Well, football sucks. Bring on BBall season!

[SoonerBounce13]

Well, it's definitely one of them. We don't generate a pass rush, get pushed back on running plays, and simply don't force any turnovers. There is no one on the entire defense who keeps opposing offensive coordinators up at night. That's really unfortunate. Even when we were bad in the 1990s, we had "impact" defensive players (not recruited by Switzer) like Cedric Jones, Kelly Gregg, Darnell Walker, Travian Smith and Aubrey Beavers. Any one of those guys would easily be the best defensive player at their position on this year's team.

I thought our dline looked really good against houston. looked good enough vs ohio state. It's hard to get pressure on a qb when mike is only sending 3 or 4

 

[SoonerBounce13]

Ohio State clearly had better athletes. Players make coaches look great.

I agree....we weren't going to beat tOSU no matter what schemes we ran Saturday.....unless they made alot of mistakes/turnovers.

i don't believe the talent is as far off as you guys say it is

 

[SoonerBounce13]

It was very humbling early on to notice that even when we bottled up a play and covered it well the Buckeyes would still come away with a couple of yards. The trip to Columbus.....woof.

We are designed and built to win the Big 12 Conference. The problem is the Big 12 Conference is a gimmick league, offensively. We're not terrible. I think you could say we're one of the top 10 or 15 teams in America, but we tend to place a lot of square pegs in round holes. Our offense stems from stretching the field laterally, but our best players (Perine, Mixon, Andrews) stretch it vertically.

imagine this collection of personnel in the early days of the big 12 and I think they would have been fun to watch and a great team. I don't think there would be a weak link on offense

I'm sure they'll figure something out. Who is going to win the conference? With the league this shoddy, does that even matter?

in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter....but it is all we have left so I'll pretend it matters

 

[Sooner04]

i don't believe the talent is as far off as you guys say it is

I think the gap between the top 5 and us is pretty significant. Leading Clemson at the half in the Orange Bowl felt like a small miracle. It was a "trust your eyes" moment. They just looked the part.

So did Ohio State.

 

[chuckb]

The OP didn't say he was giving up on the football team. He was expressing his disappointment in the season so far. I'm right there with him. Anyone who pretends to be satisfied with OU's performance through two of the first three games is only fooling themselves. I'm not the least bit happy about, and I'm not too proud to admit it!

When was the last time an OU football team gave up 45 points on their own field? That's like allowing a stranger to come onto your front lawn and kick your dog, after insulting your wife and slapping your teenage daughter.

I would be lying if I said losing to Houston and then to Ohio State at home when we were never in either game in the second half didn't have me plenty upset! Most OU football fans, including me, are accustomed to expecting more.

Does that mean I am giving up on the season? Of course not. I'll be glued to the tube for every game until the final horn sounds on the season. I simply have to resign myself to the fact that we're not playing for a national championship anymore. Yes, we're still playing for a conference title and an invite to a bowl game. But, that's a hard pill for me to swallow three games into the season!

I would agree with this. And being frustrated with the team, even to the point where one doesn't watch them because they're playing badly, doesn't mean that person's not a fan. I'm sure they'll still pull for the team and hope. That's exactly what can are watching the team frustrating.

 

[chuckb]

You're all correct -- somehow the Clemson game eluded my thinking.

My apologies.

Lucky you. I wish the Clemson game would elude my thinking, just like I wish the Nova game would elude my thinking.

 

[Laxtothemax12]

It's funny how so many of you are quick to oust me as a fairweather fan because I said since the football team failed huge expectations, many people should be excited for an interesting rebuild from last years final 4 basketball team. I'll still watch every Sooner game with passion, but this team brought back a great nucleus and to go 1-2 to start the season is probably the worst possible scenario. But I forgot, some of y'all pump sunshine so far up your ___ we could be 0-3 after a loss to ULM and you would find something wrong with this post.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

I think the gap between the top 5 and us is pretty significant. Leading Clemson at the half in the Orange Bowl felt like a small miracle. It was a "trust your eyes" moment. They just looked the part.

