OU/TX game defense thoughts

[sooner78wakeboard]

I admit, I believed we would be okay and it wouldn't be that bad without Cory Nelson, and when I heard Phillips was out as well, I was a bit concerned. But wow, we were bad.

This is actually the OU defensive line that I anticipated at the beginning of the season. With so little size and experience it definitely showed. It seemed that for the most part, Texas didn't call anything fancy it was just, run it up the middle. Texas just said, we are running right here and go ahead and get our 5 yards a carry. They just showed our d-line back like it was nothing.

Like I and many Sooners said at the beginning of the season thought our d-line was inexperienced and lacked depth and it showed, tonight.

Alexander did a decent job and made tackles but much of the time he was out of place, especially on passing plays/downs. He is a true freshman though so I wasn't really surprised.

 

[KansasSooner]

I was more surprised with the lack of offense.

 

[outofyourmind]

Going into the season I was going to give Mike and the defense a 2nd full year before I expected any real improvement. I'm not going to change my mind on that. The defense, up until today, was doing way better than I had expected. You have a senior leader go out, and you have to stick in a freshman??? Not good.

I put the blame on Bob for not getting rid of Venables years ago. Brent should have been shown the door after USC scored 55pts on us.

Bob is the problem.
It isn't getting any better because he wont make changes quickly enough. like Heupel calling plays, etc.

 

[RACER-MIKE]

Going into the season I was going to give Mike and the defense a 2nd full year before I expected any real improvement. I'm not going to change my mind on that. The defense, up until today, was doing way better than I had expected. You have a senior leader go out, and you have to stick in a freshman??? Not good.

I put the blame on Bob for not getting rid of Venables years ago. Brent should have been shown the door after USC scored 55pts on us.

Bob is the problem.
It isn't getting any better because he wont make changes quickly enough. like Heupel calling plays, etc.

so true.

 

[td2play]

Disagree about the defense. Yes they were gashed up the middle without the starting middle linebacker and DT but they gave up 23 and scored 7. That's a net of 16. 7 on special teams and 7 on Bell and the offense. This is an offensive failure pure and simple. Press coverage and stacking the box against the run. If you don't beat that defense over the top then you are in for a long day. Don't mind playing big boy football and trying to run against those stacked fronts but you have to play to the weakness of the other team. Hats off to Texas they watched OU struggle against TCU and took notes. Bell is developing but until he starts hitting his WR 10-15 yards down the field everyone is going to play this defense. Texas struggled stopping a running QB all season and OU runs the QB what twice? Knight would have done a better job just running the read option against these guys. Well hindsight is 20/20. On to next week and the rest of the season. Good game Texas. I still like OU's chances in the Big XII with this defense. Maybe along the way we can find an offense too.

 

[romeo212000]

Disagree about the defense. Yes they were gashed up the middle without the starting middle linebacker and DT but they gave up 23 and scored 7. That's a net of 16. 7 on special teams and 7 on Bell and the offense. This is an offensive failure pure and simple. Press coverage and stacking the box against the run. If you don't beat that defense over the top then you are in for a long day. Don't mind playing big boy football and trying to run against those stacked fronts but you have to play to the weakness of the other team. Hats off to Texas they watched OU struggle against TCU and took notes. Bell is developing but until he starts hitting his WR 10-15 yards down the field everyone is going to play this defense. Texas struggled stopping a running QB all season and OU runs the QB what twice? Knight would have done a better job just running the read option against these guys. Well hindsight is 20/20. On to next week and the rest of the season. Good game Texas. I still like OU's chances in the Big XII with this defense. Maybe along the way we can find an offense too.

Defense has a lot of work to do. Secondary had some awful series' and Alexander was out of position way too often.

 

[RACER-MIKE]

defense is bad we get the best players in the country . they should have put in knight. bad bad play calling . bad coaching .tell me why they did not run bell.

 

[HizzleRocker]

I would be more concerned about your offense than your D. You guys gave up 3 offensive tds. Not great, but not completely inexcuseable. 2 of those were bombs by McCoy that your D-line had little to do with.

Offensively, had it not been for a 70+ yard kickoff return, you guys would have had 0 offensive tds. If we would have had 1 decent kickoff coverage, and avoided a silly int on a screen pass for a td - your offense would have netted an entire 6 points.

 

[KansasSooner]

The offense is just mind blowing. With the running backs we have we should be able to run on anybody. I think though the receivers are just too young so Bell or Knight only has two options, Shepard and Saunders, unless Millard comes out of the backfield. So does Heupel run the ball, no the puts the QBs in a situation where they end up running around because our O-line isn't as good as it needs to be on pass protection and the receivers are not getting any separation down field which leads to what we saw yesterday.

 

[romeo212000]

I would be more concerned about your offense than your D. You guys gave up 3 offensive tds. Not great, but not completely inexcuseable. 2 of those were bombs by McCoy that your D-line had little to do with.

Offensively, had it not been for a 70+ yard kickoff return, you guys would have had 0 offensive tds. If we would have had 1 decent kickoff coverage, and avoided a silly int on a screen pass for a td - your offense would have netted an entire 6 points.

I agree with this. Mike Stoops has made improvements on defense this year and made some decent adjustments at half that would've kept them in the game if the offense had gotten going.

As KS points out with the weapons we have in our backfield we should be able to run the ball on anybody, and we were running pretty well, and Heupel refused to stick with it. Instead he tries to constantly force things that aren't working and abandons what is successful. We have the tools on offense to be successful, but it doesn't fit into Heupel's scheme and he's completely unable to adapt. He was completely lost yesterday, and the players noticed. Oklahoma will go nowhere with Heupel as the OC, and he should be demoted back to what he was good at. Coaching the qb.

 

[romeo212000]

I also agree with KS that Stoops needs to be on the phone with Mark Mangino today.

 

[td2play]

I would be more concerned about your offense than your D. You guys gave up 3 offensive tds. Not great, but not completely inexcuseable. 2 of those were bombs by McCoy that your D-line had little to do with.

Offensively, had it not been for a 70+ yard kickoff return, you guys would have had 0 offensive tds. If we would have had 1 decent kickoff coverage, and avoided a silly int on a screen pass for a td - your offense would have netted an entire 6 points.

OUr defense gave up two touchdowns to long passes. First quarter traded FG, Bell pick6. 10 -3, 59 yd pass UT 17-3, Williams OU TD 17-10, 2 FG UT before half 23-10 half. First half one offense TD for UT. 2nd half FG OU, punt return (block xp) UT 29-13. 38 yd pass UT 36-13. Int TD OU 36-20. 2nd half one offensive TD for UT.

If you want to count total points given up the defense allowed 23 (pick 6 by Bell and punt return TD) thats 13 points because of blocked XP. Now the defense scored once so they really only allowed 16 points net.

Defense is not the problem at OU even though they were exploited up the middle of the field without Nelson and Phillips. I like what they are doing on defense and if you allow only two offensive TD you should win a game most of the time. Offense is where the Sooners are struggling and TCU gave everyone the blueprint to stop OU. Now OU needs to do something about it and change what they are trying to do.

 

[Wheat]

If not mistaken, Alexander made a game high 19 tackles. If so, he played his heart out, no doubt, but why did UT have such open receivers so often? Hell if Derp hadn't overthrown his receivers by a country mile on several occasions, it would have been a lot worse...