16 carries by him.. Way too many…
I agree he was tired and beat up but don’t think the 16 carries is what did it. (dude can probably run 10 miles without getting tired LOL!) As JY was saying the type of runs were crazy to me! You run inside you get hit, bounced around, and tackled by 250lb LB and 300lb D-Linemen. If they are going to run him I would much rather it be on the edge were he can get out of bounds or slide after a good gain, but running inside that much was hard on him! And Defense SMH!
Couldn’t agree more! I think in this game we were beat by Vince Young from 10 years ago and Johnny Football from the Cotton Bowl a couple years back. The “mush rush” was horrible and the Cushion we were giving the receivers was horrible but the two together equaled utter disaster! It also seemed like we ran the “mush rush” and had Grissom playing spy 1/2 or 3/4 of the game. WHY DO BOTH!?!?! If you want to attack and have a spy cool or if you want to “mush rush” and play coverage cool! But this strategy seemed to eliminate EVERYTHING we are good at on Defense! Like you JY the QB Draw plays had me so crazy I would have cursed out loud in front of my own Mom (I didn’t do it, but Sorry Mom anyway). How can you tell me you aren’t letting TK run on the zone reads because you are worried about QB safety and keeping him healthy when the QB draws runs him up the middle were all the Linemen and LBS are and the zone read when ran correctly puts you on the edge against NOBODY FOR 10 YARDS! CRAZY GAME! CRAZY PLAN! CRAZY WEEK! What is sad is with the worst game plan on both sides of the ball this year we were so talented that we only lost by 4 this team should have never lost that game and hopefully it will piss them off and make them play and hard the rest of the year! Soapbox exited! I feel a little better! 🙂
Everything you said makes so much sense. My question, if those who are breaking down tape, and analyzing the team for their fandom/blog purposes can see what this team is, and understand how it can win on both fronts, then why can’t the coaching staff who gets paid millions of dollars? Maybe you are right, and it’s about pride, or being too smart for your own good. I know one thing; every time the Sooners lose, my heart breaks, my stomach gets sick, and I don’t want to get on a message board for at least a week.
JY, very good and feel your frustration. I don’t have any idea what we are trying to accomplish on offense. Under the present system, we have only 2 playmakers and that is Shepherd and Perine. If you stop those two, you have stopped OU. For some reason, as the season goes along we start playing not to lose instead of playing to win and there is no quicker way to lose a ball game. I had some concerns about our offense prior to this game but I have great concern now. Hopefully Ford will be back soon and that would certainly help Trevor and Perine out. Ross has shown nothing as a RB, if there is not a gaping hole he is not going to do anything. Hopefully, they quit worrying about injury to Trevor and turn the kid loose. That would open up the offense and make the defense defend someone other than just Shepherd and Perine.
Mike is driving me crazy with the DB’s. What is up with playing every WR at least 8-10 yards off. We are giving them an easy 1st down on every passing play. The only way that will work is if we get an interception, the receiver drops the ball, or the QB just misses. That doesn’t happen too often as it seems every QB we play has a coming out party at our expense.
Oh well, going back to worrying about how we move the ball against Fexas.
Every QB having a coming out party seems about right, we did help RG3 with that Heisman!
Agree with everything, but still come back to a D that only gave up 7 points the second half. We’re tied at halftime, starting a “new game” even in the second half, take the opening drive for a TD to go up by 7, and still lose.
There is a lot to change in the first half D, but the fact remains that we held them to 7 the entire second half, came up with multiple key turnovers in plus territory the last 6 minutes, and couldn’t win.
I’m afraid I skew more toward offensive woes in this one. It breaks my heart that we don’t seem to use all our weapons on D to their fullest, but a 7 point second half by the D should be enough to win every game.
I realize that I’m probably extrapolating WAY TOO FAR on this, but the sack before the half that TK took was just inexcusable and could have cost us 4 points (when we lose by 4). Not throwing that ball away as soon as he saw blitz cost us 1 or 2 more plays from the 4 yard line. Getting 7 and the lead before the half, instead of 3 and a tie, then extending that lead to 11 on the first drive of the second half, would have been massive. Admittedly, I’m probably projecting too much here, but the point is TK has to have more poise in these situations. He’s smart enough to know the situation. He just seems to panic a bit in tough spots.
