Yeah, sooner misery is almost as delicious as aggy misery. Neighbor next door is a t-shirt sooner... we are fairly respectable toward each other and don't gloat or rub it in when either of our teams win. I saw him Monday over the low fence between our yards and remarked: "long day in Norman on Sat." He said something like: yeah, I fear it may be a long day for this team all season.
The sooner fans I know are all saying it is going to be a long year for them. No defense, o-line struggles, and an inexperienced QB.
Yeah, OU's pattern is to lose to some sub-standard team, then win the rest. Will be interesting to see if that pattern holds up this year, or if they truly are bad. As stated elsewhere, so far it's hard to get a good gauge for any team. The lack of practice time results in very inconsistent play from everyone. And sadly, OU has one 4 titles in years this century that Texas has beaten them, compared to only 2 by Texas. OU is twice as likely to win the conference after a RR loss than Texas is after a RR win!
Unfortunately you may be right, Blitz every play and you will allow OU to score points but he will throw interceptions and you can crush their d with a decent offense. We will probably rush 2 and give qb time to develop
This ou team is the same as 2019 with the exception of a raw QB. No defense and the best offense holding line on the planet. Last year ou rolled through the Texas defense the entire first half and the Texas offense played scared after the first series until midway through the third quarter when the ou defense tired/quit. Hope that the Texas defense would be better this season is fading so Sam and company have got to keep it close in the first half and wait for the ou defense to fall apart in the second half.
All OU has to do is get second in the conference for shot at the title. There aren't two other schools in the Big 12 looking good enough to prevent that.
I think the game will come down to QBs and it is highly unlikely a freshman walks in there and outduels the senior....especially after he has shown some growing pains/flaws already at home in a "normal week" matchup. The other xfactors are officiating and player availability.
The OU coaches in the last ten years have had Texas number. Even Mack had a hard time with Stoops. OU gets up mentally for Texas. Everybody in Oklahoma hates Texas. Not just the Longhorns,they hate the whole state and they teach that to them at OU. We dislike OU but not to the extreme that they do. Stoops and Riley really get those guys stirred up. They also know what half time adjustment means. Remember the second half of the cotton bowl in Dallas when Murray was the Quarterback? Thank goodness he ran out of time or we would have lost that game. Of course they beat us in the Big 12 game. Maybe Gardere has some eligibility left.
Maybe there should be a new tradition - bring Gardere's jersey to the Cotton Bowl for the Texas-Zero U game and run it around the field before the game.
For those of you who watched the entire game, OU (finally) was called for numerous holding penalties - often at very costly times during the game. If the refs start consistently calling the obvious holds that OU has gotten away with for years, it will have an impact - it definitely did on Saturday.
I did not view the RRR Murray game the way you do. We dominated that game early in the second half with tremendous halftime adjustments. The team turned off the heat and played safe defense, letting down guard while up by (3?) scores in 4th quarter and ou went desperate all out Murray to take advantage of our lapse and tie it. If you will recall...Orlandos defense did this^^^^multiple times that season and it wasnt an ou thing. I agree with your other points and get where you are coming from. Ive been saying there were a couple of years there we were emerging as the more physical team and haven't quite made it stick. To me the key moving forward is to be the more physically imposing team as I have viewed this as OUs biggest potential weakness for some time now. It is why they do not fare better in Playoffs. It is like NBA playoffs when we see them.. or it should be...whoever is the most physically aggressive will likely hold the upper hand. (And we were in 2018 until 11:00 appx 4th quarter) and they clearly were in that years CCG (with refs help) and last year in the RRR. I can tell you right now I've seen the act we will see next week a few times. When ou thinks we might be better than them (tcu results and their next game pending still) they come out with little man syndrome trying to be tough guys and impose something they don't truly possess. If we call their bluff and actually are/be the tougher, more physical team with real actions not fronts....we will "Beat ou".
This IS the key in every football game but must be sustained for the whole 60 minutes of play, regardless of the score. This has been absent under Herman, Strong and the last few years of Brown. I was taught that "killer instinct", the willingness to punish opponents EVERY play, is the mandatory mindset for ALL players on a championship team. For whatever reason, the 'horns will go multiple quarters and entire games without an overall killer instinct. The results are games like last week's and the OU comeback discussed above. Of course schemes and talent matter, but we've lost the ability maintain a mental edge over the course of a season or even a single game.
"Angry Men Win Football Games" DKR. Hostile, mobile & agile on every play - punish the other guy. Impose your will. You are coming after him on every play you are in there... he will tire and may let up / give up at some point. That is what my HS coach instilled in us.
In 2018 we didn't really relax and try to sit on the lead, but once they cut it to 14 we killed two consecutive drives with OL penalties on our own half the field (I think one had a chop block and the other had back to back holding calls - I recall feeling like they were all legit calls by the officials, too). Now it's like 2nd and 22, 3rd and 17, whatever, so you either run the ball and concede the punt, or throw it long and risk stopping the clock with an incompletion, it's a rough choice either way. End result was that over 2 drives we ran 6 or 7 plays and only burned like 3 minutes off the clock.
Wife and I said the same thing, finally the refs were calling the holding calls against OU that have been there for the last 10+ years. It really hurt them and put them in a lot of holes they otherwise wouldn't have been in. If they call them in the RRS like they normally don't, then it should be a Texas beatdown.