So did Ohio State.

I sat 6 rows up from the field on Saturday and didn't notice a sizable difference in how the teams looked....besides confidence

 

[usedtobe1]

The OP didn't say he was giving up on the football team. He was expressing his disappointment in the season so far. I'm right there with him. Anyone who pretends to be satisfied with OU's performance through two of the first three games is only fooling themselves. I'm not the least bit happy about, and I'm not too proud to admit it!

When was the last time an OU football team gave up 45 points on their own field? That's like allowing a stranger to come onto your front lawn and kick your dog, after insulting your wife and slapping your teenage daughter.

I would be lying if I said losing to Houston and then to Ohio State at home when we were never in either game in the second half didn't have me plenty upset! Most OU football fans, including me, are accustomed to expecting more.

Does that mean I am giving up on the season? Of course not. I'll be glued to the tube for every game until the final horn sounds on the season. I simply have to resign myself to the fact that we're not playing for a national championship anymore. Yes, we're still playing for a conference title and an invite to a bowl game. But, that's a hard pill for me to swallow three games into the season!

I'm in the same corner as Ada. I'm a die-hard Sooner fan and I'll watch every game with enthusiasm no matter what their record is........ really in any sport although football and basketball are by far my favorites.

I graduated from OU in '69 so I've watched a lot of games. I even had a freshman roommate who was on the football team that allowed me to get to know the players during my tenure.

I've rooted against OU one time in my life ....... It was John Blake's last game against Texas Tech. Ironically OU won the game and I was afraid it saved his job for another year, but he was fired anyway in a very narrow vote by the Board of Regents.

I'll never root against them again, but I have learned to put the losses in perspective. I promise the basketball team will go thru some rough patches, too, but I'm looking forward to watch the new group grow as a team.

 

[KBaden145]

I think the gap between the top 5 and us is pretty significant. Leading Clemson at the half in the Orange Bowl felt like a small miracle. It was a "trust your eyes" moment. They just looked the part.



So did Ohio State.

I'm coming around to this way of thinking. I like what we're doing schematically and, with an uptick in recruiting, I feel pretty good about the future.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[OUAllDay28]

Recruiting is still not nearly good enough. Go through the Rivals 250 or whatever and compare us to Bama, tOSU, Clemson, Florida State, LSU.

Our highest rated player is #65. Alabama has 4 players rated higher than our top recruit. tOSU has 7! Florida State has 4. Even Stanford has 2.

The Big 12 is dead weight

 

[sperry]

I sat 6 rows up from the field on Saturday and didn't notice a sizable difference in how the teams looked....besides confidence

Ohio State has a ton of guys on their roster that will play in the NFL one day. OU doesn't. That gap is even more massive when you consider guys who will be selected in the first couple rounds of the draft.

 

[Mr.B!!!]

I quit following recruiting years ago but from what it sounds like we had a few down years and maybe don't have the depth or star power that other elite programs do right now. I guess that is getting corrected this year, but personally I think the bigger problem is the conference. Love it for basketball but otherwise it's weak. I think getting into the Big 10 or SEC with KU or UT to make 16 teams would be cool, but we need to fend for ourselves and no more looking out for anyone else.

 

[NickZepp]

None of the recruiting classes we've had recently are near as bad as early to mid 2000s recruiting. But recruiting rankings are a stupid way of evaluating recruiting. Fact is players on the field are coached so poorly and consistently out of position it's not about recruiting. Teams with far less talent don't look at lazy as OU looks every week.

 

[WaymanFan]

None of the recruiting classes we've had recently are near as bad as early to mid 2000s recruiting.

Do you mean the late 2000s and early 2010s? Other than 2003, which basically went bust, our recruiting from 2000 - 2006 was the reason we played for titles in 2003, 2004 and 2008. In 2010 when we had four 1st round draft picks, they were all from the 2006 class. That is what we need to get back to.