Being aggressive on D this week, and establishing an identity on O this week, will be critical. The Texas D can play, now, and we may need our D to do the scoring to win.
I agree wholeheartedly with your point. In a game decided by 4 points, we left points on the field at the end of the half. TK should have thrown that ball into the stands and lived to play another down. Similarly, that second half INT to the safety was a killer, if we at least get a field goal there and field goal again in the fumble, we are up by 1 and the pressure is on them. Oh well. Many many missed chances, TK showed that he still is a sophomore, he needs to grow from this and quickly too, if we want to stay in this hunt.
sophomore = wise fool
We lost the game when Trevor took the sack and did not throw the ball away just before halftime!!! Of all the idiotic plays from Trevor that one trumps them all. I think the coaches also took a week off. We get upset when the players take a week off but really the coaches did not come up with a decent game plan and then JH called one of his worst in the second half.
JY and K, since you guys have played and know how things work, can you clarify these for us all here
1. How the play-calling and execution works, especially on offense. I have two questions,
a. Does JH call plays directly into the headset of TK or it comes to sideline and to TK? If the latter, why is that so? doesn’t it make it slower?
b. I see some offensive playcallers whom I personally think are good, like Dana, Mike Leach etc call plays based on what they want to do, JH seems to work the other way around, he is predicated on how the defense lines up and keeps changing calls till the last second. Isn’t this counter-intuitive to the word “offense”? Also, it brings in the problem of teeing of on the snap, since the defense knows we have to snap the ball with a second left.
2. Do you guys really believe that we are NC worthy team this year? I am not for a second doubting our talents, but just the inexperience in the WRs and CBs seem to be a very big issue, especially in a league where teams like to throw it more than running it. But, since we are not facing any mobile QBs after this, we might get through Big12 but can we compete with the likes of Aub/Miss St with a mobile QB?
a.) Pretty sure no headsets allowed to be worn by players (qb’s) in college game. So play would go to sideline first, then signaled to TK. Definitely can cause problems when playcaller is as indecisive as JH.
b.) Very counter-intuitive to word “offense.” Why I hate his indecisiveness, TAKE IT TO EM!!!!
*I know asked for JY or K to answer, hope they do, but also hope this helps, lol.
very interesting how the mechanics of this works, thanks.
yea, would be better off I think if Heup came down to sideline to call plays. Then, he could communicate with TK directly, and maybe he would even have a better feel for the “emotion and current” of the current game.
Mike leach’s QB the other day threw for 734 yards. 7 3 4 – what! Mike leach and Mike Stoops would have made the other big12 teams give up playing football lol
Oh I know, imagine if those two had never left! (though Leach’s offense was a bit crazy for my taste, so I’m okay with that one…)
The captain obvious statement is that Heupel does like to fling it around more than exploit the holes in the ground game. When we pull it off, as in the sugar bowl, it looks fantastic, but when TK has the day similar to that on Sat, it looks pathetic. Maybe he believed too much in our pass-attack than he should have – but he is the one seeing these players every damn day, shouldn’t he be knowing better? It still is messing with my brain thinking about it.
I think he’s afraid of being predictable, running Samaje all the time, but with a guy like Samaje, it doesn’t matter if they know he’s coming, they still can’t stop it…
It really makes you wonder just how much coaching of his QBs Josh can do from a pressbox during the game. A headset call or phone call is hardly the same as some face-to-face one-on-one. Especially as he is trying to call the game and needs to be assessing the opponent looks etc (well, I sure hope he is).
So disappointed/frustrated/pissed about that game…It makes me want to stay off the OU sites all week and start caring again on Saturday.
I think I need it to not get worked up. At least so many other teams lost and we’re still alive in the chase. We’ll have a couple more Top 10 teams lose this coming weekend.
Hang in there man, I woke up this morning feeling the exact same way. We need to whoop some longhorn ass to get back to feeling better about this team.
