The Football Brainiacs

I’ve been pondering this game all week. Here are a few last minute thoughts…

– The more I watch of Barrett the less dangerous I feel he is as a passer. He stares his receivers down and seems to decide where he’s going with the ball pre-snap.

– I also don’t see a sudden runner in Barrett but he is dangerous once he gets going.

– If I’m Mike, I pressure him. Obviously the threat of the option requires disciplined pressure by the edge guys and as much as you want to commit numbers to the box it makes it tough because you want to try to roll coverage over your inexperienced corner.

– The status of Walker and Romar in this game are huge. You lose Romar and now you’ve got Wade and a young Neville Gallimore getting combo blocked by Ohio State’s two most experienced interior offensive linemen. And those big boys can change the LOS. You lose Walker and you lose your best defensive lineman period…not good against a spread run attack.

– This is an interesting game in that…

Ohio State is a spread team that wants to run and the strength of OU’s defense so far has been their rush defense (again Walker and Romar are important).

Ohio State is a decent pass team but not as dangerous as I’d originally thought but OU has an obvious point of inexperience in the secondary.

OU is supposed to have a good passing attack (though we haven’t seen it just yet) but Ohio State seems to have a good secondary that likes to press. Sooner receivers are not used to getting free off press coverage. Ohio State won’t necessarily play a true press technique every down but they’ll show you a lot of press pre-snap looks which will force Baker to really read the defense and puts more pressure on the offensive line to protect.

OU should be able to run the ball with Mixon and Perine but the Sooners didn’t really run downhill against Houston and the Ohio State defensive line is deep and talented. The Sooners will need to limit big plays on defense early so that they can give Lincoln the luxury of being patient with the run.

– Having said all of the above, assuming Walker, at least, is healthy, I see this game being decided by two things

Home Field Advantage: So many things seem to cancel each other out so I think the Sooners being at home is bigger than I’d normally give it credit…especially since the Sooners haven’t been as good the past few years at home.

Coaching, Coaching, Coaching: Again, so many things seem to cancel each other out. I suspect the difference in this game will come down to who has their team better prepared and who calls a better game. The players make plays on the field but this one feels close enough in terms of a match-up that coaching will decide it.