The Football Brainiacs

– First, here is the bottom line for me. The defense gave up a lot of yards in the first half and had trouble getting off on 3rd down but they only surrendered 22 points and caused two turnovers, a fumble and pick six. The offense had the ball enough to make something happen with that! Coach Mike lost his two best players in the front 7 including his 2 gap NG and his best athlete and the QB of his front seven in Corey Nelson. And was forced to replace them with a RS freshman and a true freshman. So I have no problem cutting Coach Mike some slack in that first half. And if you told me before the game that the defense would only give up 22 points and cause two turn overs including a pick six before the game, I’d tell you we’d win.

– OU’s offense may have been our defenses worst enemy in this game. Anytime the defense got some momentum with a stop, 3 and out or even the fumble the offense would give the ball right back or turn the ball over.

– In terms of yards the first and second half were night and day. We gave up about 300 yards in the 1st half and only 140 in the second.

– While injuries are common Oklahoma literally lost their two best players in the front 6/7. That’s just going to hurt.

– Wade is coming along but he’s young and inconsistent and to be frank he probably isn’t big enough yet to play that NG spot. Phillips presence was sorely missed. We play a hybrid front where Phillips mans both A gaps keeping the LBs clean and ensuring that the double team has to stay on him. But Wade is a young guy and he just couldn’t consistently hold that gap. And on stretch plays he couldn’t consistently keep the play side guard from reaching the play side LB. It usually only took one man to clear him out. That just can’t happen. That forced both ILBs to follow the play and then we’d get burned with the cutback.

– And while Dom had a few nice moments, like early on when he scraped over the top and made a great tackle for loss, he missed a lot of key tackles in the hole and is still learning how to play through his zone in coverage.  Corey Nelson is a play maker and play caller and was sorely missed and it was only exacerbated by the fact that we couldn’t consistently plug up the A gaps and make clean tackles.

– Texas longest 1st half run came on a missed tackle on 3rd and long on a Texas draw play. A number of missed tackles in the hole hurt as well.

– Phillips and Corey’s loss was also really noticeable on 3rd downs. They’re both great pass rushers and while Striker was great off the edge, eventually his pass rush abilities alone just weren’t enough. I think it was a mistake for Coach Mike to try to drop him in coverage on 3rd downs. We gave up a big gain on a seam route with him in coverage. LBs just weren’t playing through their zones and with out Strikers rush Case could just wait on his receiver to get behind the LBs.

– I think Coach Mike tried to overcompensate for the threat of their outside run with a lot of cover 2 that led to a number of easy completions behind the LBs. Those LBs have to match those patterns better.

– It was nice seeing PL playing that outside LB spot but here too we’ve got an inexperienced player in the front 7.

– Torrea shows an explosive first step. I think we could better utilize that by putting him in Tapper’s spot in the 4i and letting crash the B gap while getting us more beef on the front and then putting Tapper out on the edge to give us a bigger edge presence and two great pass rushing bookends with him and Striker.

– We couldn’t get off the field on 3rd downs in critical situations and especially in the first half.

– Two huge penalties that extended Texas’ drives came on the Striker sack that was called a personal foul and then Colvin’s PI really hurt.

– Credit McCoy for putting two deep balls right on the money. We got out of phase on the wheel route that Kass Everret gave up. Sanchez stayed in phase up until the last second. Seemed like he pulled up a little.

– Have to say for those who thought Cortez couldn’t flip his hips and run with a guy they saw him do it today. He had a beautiful defensive play on a go route to Mike Davis.

The defense didn’t give consistent effort or play with a consistent edge. When they did it was noticeable. And while their play wasn’t great they did enough if the offense would have given them some help. They only gave up 22 points and with the pick 6 the defense gave the offense 7 points. And with the all the losses on D they did a good job of playing better as the game went on. This game was flat out on the offense.

 

Offense

– This was a dang mess but I’ll go easy for now. But this is on Coach Heupel.

– Offensively it’s nice peaking into the future and seeing how special Keith Ford can be. He runs great in the open field but that 3rd and 2 conversion he made by blowing up two Texas defenders is what I really loved seeing.

– I was really surprised we didn’t see Blake on more designed runs when the passing game wasn’t working. Though Coach Heupel did set him up on an outside run that was pretty well blocked and he cut back into a defender. If he stays outside he’d have yards.

– I think I recall seeing two read options where if Blake keeps one he’s one on one with a DB in space. Instead, he handed it off. We really did not take advantage of Bell’s strengths. The down hill running game with some QB run game would have been enough to move the chains and eventually break the big one.

– A number of things could be said about Blake Bells play but the three that really stand out are 1) his inability to hit anything past about 8-9 yards with any degree of consistency to strike fear into a defense, 2) his inability to keep his eyes down field when he feels pressure, 3) and in this game he was even more hesitant to throw into a zone than we’ve seen in the past; he wasn’t even confident enough to take some of the 8 yard sit down routes.

– 2 of 13 on 3rd downs? That’s just not going to cut it.

– Bell has to learn to step up into the pocket. If he does that he helps his OTs and he forces their interior pass rushers to stay in their rush lanes because that’s where he can most effectively take off and get running downhill.

– I think Coach Heupel just has to accept that the offensive identity of this team is running. We’re still trying to be too many things. Accept that we are a running team and incorporate a heavy dose of your QB in that game. Blake has shown that he can hit those routes just behind the backers when they pull them up.