The Football Brainiacs

On the fifth day o’trenchin’ ol’ Jy gave to me fiiive golden hattttts…four mountaineers, three pancakes, two overtimes and a beeer in a tree.

A belated Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!

Picking up where we left off with West Virginia, the trust level just wasn’t there with Baker and his O-Line.  Trust and respect are a couple of things that can’t be gifted.  They have to be earned.  Because of the mistrust, Baker takes off a little early here when he has o.k. protection.  It’s not great protection, but it’s o.k.  If he’s gonna take off and run I’d like to see him take the blue path, as the nose is playing to his right or the offensive left locked up with Darlington.

 

 

The red gap shows the opening had he taken the blue path in the previous picture.  I know i’ve talked about this before, but to this point in the year, baker had been rushed by every d-line he’d played.  So again the trust hadn’t been earned.  Taking off and making something happen had been the mantra, and frankly that’s kind of his style.  If he waits a tick he’s got Perine in the left flat one on one, or take off to the right and pick up a few.

 

 

Two things to look at.  First, the O-Line has got pushed back about four yards, and second, Brown is beat to the top.  If I’m Clemson, I’m watching this Texas tape.  They brought pressure on every play, and forced the issue.  They attacked from everywhere.  Zone blitzes, dropping eight, then showing a delayed blitz.   Overload blitzes, twists, and everything you can imagine.  Going into the game, the mindset of Strong and his staff had to be that no matter what, we’re coming at em.  And they did that…all…day…long.

 

 

Here’s the delay blitz.  And it’s probably one of the reasons after the coaches watched the tape that Samia has started every game at right tackle since.  St. John has to pick up on the body language of the outside blitzer, bottom left arrow.  The protection is slid to the left as you see Samaje helping out over there.  Brooks is going out on a route, and St. John has to know that.  If you slide to the right, you can see #95 has gone down inside and given St. John the old Reggie White throw move, so combined with the fact that he didn’t call out the pressure and slide the protection right, he got beat too.

 

 

If you’ve read any story lines about Dru Samia, you may have heard that he knows the playbook, and that’s what’s really set him apart.  He knows what EVERYBODY is doing.  If you look at the protection here, St. John has to know that the blitzer is coming outside, so he would call it out and take the blitzer and just get something on him.  Nila then would slide over and take the guy shooting down inside.  Inside arrow.  St. John has to know that Brooks is going out on a route, and he has no help outside.  Texas isn’t rushing a lot of people, as it’s just four, but when you don’t get a hat on a hat, and then the hats you do get on, get beat, it’s not good.

 

Because at this point, look at everyone to the left of big ol’ #55 for us.  They’re doing o.k.  You’ve got three guys blocking the nose(because the protection wasn’t slid right) with Big O and Perine handling the end.  Again, St. John needs to be blocking the outside blue arrow rusher, and Nila would have taken the inside blue arrow.

 

If you check the receiver separating down the left hash, had Baker had time, the guy isn’t wide open, but Baker has shown he can make those throws.

 

To put it no other way, the Sooners just got whipped against Texas.  They weren’t ready to play.  You could see it in the body language and busts like this.  Sometimes you can come into a game without an edge, have some success, and then get going.  In other cases if you don’t come out ready to go, you get beat.  Texas played with more emotion than they had all year, and the old saying goes that a scared man is a dangerous man.  Texas was dangerous that day and it showed.  After this game, Alvarez became a fixture at left guard and Samia became a fixture at right tackle.  You know the results from Texas till now.  We’ll get started on K-State here pretty soon.