Football question

[WichitaSooner]

Brent was successful in year 2.

lol yea 10-3 against a weak schedule with two collapses keeping us from playing in the conference title game … what a great year by OU standards! Hang the banner!! That’s totally equivalent to Cignetti taking Indiana to consecutive playoffs and now a semifinal.

 

[WaymanFan]

Watching the playoffs both last night and today has me convinced more than ever that OU's defense this year was merely "very good" and not "elite". I mentioned it a few times during the season and got my fair share of pushback. I may still be in the minority on this, but other than Alabama, every team I've seen the past two days has a superior defense to OU's. I don't think it's even close. I hope we can upgrade the secondary because they were often picked on if the pass rush didn't get home.

 

[BCSooners]

lol yea 10-3 against a weak schedule with two collapses keeping us from playing in the conference title game … what a great year by OU standards! Hang the banner!! That’s totally equivalent to Cignetti taking Indians to consecutive playoffs and now a semifinal.

I wasn’t comparing the 2 coaches dips***. 10-2 in the regular season while beating Texas and being ranked #12 is a successful season you miserable troll.

 

[WaymanFan]

lol yea 10-3 against a weak schedule with two collapses keeping us from playing in the conference title game … what a great year by OU standards! Hang the banner!! That’s totally equivalent to Cignetti taking Indians to consecutive playoffs and now a semifinal.

It was still a successful year because of the last-minute comeback against Texas. That was a big win. Plus, after what Lincoln did to hang us out to dry, 10-3 in Year Two was indeed successful. My issue was with Year Three, but we came back with a strong Year Four in spite of a terrible offense. No doubt Brent needs to get that fixed in Year Five.

 

[WaymanFan]

It's now 38-3 Indiana. At least we know that the coaches squeezed out about every bit of talent this year's team had. Perhaps a better head coach would have beaten Alabama, but we were not beating this Indiana team with our talent level. At least we now have a better measuring stick as what needs to get done between now and August.

 

[WichitaSooner]

It was still a successful year because of the last-minute comeback against Texas. That was a big win. Plus, after what Lincoln did to hang us out to dry, 10-3 in Year Two was indeed successful. My issue was with Year Three, but we came back with a strong Year Four in spite of a terrible offense. No doubt Brent needs to get that fixed in Year Five.

That’s exactly my point. People saying Lincoln hung us out to dry. He left. It happens all the time in college sports. Losing Caleb was obviously huge. But if you compare the talent Brent inherited in year one to what Cignetti inherited at Indiana, it’s not even a contest. No sane person would say Brent took over a tougher situation. We were light years ahead of them. He made the playoff in his first year. He is two wins away from a championship in year two. He has done this at a laughingstock of a program. Brent beat Texas in year two, blew games at KU and OSU, and failed to make the conference title game in a down year for the Big 12. It was a decent year but not much more than that.

 

[WaymanFan]

That’s exactly my point. People saying Lincoln hung us out to dry. He left. It happens all the time in college sports. Losing Caleb was obviously huge. But if you compare the talent Brent inherited in year one to what Cignetti inherited at Indiana, it’s not even a contest. No sane person would say Brent took over a tougher situation. We were light years ahead of them. He made the playoff in his first year. He is two wins away from a championship in year two. He has done this at a laughingstock of a program. Brent beat Texas in year two, blew games at KU and OSU, and failed to make the conference title game in a down year for the Big 12. It was a decent year but not much more than that.

A coach like Cignetti comes along once or twice every 50 years, so that is not a reasonable measuring stick. Prior to him, the last amazing turnaround was from Bill Snyder and that was about 35 years ago. Also, I didn't see much that Riley left that could build more than 6-7 wins right out of the gate. Brent inherited a better oline than he has now, but I don't see much 2022 talent beyond that. Mims was good, Eric Gray solid, Jalen Redmond decent, and a few others to help build around. Guys like Stutsman and Bowman still needed to develop - and they no doubt did better under Brent than they would have under Riley...but I don't see National Championship or even conference championship talent left behind by Riley...hence a 10-3 record in Year Two was SUCCESSFUL.

 

[daqman]

what i don't think you'll see is cignetti firing assistant coaches in year 4/5
i think that's been bv's biggest problem.....he made a bunch of terrible hires

 

[mict085]

That’s exactly my point. People saying Lincoln hung us out to dry. He left. It happens all the time in college sports. Losing Caleb was obviously huge. But if you compare the talent Brent inherited in year one to what Cignetti inherited at Indiana, it’s not even a contest. No sane person would say Brent took over a tougher situation. We were light years ahead of them. He made the playoff in his first year. He is two wins away from a championship in year two. He has done this at a laughingstock of a program. Brent beat Texas in year two, blew games at KU and OSU, and failed to make the conference title game in a down year for the Big 12. It was a decent year but not much more than that.

OU was in transition when Brent took over. We had been trending down for several years and a superstar QB covered a lot of that up. Cignetti was hired at Indiana and brought a ton of veteran players that knew his system with him. Indiana also has a hell of a lot easier schedule. You have a bad habit of playing hide the salami with the facts.

 

[Eielson]

Watching the playoffs both last night and today has me convinced more than ever that OU's defense this year was merely "very good" and not "elite". I mentioned it a few times during the season and got my fair share of pushback.

And you're still going to get pushback.

We ended the season #4 in SP+, and you've been watching 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9. Ole Miss at #16 is the only team that made it to this week without a top 10 defense.

You're correct that you're watching elite defenses, but you watched one every week this year.

 

[Eielson]

lol yea 10-3 against a weak schedule with two collapses keeping us from playing in the conference title game

You realize that Cignetti played two ranked teams his first season and got smoked by both, right?

Cignetti obviously has his team playing better in year 2, but you just called it the most incredible thing you've seen in college sports, and nobody claimed Brent's year 2 was the greatest thing we'd ever seen.

 

[WaymanFan]

And you're still going to get pushback.

And that's what these message boards are for - healthy discussions and respectful disagreements .

 

[mict085]

Also, Cignetti team is loaded with seniors that have played together a long time and with him from previous school. That makes a difference.

 

[WichitaSooner]

OU was in transition when Brent took over. We had been trending down for several years and a superstar QB covered a lot of that up. Cignetti was hired at Indiana and brought a ton of veteran players that knew his system with him. Indiana also has a hell of a lot easier schedule. You have a bad habit of playing hide the salami with the facts.

So Lincoln going 11-2 is transition and trending down, but Brent going 10-3 in a weaker league is a successful season?

If guys coming from a lower level and knowing a system means so much, why does Mateer suck in year 3 under his OC?

Our schedule wasn’t nearly as tough as people expected it to be. The season is over so we can look at it with facts rather than preseason expectations. We split with Bama. Lost to Texas and Ole Miss. Beat a decent Michigan team. Auburn was bad. S. Carolina bad. LSU bad enough they fired their coach. Missouri was ok but not even a top 25 team. Tennessee was impressive mainly because it was a road game. They aren’t ranked and didn’t beat a single team with a winning record. We earned our playoff spot but went 2-3 against teams that will end the season ranked. And it’s not like Auburn, LSU, and Mizzou were much better when we played them. This was not a murderer’s row.

Indiana won at Oregon. Smoked Bama. Beat Ohio State. Each of those wins is better than our best win. Their domination over Illinois is more impressive than our win over Michigan. There definitely were some very soft teams on their league schedule but let’s not pretend that they wouldn’t be huge favorites over the four or five weaker SEC teams we played. But their best wins are much better than ours. They aren’t 14-0 due to a bad schedule.