I agree with every point. Not mentioned is the effect of how we use the bye week. According to Norvell, we used the first week to give the understudies a lot of practice reps. I guess that makes sense, but then you don’t let many of them play in the game. TK was having a rough day completing passes. 1. We hardly threw any easy passes to build his Rhythm and confidence. 2. We didn’t roll him out. 3. We didn’t give Cody even 1 series to see how he’d perform.
5 games, 1 long throw to Durron, 1 catch by Durron of the long throw. That was a tough catch. Bet we don’t call it again for a few games. After first 2 TD passes to Sterling, they started providing safety support, that’s why we must make them respect Durron as a threat.
Fact of the matter is, we aren’t going to give Cody any series all year if it’s a close game. It’s not going to happen. Unless TK is injured, he is the starting QB and the guy they feel gives them the best chance to win. They will not give Cody a series “just to see how it goes”. One bad play by a guy with limited experience that turns into points for the other team is inexcusable and Heupel’s head would be on a planet, and Bob’s balls would be the appetizer.
I guess you agree that we should have liven Cody a chance but believe the coaches don’t take the risk. I’m pretty confident that Cody wouldn’t have done any worse than tossing a pick 6 as TK did.
I tend to think Bob wouldn’t do it because he pulled a Qb against TCU the last time we lost to them. Thompson replaced by Bomar. Pretty sure he wishes he hadn’t done that.
History tells me Bob won’t switch QBs like that as well, especially not for a wholly inexperienced guy. I love Cody’s physical skills, but not sure he’s ready mentally, but don’t know that for sure either. I suppose his superior passing abilities could possibly more than even out his deficit in experience as compared to TK.
Feel your pain JY. I was seriously taken aback by the team not playing to their strengths. And giving Boykin to much leeway and playing off receivers so far. Offense, I can’t even do anything but shake my head. I can only hope we get back to our attacking defense and smash mouth offense. Baylor put up 278 rushing yards on Texas. Don’t see why we can’t.
“Basically, we were so worried about what they were going to do that we failed to focus on what we were going to do.”
Extremely well said! We tried to keep them from exerting their will, rather than us exerting our will. Mike’s a stand-up guy; I think he’ll take ownership for this one like he ought to.
Just a random thought…Was using baker to help w/ knowing the plays to our disadvantage? In other words, did we over think or over complicate our scheme trying to get some sort of competitive advantage?
Totally agree with everything you said. Very tuff to watch. Not sure how we do this every year in some form or fashion. What even hurts more is the playcalling in the second half to hear Bob say it wasnt anything wrong with the playcalling. Just a bad day but we are here for another one so BOOMER
You’re kinda like me in the fact that you start talking about it and get madder as you go(HATE to lose mentality). Also, ain’t it strange that the offense, which ain’t as good as the defense, is the one that played and got called arrogantly and the nasty defense played kinda timid and reactional and not to lose?
Offense should be same as Defense for this squad.
ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. Never let up.
– Downhill running with power, DECISIVENESS. Swing passes, misdirection, play action.
– All day blitzing, freaking Blitzkrieg if you will. Sure they may break one or two, but that wont beat us near as often as us beating ourselves when we sit on our heels waiting…
……first off, gotta’ give credit due to patterson, he seems to be a savvy coach in the snyder mold and is very good at scheming against stoops………as wild as that game was, the d still came up with 2 late to’s, the chance to pull it out, and the o did nothing when it counted…….4 games under their belt, 2 wks to prep and they still burn to’s, sideline confusion on who should be in the game admitted by heupel, plus he said that tcu did some things he didn’t anticipate…….how dare they! ……bstoops doesn’t have any issues with the plays called, on and on……….this team is not good enough assume anything about ut other than expect a dogfight
Jordan heard my complaints on Saturday and JY, you are saying just how I felt. Thanks to your TW articles I find myself really watching the lines on run plays. Correct me if I’m wrong, did you notice that we ran a lot of plays to the strong part of the D?
