Offensively, slow start, but then again so did the opposition. Of course as I suspected, I saw threads bashing the scheme which is just a cute little inversion of reality. The only really negative things I have to say are the following: Shane was never able to shake out the butterflies. He threw a lot of screens short to the point where it prevented the WR's from making any runs after the catch. Absolutely must cash in that turnover for 6 instead of 3 in the early goings of the game. That said, Foreman was a beast in the second half and Shane at least found something of a groove in the deep ball throws late in the game, which was encouraging because you need that against these *************. Defensively, the play-caller title is exactly that: a title. The shadow did not alter the substance and we're exactly where we've been in the last month. Special teams: solid all around. 'Bout time y'all got your **** together. Just wish the onside kick would have been tee'd up from the opposite hash so the ball would have had more room to bounce in the air rather than just a dribble.
Thanks for critique. I too felt Shane was not himself. Butterflies are a good discription. I hope it's accurate because my discription was more concerning. I felt he was tentative to the point of fear - not sure fear of failure or injury - but that was my take. He certainly wasn't in command.
Cut Shane a little slack - he is still a freshman and it was his first Red River Shootout. He did pretty well in the second half at getting the butterflies in his gut to fly in formation.
I have a different critique, tempered by the fact that I have not had the opportunity to view the recording of the game, so these are my observations from the West side upper deck: 1) Trash the **** about being a freshman. So was James Brown in the famous "Are you guys still here" game. Shane didn't have time to breath. The OL was abysmal at best . Three times we had receivers wide open (20 yards plus) deep and he couldn't see them because he was running for his life. 2) The Stoops brothers have played the same basic pass coverage since arriving in Norman. Yesterday, they adjusted the coverage, leaving the middle of the field wide open almost every play, but it doesn't matter if we don't have a route putting anyone there. 3) Gilbert either could not or would not adjust to Stoops new coverages. 4) Either our WRs are gallactically stupid, very poorly coached, or both. Shane is running for his life and they are downfield standing flat-footed, playing switch, and enjoying the view. When your QB is in trouble, move your sorry *** and find an opening. 5) Spring practice, all summer practicing routes, fall practice, and into the sixth week of the season, and our WRs don't know their reads or their routes. How many times yesterday did we have two WRs on top of each other? A three man route, and two are four feet apart? 6) The OU DL owned the entire field! 7) The OU OL manhandled our DL! 8) I was standing while everyone was seated holding up TWO fingers, yelling at Gilbert. Why the f**k do you throw a two yard out (not screen) to the fastest WR you have. No sooner did I ask my friends sitting with me that same question than Buechele hits Duvernay with that bomb. Of course, in the fourth quarter when we needed it, Gilbert never put him out there to go deep. Very reminiscent of Greg Davis lining Jordan Shipley up as a TE and sending him deep against OU for a TD. Never saw that play again. The Stoops brothers rarely cover the TE. They are known for cheating their safeties and rotating them. usually leaving the middle of the field open. 9) It appeared that OU cheated the splits on the left side unless they were calling certain plays. We never exploited that, probably because we didn't recognize it. It started with the first play and lasted at least three quarters. 10) We were better about lining up on defense this week, but still not there. Either our defensive players are too dumb to learn, or they are not being taught. I thought it very appropriate that Dylan Haines, the only player that does know where to lineup, and frequently tells the others, got the INT. 11) If Strong is calling the defensive plays, why did it appear that Bedford (while 20 yards from Strong) had a headset on, with playcards, and appeared to be signalling in the defensive calls? By and large I was pleased with the effort the kids gave except for a few "lapses". (Why do you stop in the middle of the play, only to have the ball thrown over your head for a TD?) They had enthusiasm and played hard with emotion. Whomever took over the special teams this week, did a great job. For those not able to attend, the OU fans were really pretty nice this year. They had doubts about winning and were grateful to get out with a win. They want Stoops fired, but have no clue who they want or would offer, even if there was no competition. Also, in 54 years, this was the easiest entrance to parking and into the stadium that I've ever experienced.
I'm trying to understand why things are where they're at on the defense. I expected the defensive line to have trouble, but the secondary to be better. It just seems like the talent at cornerback is not at the level it was last year (safeties are the same as last year). I guess losing Duke Thomas to graduation is a big loss. The defensive line has stopped the run better than I expected, but the pass rush isn't fast enough to help out the secondary. That's all I can figure, but I'll let you guys set me straight.
Impossible! He was one of those terrible, good for nothing Mack Brown players! We beat Mayfield in 2013 and 2015 but putting pressure on him. We has zero sacks yesterday! 0! Last year we had a great plan to blitz and put pressure on Mayfield. I guess than plan must have been Jay Norvell's and Strong or Bedford could not remember it because this year we seemed to play contain. On OU's second touchdown of the game which happened late in the second quarter Mayfield rolled left. We had a guy start to come up to hit Mayfield, then he pulled back into a QB spy. He just stood there, gave mayfield a cushion, and let mayfield throw a long touchdown pass to give OU the halftime lead (and we know strong cannot overcome even 1 point half time deficits). If be goes after Mayfield, there is no way Mayfield throws that long touchdown. Maybe he misses the sack and Mayfield runs for 20 yards, but that would have been better than the long TD pass. Mayfield seemed to run around a lot on us even with the contain defense, so we may as well have gone with the aggressive blitzing that caused us to beat him the last two times. I do not understand why we went away from blitzing Mayfield aggressively when we knew it worked after last season.
