Thoughts on the OU-Tulsa Football Game

[AdaSooner]

On the positive side, OU has one heck of a quarterback in Baker Mayfield. He may not look as pretty as Sam Bradford in throwing the ball. But he's a winner, and that more than makes up for style points. He completed 32 of 38 passes for 487 yards and carried the ball 13 times for 85, resulting in four passing TDs and two more rushing TDs. That's one heck of a day for any QB, even against a team like Tulsa.

Riley erased any doubt that he would continue to use our RBs effectively. Perine had a great day, rushing 22 times for 152 yards and 1 TD. Shepherd had another great game with 8 catches for 144 yards, a very impressive 18 yards per catch. Mixon, Neal and Westbrook looked really good with 17 combined receptions for 203 yards. Mixon also had 28 yards rushing.

Aside from too many penalties, the only negative I can think of in this game was on defense. Our defense gave up way too many yards and points to this Tulsa team. You can bet that Baylor and TCU's offensive coordinators are licking their chops after watching OU's defense continue to get burned time after time on the same plays. I'm always happy with a win. But our defense was about as bad as in any game I can remember from last season.

I thought our defense was solid against the Vols last week. That definitely was not the case in today's game. When an OU team gives up 176 yards rushing, 427 years passing and 5 touchdowns to Tulsa, color me officially worried about the Big 12 season. Today's defense looked like the same ol' Mike Stoops coached defense we saw last year to me. Sure hope I'm wrong.

 

[bocabull]

Mike Stoops is .... fill in the blank but it's not good. The Big XII is terrible too. Very weak.

 

[WTSooner]

Mike Stoops is .... fill in the blank but it's not good. The Big XII is terrible too. Very weak.

It's not Mike's fault. If the secondary just doesn't give up the big busts where they simply forget what the heck they are doing, we hold Tulsa to a respectable point total. With a vanilla defense. To blame Mike or the scheme for the Hail Mary, for example, is crazy.

But we need better secondary players. I think this year's class and the 2016 class are a good start, but those guys won't be playing with experience for another year or two.

As for the Big 12, it's no weaker than any other conference. The SEC been impressive? How about the Big 10? Did Ohio State impress you today? Michigan State's mediocre performance? ACC sucks. Pac-whatever is pretty average. So who exactly is clearly better than the Big 12?

 

[MsProudSooner]

Three plays helped Tulsa keep this game respectable. Samje's fumble, Mixon's fumble and the special teams screw-up just before the half. None of those were the defense's fault. But none of that really matters because the segment of our fans who have to have someone to complain about will complain about Mike no matter what.

 

[AdaSooner]

Read this article and you'll see that Berry Tramel gets what I meant when I expressed concerns about playing the likes of Baylor and TCU after watching Tulsa carve up our defense on the ground and in the air.

While it's true the players are responsible for being in the right position to make plays, some of the blame has to fall on the coaching staff, particularly Mike Stoops, when a mid-major program like Tulsa scores 38 points while rolling up 31 first downs and a total of 603 yards of offense. That's a recipe for disaster when we play Baylor, and maybe TCU as well. It's not like he didn't know that TU hired former Baylor OC, Philip Montgomery, last year.

http://newsok.com/tramel-ous-porous...r-test/article/5448223?custom_click=columnist

As I said before, our defense had a solid performance against the Vols. They kept us in the game for the first three quarters, while our offense struggled mightily. OU would not have won that game if not for our defense.

I'm not worried about any game on our schedule, except Baylor and TCU. Our offense can score with any team we'll play during the regular season. The question is, can our defense contain Baylor and TCU's offense? The answer almost has to be, NO, if they play like they did against Tulsa.

 

[MsProudSooner]

Why do you think Stoops hired a Leach disciple as our new OC? Because the offense is hard as hell to defend against.

At the end of the day, they don't put a W in the W/L column based on how many yards your offense gains. We would all love to have a defense that holds all opponents to 14 points or less. But the evolution of of offenses combined with the reluctance of officials to throw the flag when linemen are downfield, among other things, makes it very difficult for defenses.

