The Football Brainiacs

Image from Newsok.com (Photographer Bryan Terry)

Going into this weekend’s game with Texas I, like many Sooner faithful was supremely confident we’d be able to run the ball.  Prior to this weekend’s game we averaged over 260 yards per contest on the ground.  Back to back weeks of playing stout defensive units like Notre Dame and TCU didn’t derail us from what I believed to be as our new identity.  Run the ball and play good defense.  Don’t make the big mistake, and play field position.  As I sit here typing this tonight my feelings haven’t changed about our ability to run the football against Texas.  The only thing that stopped us from running the football on Saturday was the choices we made as an offensive staff in play selection.  While I understand that I tend to be more optimistic than a lot of people, just give me a minute and hear me out.  Let the evidence speak for itself before you make a decision…

As I watched the opening drive of the game by Texas it was evident that we were going to miss Jordan Phillips and Corey Nelson.  Texas was moving the ball with relative ease against our young and inexperienced front seven.  I was telling myself as I watched that once we got the ball, we’d be able to march down the field and get into a battle of wills.  What I’ve learned after watching the Red River Rivalry for so many years, is that against a Mack Brown coached team, that if you get into a game of chicken with them, eventually they’ll flinch.  If you told me that we’d average 5.62 yards rushing yards per attempt against this Texas team before the weekend, there’s no way that we would have lost the game.  Well Sooner fans, guess what.  We averaged 5.62 yards per rushing attempt and lost.

Before you run to the box score and check my math let me enlighten you a bit.

We ran the ball 33 times for 130 yards.  That is an average of 3.9 yards per carry.  But JY you just said we averaged 5.62 yards per rushing attempt.  Ok, let me rephrase that.  On the plays we chose to run the football as we broke the huddle(if we had a huddle), we ran the football 29 times for 163 yards.  Let that soak in for a minute.

ON THE PLAYS THAT WE CHOSE TO RUN THE FOOTBALL, WE RAN THE FOOTBALL 29 TIMES FOR 163 YARDS.  THAT MY FRIENDS COMES OUT TO BE AN AVERAGE OF…YOU GUESSED IT…5.62 YARDS PER CARRY.

Most of the negative Nancy’s will point to the fact that the offensive line gave up four sacks, and the losses from those sacks took 33 yards away from our rushing totals.  I can’t refute that.  Those same people will say the offensive line didn’t block well when we tried to pass.  I can’t refute that either.  What most people will say is that Blake Bell didn’t play well.  One more time…you win.  When it’s my turn to respond however, I’d like to outline a few points.

We ran 59 total plays as an offense.  Officially the box score shows that there were 26 pass attempts and 33 rushing attempts.  The four sacks will go down as rushing attempts, so really we chose as a staff to call 30 pass plays and 29 runs.  If you look strictly at the numbers, it appears to be a pretty balanced game plan.  If you were watching the game I was watching, it couldn’t be more unbalanced. A couple of sentences ago I said that the offensive line didn’t protect well, and said that Blake Bell didn’t play well.  Given those things, as soon as we realized as a staff that Texas was going to bring pressure on Bell, and that we were going to struggle handling that pressure, we should have adjusted.

Maybe we didn’t realize it…problem #1.

Maybe we didn’t adjust…problem #2.

Maybe we panicked and reverted to the same offensive game plan we ran as a QB, because it’s what we know and it’s what we’re comfortable calling…problem #3.

Maybe we didn’t remember that the best way to slow down a pass rush and make safeties peek in the backfield is by running the ball…problem #4.

Whether it’s in management in the business world, as teachers in the educational realm, or as football coaches, far too often, we ask our people, our students, our players to conform to a system that they may not be good at.  We try to force groups of people to change and work a certain way, learn a certain way and play a certain way.  Rather than being audible ready as leaders, we make the mistake of failing to find what our people are good at.  We make the mistake of failing to find out how our students learn, and we make the mistake of failing to learn as coaches what our players do very well and then letting them do that.  Blake Bell is not Josh Heupel.  Blake Bell is not Landry Jones.  Blake Bell is Blake Bell.  He’s tough.  He’s competitive, and he’s a winner.  To this point in the season he hasn’t thrown the deep ball well, but what he has done is manage the game, not make big mistakes and hurt people running the football.  Blake Bell also has something that those other two quarterbacks I named never had…a running game.

We were having early success running the ball.  We had success all the way up until that last drive where if we had scored and got a two pt conversion had a chance to go tie it late.  Brennan Clay just gashed Texas for an 18 yard gain all the way down to the eleven yard line.  We go left on the next play for a gain of two yards on the ground, and on 2nd and 8 rather than getting to 3rd and short with a guy who over the last two years has scored 24 touchdowns on the ground, we throw a fade route?!  Are you serious?!  The guy’s struggled throwing the ball all day, and rather than saying OK, we’re going to line up and pound you for three plays in a row and get eight yards. No, we’d rather throw a fade route!  It’s like I was watching the 2003 Sugar Bowl all over again…1st and goal would have been at the one.

If I’m the OC, I’m takin’ em to pound town and making them stop me.  The defense had played well in the 2nd half outside of one big play, so had we scored we would have given them the ball back down eight with 5 minutes to go.  Even after making all those mistakes as a team in giving up the big pass plays, the pick six and the punt return, had we not panicked as an offensive staff, we still have a chance to put pressure on them at the end and maybe get them to make a mistake.

I’ve seen a Bob Stoops coached Sooner team rely on the run game and win with it.  Maybe we realize that we can’t be who we were the past couple of years slinging the ball all over the yard.  Maybe we realize as a staff that you have a veteran offensive line and six very, very capable ballcarriers in Clay, Finch, Ford and Williams, Millard and Bell.  Maybe we take that group of offensive linemen and backs and engage them and put the rest of the season on their shoulders.  Flat out challenge them and be the anti-Big 12 that a lot of us thought we were becoming.  Maybe we don’t.  Maybe we make the fatal mistake that many managers, teachers and coaches often do.  Ask our people, students and players to do what we’re comfortable with them doing, rather than letting them do what they do well.  I do know this, if we refuse to look in the mirror as an offensive staff and change our approach, there’s going to be a lot of Saturdays this fall where we’re all left scratching our heads.