I realize the 1999 class can be proof you don't need a highly-rated class to succeed, but those are generally called "flukes" and you can't count on classes like that for sustained success. That borderline top-50 class produced our starting QB for the next 6 years (doubt that has happened in the history of college football).

I'm just not sure what happened on the recruiting trail after 2006.

 

[NickZepp]

Do you mean the late 2000s and early 2010s? Other than 2003, which basically went bust, our recruiting from 2000 - 2006 was the reason we played for titles in 2003, 2004 and 2008. In 2010 when we had four 1st round draft picks, they were all from the 2006 class. That is what we need to get back to.

I realize the 1999 class can be proof you don't need a highly-rated class to succeed, but those are generally called "flukes" and you can't count on classes like that for sustained success. That borderline top-50 class produced our starting QB for the next 6 years (doubt that has happened in the history of college football).

I'm just not sure what happened on the recruiting trail after 2006.

There was like 3 or 4 classes from 2003ish till Bradford's(2006?) that basically had almost nothing outside of Adrian Peterson. I remember researching it around 2007 or so and about 2/3s of those classes had players not even play or play less than a season or something ridiculous like that.

 

[WaymanFan]

There was like 3 or 4 classes from 2003ish till Bradford's(2006?) that basically had almost nothing outside of Adrian Peterson. I remember researching it around 2007 or so and about 2/3s of those classes had players not even play or play less than a season or something ridiculous like that.

No big deal, but 2003 was the only bust in terms of recruiting. 2004 wasn't as strong as we thought because of Rhett Bomar and Chris Patterson, but it still featured Adrian Peterson. The 2005 class was really good and the 2006 class was one of the best in the history of the school. Things fell off a cliff starting in 2007.

 

[Larry72]

Recruiting and player development has declined over several years. Recruiting the top players requires continuous communication from several coaches / support staff.

 

[NickZepp]

No big deal, but 2003 was the only bust in terms of recruiting. 2004 wasn't as strong as we thought because of Rhett Bomar and Chris Patterson, but it still featured Adrian Peterson. The 2005 class was really good and the 2006 class was one of the best in the history of the school. Things fell off a cliff starting in 2007.

Adrian Peterson's class only had about 15 players and about 7 really made an impact. Rest were career backups or never played. 05 was better than I remembered. Malcolm Kelly, Iglasias, Ryan Reynolds(although career derailed by injuries) But really it's only a decent class. I agree Bradford's class maybe one of Stoops top classes. Murray, Gresham, McCoy, Trent Williams, also had Dominique Franks, Jeremy Beal, Chris Brown. Probably not as good as his first couple recruiting classes though.

 

[WaymanFan]

Adrian Peterson's class only had about 15 players and about 7 really made an impact. Rest were career backups or never played. 05 was better than I remembered. Malcolm Kelly, Iglasias, Ryan Reynolds(although career derailed by injuries) But really it's only a decent class. I agree Bradford's class maybe one of Stoops top classes. Murray, Gresham, McCoy, Trent Williams, also had Dominique Franks, Jeremy Beal, Chris Brown. Probably not as good as his first couple recruiting classes though.

You're not getting the point. Those were far better recruiting classes than what we've had since 2007. And while those first two classes were very good, the 2006 class had more high-end talent than perhaps any OU class ever and easily the best all-time recruiting class when you factor NFL Draft picks and how well they've done. 4 players from that class have played in multiple Pro Bowls (T Williams, G McCoy, J Gresham and D Murray), 4 were 1st round picks (Williams, McCoy, Gresham and Bradford)...Murray was a 3rd round pick, All-American Quentin Carter was a 4th round pick, Dominique Franks was a 5th round pick, Jonathan Nelson was a 7th round pick, and Moises Madu was good enough to play a few years in the NFL. I would absolutely kill for another class like that in my lifetime.