Can anyone name a DC who consistently shuts down a Baylor-type offense when it has quality players? I'd love to know who it is. Start an online petition to hire that guy. I'd sign it! I don't give a tinker's damn who our DC is. I just know that in this day and age, the offense has much more of an advantage over the defense than at any time I can remember.

 

[Max Power]

Why do you think Stoops hired a Leach disciple as our new OC? Because the offense is hard as hell to defend against.

At the end of the day, they don't put a W in the W/L column based on how many yards your offense gains. We would all love to have a defense that holds all opponents to 14 points or less. But the evolution of of offenses combined with the reluctance of officials to throw the flag when linemen are downfield, among other things, makes it very difficult for defenses.

Can anyone name a DC who consistently shuts down a Baylor-type offense when it has quality players? I'd love to know who it is. Start an online petition to hire that guy. I'd sign it! I don't give a tinker's damn who our DC is. I just know that in this day and age, the offense has much more of an advantage over the defense than at any time I can remember.

She has a point here, look at how mortal Kirby Smart and Alabama look against the spread. See last night, the last two sugar Bowls, and Johnny football carve them up

 

[bocabull]

She has a point here, look at how mortal Kirby Smart and Alabama look against the spread. See last night, the last two sugar Bowls, and Johnny football carve them up

And look at how Oregon is completely shut down in title games. Just like OU was all 3 times.

The bottom line is that there are two tiers of college football, championship caliber programs with real talent in the trenches of which there are maybe 10-15 teams, and everybody else who those gimmick Mickey Mouse offenses work against. OU is supposed to be in the championship caliber group, not giving up 600 yards to popcorn state.

 

[WTSooner]

Yep, look at the all the "great" defenses that got gashed yesterday. Bama? TCU? USC? The list goes on and on.

 

[thebigabd]

And look at how Oregon is completely shut down in title games. Just like OU was all 3 times.

The bottom line is that there are two tiers of college football, championship caliber programs with real talent in the trenches of which there are maybe 10-15 teams, and everybody else who those gimmick Mickey Mouse offenses work against. OU is supposed to be in the championship caliber group, not giving up 600 yards to popcorn state.

The point of the offense is to move the chains and score points... The Leach system will do that, and will do it very well as better talent and better people suited to that system arrive.

Not the offenses fault the defense couldn't stop anyone... if OU puts a championship defense on the field, they will be in a position to win championships with this offense.

I don't know that I would call it a Mickey Mouse offense either.... it's a style of offense that flat-out works. But just like any team, the better talent you have the better your scheme will work.

Oklahoma needs 2 years or so to really work in the players required for it, and to get comfortable with it.... Then they need to put a big time defense out there.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

It wasn't as bad as it looked. For starters, we had a true freshman out there defending a really good receiver. He shouldn't have been in the position.

Out strategy is to bend but don't break. Give up lots of yards but not points. We were close.

We should have went in to the half only allowing 10 points.

And we held them to 14 points in the second half.

And our two running backs fumbled when we were about to score to set up the d in bad positions.

If jt can get his **** together I don't think we are too far off from hanging with Baylor and tcu.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AdaSooner]

Lots of good points on this thread that give me hope our defense may not be as bad as I first thought.

My biggest concern was the 600 plus yards our defense gave up, not the points Tulsa scored. I came away from the Tennessee game with a good feeling about this team's progress on that side of the ball. Time will tell if our performance against Tulsa was an anomaly or a sign of things to come against better competition? One thing is certain, they will have to improve when we face Baylor if we expect to win that game.

 

[bocabull]

Lots of good points on this thread that give me hope our defense may not be as bad as I first thought.

My biggest concern was the 600 plus yards our defense gave up, not the points Tulsa scored. I came away from the Tennessee game with a good feeling about this team's progress on that side of the ball. Time will tell if our performance against Tulsa was an anomaly or a sign of things to come against better competition? One thing is certain, they will have to improve when we face Baylor if we expect to win that game.

If there was a game to throw up a stinker it was Tulsa who we could score on at will.

