The Football Brainiacs

I forced myself to go back and watch the first half of the game to try to formulate thoughts that weren’t varnished by outside voices or emotions. Defensively, there isn’t a lot to be upset about. The score was 10-5 with 1 minute left in the 1st half and the defense had accounted for almost as many points as the offense. Baylor did a good job of sticking with that inside zone run game and later in the game they were able to get Petty in open field on some read option keepers. We played the pass well and tackled well but eventually we missed a tackle on a slant that cost us. A few offsides penalties were costly. But despite playing 50 snaps in the first half, the defense was only going to give up 17 points. And just when you thought the offense couldn’t play any worse or put the defense in any worse situations, with a minute left in the half we throw an interception in our own territory and a few plays later we bust an assignment in the secondary. And just like that it’s 24-5. The story of this game wasn’t the defense. They weren’t always stellar but they did “enough”. Players are human. You can only stand the stress of a taxing offense for so long without help from your other half. You can only watch your efforts go wasted on drive after drive of ineptitude for so long before you begin to lose a little of your own edge.

As I rewatched the game, every time I thought I’d figured out what the offensive problem was something different or even contradictory happened. But no matter where I turned and whatever player I found to pin the error on there was always something beneath that. We’ve heard the coaches and  players say that the offense is closer to being good than it looks. In fact Blake Bell said that very thing after the game. But football has always been a game of inches, a game of precision, a game where one persons slight mistake makes the difference between a play going for a 10 yard gain or a 1 yard loss. That’s just football. To keep saying “we’re close” isn’t saying anything that almost any other struggling offense could potentially say. If you accept the fact that the difference between success and failure in football is very narrow then you might also accept what I believe to be the root of the problem – we are trying to be too many things.

In the first half I saw us try everything possible; we tried our pistol power run games with two tight, with a TE and and H-back, we tried 4 wide (1o personnel), we tried a bevy of running backs, we tried the QB zone read with two QBs, we tried QB run plays, we tried to slow down, we tried to hurry up, we even tried the classic I-formation under center. So one might say, “well that’s great! We’re keeping the other team on their toes!” or they’ll say “you can’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results!” Let me address both of those assertions individually.

As I posited earlier, the difference between success and failure in football is very narrow. It takes success from every player on a single play to make that play successful! One mistake can be your doom. That means it takes a lot of repetition in practice doing the same thing over and over so that you can do it flawlessly on command. When you try to do too much you end up not being able to do anything at all. When I first started boxing as a teenager my coach had me jab for sixth months. I didn’t learn another punch for sixth months. But I could throw that jab from every angle and I could throw it on command with incredible explosiveness. I remember years later boxing full speed with a pretty good MMA fighter and he couldn’t do anything. He knew a lot of things but he didn’t know one thing well. He hadn’t mastered one thing. Guys like George St. Pierre are great MMA fighters, not because they know a lot, but because they spend years mastering each martial form. If you can’t be great at one thing you can’t be great at many things. The heat of the battle will expose you.

Over the past few years Oklahoma has continued to move towards the 10 personnel (4 WRs, 1 RB, o TE) sets. But they find themselves in a situation now where they don’t have a QB that can run that spread-type offense. And rest assured they’ve known that for a while. Ace attended most of the fall camp practices and nothing we’re seeing out of Bell is any different than what he saw in practice and told me in the pre-season. And while we’ve done less of it this year we continue to go back to it when we’re in trouble. We’ve tried to run some read option with Trevor and for the most part it’s been quite effective but as soon as it slows a bit we don’t see it again. Fine. We’re not a read option team. We’ve been effective running the ball out of the bigger sets. But when that doesn’t net yards on 1st down then we scrap it. Fine. We’re not a power running team. In the end, what are we? We’re a power running, read option, 4 WR spread, QB running, hurry up, slow down no huddle mess.

How does this all show up on the field? It shows up in two ways – either in a small error by a player who hasn’t had enough repetitions doing one thing over and over or in an error by the coordinator who is trying to be too many things at once. A play that, to me, really exemplified this was at the start of the 2nd quarter. We are 2nd and goal from the 7 and we come out in a big set. Knight runs the read option and keeps it for a gain of 5 yards and we’re 3rd and goal from the 2. Then we bring Bell in. So you’re thinking ok, that makes sense. Baylor’s strength is speed but they lack size so we want to pound them in the middle right? Wrong. Not only is Baylor small but on this particular play they are going to line up with their NG on the inside shade of the guard almost head up in a 2 technique and their DT on the opposite side is going to play a 3 technique which means they’ve got an uncovered undersize LB manning the A gap. So its hat on a hat gut punch with big bad Bell up the middle right? I mean even if we missed the block Bell’s momentum moving forward is enough to fall into the end zone against their puny LB. But if you guess that’s what we were going to do then you’d be wrong again. Instead we’re going to run the ball to the edge on a slow developing play and pull a guard. Everyone blocks it perfectly except for, yep you guessed it, the pulling guard. He misses the block and Baylors speed allows them to get in the backfield as Blake is moving east west instead of north south. We go for it on 4th down and it’s even worse. We have our slower bigger QB in and we’re going to run a stretch play. Doesn’t work. In the process of trying to do too much we’ve done nothing.

