Some Thoughts On OU @ West Virginia By: Jordan Esco Posted on: November 20, 2016

Image via Zimbio

* Well that was an interesting one, on a number of different levels. Where to begin…

* I’m really going to enjoy the infinitely predictable response from the national media coming out of this one. You know, the one where they tell us all how right they were not giving West Virginia credit for anything, thus discrediting OU’s win (on the road, at night, against a Top 15 team) and crapping all over the Big 12 as a whole.

Well, to be fair, that last one is deserved. But you know what I mean 🙂

* I tweeted the following last night in the second half and stand by it 1000% the morning after.

I don’t know what it is about Stoops teams that seem to let up once they get a comfortable lead, but it needs to stop. Like yesterday, and by yesterday I mean like 3-4 years ago. Because it’s ‘been a thing’ for a while now.

After 18+ years on the job, I’m reasonably confident few outside those clad in burnt orange will be too mouthy in questioning the sportsmanship of one Bob Stoops.

Just keep running what’s working and let the score take care of itself. Trust me, it will all be okay, Coach. I promise.

* You take what the opposing defense gives you and clearly the OU run game was working (we’ll get to that in a sec), but I sure hope that didn’t come at the expense of a trip to New York for Baker Mayfield and/or Dede Westbrook.

On a national stage with a chance to really make a statement for either/both of their Heisman campaign’s following the runaway favorite for the award’s poor showing earlier in the week, the OU passing game was virtually non-existent.

Yes, obviously there was the one big play from Westbrook. But outside of that, Westbrook had just one catch for 25 yards & Mayfield had a measly 94 yards passing.

And yes, I get it. It was snowing. You never would have known had literally every reporter who covers OU not been tweeting out picture after picture of the snow as if it was literally the first time they’d ever seen anything white fall from the sky. But it wasn’t so bad as to all but eliminate the forward pass from the offense.

But I digress.

* Samaje Perine & Joe Mixon both relatively easily eclipsing 100+ yards in first half alone was certainly impressive. However the fact they finished with “just” 160 & 147 yards respectively after what could only be described as, shall we say, a disappointing second half as a whole from the OU offense was equally as unimpressive.

* Much like the “still fixed” OU defense allowing a robust 331 yards rushing to WVU’s third or fourth string running back AND nearly 400 yards on the ground — at over 10 yards a clip — in the game.

* I’m not even going to get into the if ‘ifs and buts were candy and nuts’ aspect of WVU’s two turnovers inside/around the OU five-yard line because why bother. Sometimes the bounces go your way and sometimes they don’t. Just like the Mayfield/Westbrook point from above, the whole “well, if you took away that one play….”

Sure, but you can’t. That one play still happened. So the whole ‘it would have been a much different game had WVU not fumbled those two times’ argument is moot. But thank for playing, Captain Obvious 😉

* Sticking with that “fixed” defense and piggybacking on Kirk Herbstreit’s comments (or really just stating the obvious for anyone who has watched them all year as I know we all have).

If you didn’t know any better it almost appears as though the secondary guys are trying to do everything humanly possible to NOT find the ball in the air. I’ve never seen a defensive secondary be as bad at locating the ball as this one, and the even more amazing part is they don’t seem to have improved at it a single bit throughout the course of the entire season.

Oh, and a bit of friendly advice. Quit believing what you read, or what you hear people tell you he said/wrote, from Todd McShay. You can thank me later.

* And so here we are for a second straight year with Bedlam serving as a defacto Big 12 Championship game. To that point, I saw this tweet from OU’s SID last night and initially couldn’t what I had read.

But when I stopped to think about it, as unbelievable as it still seemed, it started to actually make sense. I mean prior to the defections, when the league played an actual championship game, it stands to reason OU would have never previously had a chance to ‘clinch’ a Big 12 title on their home field. And obviously last year’s contest was in Stoolwater Stillwater so….

Either way, just a cool little wrinkle as we wait a couple weeks to remind little brother why they’re still little brother.