I tried to watch through the first half and seemed like they had no push upfront, holes were very small, Ty and the guards were getting pushed back quite a bit, Perine takes a couple of steps to gain momentum by which time he was getting met. Which makes it even more puzzling as to why JH never made TK keep it once, just to slow atleast the outside rushers down a bit. I am checking every 2 minutes to see of the TW is up, we are going to learn more from this then we have all through the first 4 games.
Or since they were attacking so hard, how about a screen? Very frustrating. It just appeared to me that we kept trying to run to the side where they had the most defenders in the zone.
For me, it was a traumatic experience watching it again, and second time out too I kept shouting into my TV. These games are not doing any good to my brain, really. lol
I can express how much I appreciate JY doing the TW. For a person like me with zero knowledge, if I felt like we had so many wasted chances, for a person like JY who can see things I can’t, can’t imagine how he pushes through watching it again.
One late play call came in and with 5 TCU defenders waiting for the runner, Trevor runs what was called. It would seem to me that he has to be able to see that TCU is waiting for that call and he needs to check out of it.
TBH, I doubt he is allowed to check out of it.
Still don’t understand how you can throw the ball out of the back of the endzone on the last play of the game. 🙁
Let me help you with that. If he can’t complete a 5 yard slant, how the hell is he going to have any sort of accuracy on a 50 yard hail-mary? OU could learn a lesson from Arizona State and practice the heck out of the hail-mary.
I was kind of hoping for some irony…can’t hit someone right in front of him, but nails a hail mary. I was wrong.
Couldn’t agree more..
Excellent analysis. Don’t think the coaches will give heed to it. Like Bob said, he was “fine” with the play calling. Maybe we shouldn’t expect him to throw Josh under the bus, but we can expect our staff to be better at game-planning. “Mush rush” was BS and compelling TK to be what he isn’t is worse. After the Sugar Bowl, I thought our coaches were brave. Now, when given a chance to be true champions, they’re just safe. Unlike you JY, I am pissed! And disappointed.
“Fine” with the playcalling. In other words, he’s fine with losing as long as his buddy Josh has a job and is happy with the plays he’s called, or as long as brother is safe under his wing.
That’s kind of harsh I think but I understand your frustration. I’m tired of playing not to lose. Let’s play to win.
You’re right it is a bit harsh. I’m in the “play to win” camp as well. This approach OU has too often is just nauseating to me at times
Me too. Play to win, not lose.
Well, I’ll try to keep this to a few focused thoughts.
1. One word above summed up OU football under Bob Stoops – ARROGANCE. “We’ll win with or without you”. His garbage (albeit somewhat amusing) standoffish attitude with all media. The constant overconfidence in garbage gameplans. Arrogance is fine when you back it up. When you don’t, you come off as an idiot.
2. How many times do you actually see Heupel’s last second play “adjustments” work? I’d say percentage is less than 25%, easily.
3. The coaches failed the players and everybody else Saturday, no doubt. But, if the players make 1/2 of the plays they missed, we win going away. How many dropped INTs were there? How many missed tackles on 3rd down? Clean it up.
4. TK is not a good QB. Is not now. Will not be ever. 3rd year in and his completion % thus far, against 4 average, at best, defenses and very good one, is 54.5%. He’s worse than last year, believe it or not. 5 TDs, 5 INTs. One game with more TDs than INTs – Tulsa. Mediocrity for sure.
If I see one more burned timeout because the coaches are taking too long to call “the perfect play”, I’m sending Josh Heupel an exploding box of doughnuts!
if TK sees the play clock running down to under 10 seconds and they try and get a play call in, they should just run it every time, safe play and won’t risk timeout, most of the time the call will be a run anyway
Exactly. Kind of hard to read what the defense is doing if you’re always looking over to the sideline and barking audibles to your offensive linemen.