We now have a week off the get serious. Next 2 weeks will tell us what we need to know. WVU and Texas with their new freshman QB and Norvell who knows us well will reveal much more than Tulsa.

 

[stormspencer]

Read this article and you'll see that Berry Tramel gets what I meant when I expressed concerns about playing the likes of Baylor and TCU after watching Tulsa carve up our defense on the ground and in the air.

While it's true the players are responsible for being in the right position to make plays, some of the blame has to fall on the coaching staff, particularly Mike Stoops, when a mid-major program like Tulsa scores 38 points while rolling up 31 first downs and a total of 603 yards of offense. That's a recipe for disaster when we play Baylor, and maybe TCU as well. It's not like he didn't know that TU hired former Baylor OC, Philip Montgomery, last year.

http://newsok.com/tramel-ous-porous...r-test/article/5448223?custom_click=columnist

As I said before, our defense had a solid performance against the Vols. They kept us in the game for the first three quarters, while our offense struggled mightily. OU would not have won that game if not for our defense.

I'm not worried about any game on our schedule, except Baylor and TCU. Our offense can score with any team we'll play during the regular season. The question is, can our defense contain Baylor and TCU's offense? The answer almost has to be, NO, if they play like they did against Tulsa.

I do agree with you to a point Ada....however, after watching the game again and reading about some coverages/schemes, I'm not as discouraged as I once was. This game illustrated to me that we are still looking for a personnel package/scheme that can challenge a Baylor type offense. IMO and without getting too technical, we should rarely have a safety on the field when we play these potent attacks (vertical spread offenses)....meaning every secondary player's strength should be "coverage" and not "run support". Yes, I am saying that we should have our top 5 CBs on the field if necessary and rely on our front 6 to manage the run game. It's sounds a little crazy, but you need "cover guys" to stop these offenses.

And much of the defensive mistakes were correctable and can be attributed to communication as much as scheme. Granted, I don't think anyone in the secondary played well at all, but we were generating absolutely no rush as well the Tulsa QB was getting rid of the ball extremely quickly. Mike Stoops tried to bring pressure, but it was futile because the ball was leaving the QBs hands so quickly.

At some point this season, we need to find a personnel package which places our best cover guys (outside and inside) on the field at the same time. When you do this, you are sacrificing run support, but you placing a higher value/premium on covering receivers. Still, we aren't going to get to that point except through trial and error as the season moves along. Fortunately, the best offenses we are going to face (Tech, TCU, and Baylor) are all on the back half of the schedule.

I understand that our recent history suggests that we aren't going to improve our play against these types of offenses, but everyone needs to take a deep breath. Go back and watch the game and you'll see that it isn't as bad as it appeared in real time. Guys were in positions multiple times to make plays, but lacked the maturity/experience to complete the play (i.e. covering the WR like a blanket, but not turning around). Again, much of this is correctable with time and experience.

 

[stormspencer]

If there was a game to throw up a stinker it was Tulsa who we could score on at will.

We now have a week off the get serious. Next 2 weeks will tell us what we need to know. WVU and Texas with their new freshman QB and Norvell who knows us well will reveal much more than Tulsa.

Yep...but I have no idea how good WVU is. Allegedly, they have a really good secondary, but they have played cupcakes (Ga Southern, Liberty) thus far and play a gawd-awful Maryland team this week. I'm not sure we are going to know anything about them before next Saturday.

As for Texas....I know it's a rivalry game, but I will be disappointed if we don't put up 500 yards and 38 points on them. There were four reasons their defense was really good last year.....and those four reasons (Brown, Hicks, Thompson, and Diggs) are all playing in the NFL this season. They absolutely stink on defense....they lack talent and have an overabundance of youth.....it's keystone cops on that side of the ball for them. I also want to see their QB, who I believe is good, perform against a semi-decent defense. We will get our chance this week when they play the aggies. OSU has a solid defense and won't be the sieve that Cal was last week. We will definitely know more about them....or validate what we already suspect about them come Saturday afternoon.