This inability to be do the little things or any one thing right, shows up again later. We get into the classic I-formation under center (love it) and we hit them for a nice run. How often do you see hurry up spread teams? A lot. How often do you see hurry up power running teams? Not a lot. In order to keep this post from being too long I won’t go into the reason. So we are all of a sudden trying to be an I-formation power running hurry up team. We go to the line and snap the ball as quickly as we can. Just before we are snapping it the high safety who they’ve been walking down into the box all game is still high and he’s just starting to make his way down in the box which is where you would want him on this play because lo and behold this is going to be a play action. But we aren’t going to send a tight end out on this play action so clearly what we want to do is force the high safety to bite on the run and get a one on one matchup with the a cornerback. Well guess what? If you don’t hurry up that safety was going to do the job for you! He was starting to walk down but we wanted to all of a sudden be a power running hurry up team so by the team we have faked the hand off, the safety is still high and in position to make a play in pass defense. If we just take a moment and let that safety walk down we at least have a chance at a one on one ball. But again a small mistake in an attempt to be too many things at once.

Which takes me to the second assertion some people make that I mentioned above, namely “you can’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results!” Not always. I’ll go back to a boxing analogy that I know holds true in football because after all, football is a fight. If you throw a punch and your opponent blocks it, you were still able hit him. If you throw a punch and you completely miss you’ve lost energy and you’ve put yourself in a position to be counter punched. The run game gets better with age. Just like a QB needs time to find a rhythm the O-line working together needs time to find a rhythm. Baylor couldn’t run in the first quarter and neither could we. But Baylor continued to run that inside zone only to set up the read option off it in the next quarter and it worked perfectly. We, on the other hand, kept trying to run to every different spot on the field out of every different formation never allowing the O-line to have repetitions at any one thing and never picking a spot on the defense that you can weaken over the course of the game. And then at the first sign of trouble we decide to get back into 10 personnel (4 WRs).

Let’s face it we don’t have the QB who is going to make that play with enough consistency to make it worth missing out on the gut punch we can deliver with the run game that may, at least, pay dividends later in the game. We scored 3 offensive points in the first half and threw an interception. If you aren’t going to score points then why not hit the other team in the stomach every chance you get? Getting stuffed in the run game doesn’t mean you didn’t land a punch. If you’re going to go 3 and out then why not at least make every play a run to burn some clock? Or at least the first 2 downs. Your opponent might start to buckle in the 3rd quarter. And I know people will say “well you don’t know its not going to work before you try it.” But, is that really true at this point? Have we not seen enough interceptions, overthrown balls, missed wide open receivers, etc. to know at this point that 10 personnel isn’t going to pay off enough to make it a worthwhile staple of this offense?

So it’s getting late and I’m getting tired but I wanted to end on a good note. The problems on this team should not overshadow the great potential that exists. Firstly, on defense, I’ll expand on this another time but there is a lot to be excited about with respect to young talent, defensive scheme and defensive recruiting. And you haven’t even seen it all on the field. There are some players red shirting right now that are going to be dynamite. Take our word for it. Offensive line. One sin doesn’t erase a lifetime of good. The O-line has been mauling people this season. They had a pretty bad first quarter and definitely had some issues throughout the game but I still believe a lot of that goes back to things I mentioned above. Coach Bedenbaugh has things moving in the right direction. All we need now is to find a clear sense of who we are on offense and become that. What I’m hoping is we try to continue some of what we’ve done this year and become a power running team with a couple players in our base personnel that are hybrid players – guys like Carson Meier, Dimitri Flowers, Mark Andrews and Samaje Perine. The recruiting seems to be moving in that direction.

Life is easier when you have the tools to be what you always wanted to be. If we had a great throwing QB we’d be exactly who our coordinator wants us to be. Sometimes you lose things or you fail in things or you don’t have things you need in order to be who you wanted to be. But that may present you with the opportunity to find out that you can be so much more than you ever thought. I know a lot of folks have attacked Coach Heupel but there have been times this season where he has called an incredible series. There are times when even in the midst of a bad series he’s called an incredible play. There are times when he’s set up a play perfectly only to have a ball overthrown or a receiver drop a pass. But in the end it falls on his shoulders and he may have to let go of what he once was and tread a new path if the future is going to be a bright one. I hope that this year will show us that Oklahoma doesn’t have to be a pass first, a hurry up finesse team. I hope this year shows us that we can go back to being a team built on fast physical defense and run the ball down your throat on first and second under center and PA deep on third. I hope we can go back to being Oklahoma and playing Oklahoma football.