I was at the TN game, and I remember for much of the first half lamenting to my wife that if the coaches would just let TK keep it once, just once, the defense would be forced to scheme for it the rest of the day. Low and behold, after the long delay for the replay review and false start penalty late in the 2nd quarter, Trevor got to keep one (and on 1st and 15!) and went ten yards. And it wasn’t even the normal back-goes-left-QB-goes-right read option, but a faked handoff on Bell-led dive for Ford. How successful would it have been if they defense was all swarming in the complete opposite direction? At any rate, I felt that was the point at which the game opened up for us offensively. We gave them a heads up that we aren’t afraid to use that weapon, and they had to respect it the rest of the game.
I never felt like we had that moment against TCU.
Agree with everything written. Here’s the deal. It’s football, and people will sometimes get hurt. That’s just how the game goes. Trevor is a big boy that is in place to run the zone read. So RUN IT! If he gets hurt, he gets hurt. Cody Thomas is a scholarship player and he’ll just have to step up and perform. If you don’t want Knight to run the ball, then stick the crappy spit ball offense Landry ran and we can all go back to watching us lose more games because the defense can’t continue to bail the offense out.
And Mike Stoops. I love ya, but it’s your job to make opponents fear OU’s defense. If you’re bull rushing the QB, and he burns you, then change it. But to not even try and play like your South Carolina is just ridiculous. I hope no recruits were watching that sh#t.
Malik Jefferson was in attendance, if that makes you feel any better.
No, now I’m going from disappointed to pissed off!
I actually think TCU is just better than us, as incredible as it is to type. TCU had 15 or so penalties, a missed FG, and plenty of turnovers and still beat us. I think if OU played TCU 10 times this year home/home, TCU would win 7 of them.
We have met the enemy and it is us. Conquer our fear and we will conquer our enemies.
At the beginning of the 2009 season, our offense started playing within whatever parameters our opponents defense was designed for us to function within. I understand that to some degree you should take what the defense gives you, but at the same time to be successful you must to be able to do what it is that you do. We seldom dictate to the defenses anymore. Instead we seem content to take what’s given us even if it doesn’t always play to our strengths. It’s just unfathomable really.
Why not use TK’s feet to our advantage? Run the offense like Bama or Auburn. If he gets hurt, he gets hurt. We can’t win games with our QB going 14-35….. Defense didn’t let a first down in the last 18 minutes of the game and our offense couldn’t do it. Heupel had some idiotic play calls here and there but Bob seems to be okay with it. If I have a QB that can run the ball I will make my offense as dynamic as possible. Also with the receiver depth problem why not give Mead more playing time? 6’6 receiver…. same with Cavil. Another 6’4 receiver.
Truth be told I think that bye week killed us. We had come off a solid team win on the road in a tough place to play, we needed to use that momentum. Instead we got a break, gave everyone a little too long to recover and a chance to over think TCU. On paper it looked like a perfectly placed bye week and I think it would have been had the West Virginia game not been so uplifting.
Pretty much said it all JY. I won’t share my thoughts because they would be too long for the average reader but they are right in line with yours and we both know what the details are.
Absolutely! Right on point. We DIDN’T play to our strengths.
I remember hearing this same thing last season, “we don’t have an identity”. This is Heuple. In my opinion, OU needs to cut him loose. He’s not half the QB coach he used to be, and Knight’s play makes that a pretty obvious statement. What happened to the “bad ass offense” that we heard about in the offseason?
I’m sure this is in here already somewhere but you said what frustrates me the most with Stoops and OU football the last 5 yrs or so.
We never dictate to other teams what they are going to do. OU always seems to be changing their philosophies to contain the other team. They seem to play to the other team instead of pushing the point and saying, “We are OU. This is what we do. Try and beat us!!” OU seems to change the defense like against TCU or the offense a la UT last year and we lose because of it.
Like everyone else, that disappoints me. We are OU. We shouldn’t stop doing what we do for anyone!!!
soooo…..Bell is basically an OT???
(sarcasm)
All I can say at this point is…..that one really hurt…yes TCU is good…but I believe their coaches are more dedicated to their overall philosophies….therefore the players play with that same belief ….
Well we don’t have to worry about why Thompson left? Decisions by these coaches are starting to appear. Coaching is an issue in the qb’s crew. Trevor Knight is nothing like what we have been told. Kendall was so upset with.JH