Saturday, November 1, 2014

Sooners vs. Iowa State

The Sooners had an extra week to stew on the juices of the devastating K-State loss. They not only wasted the best called game of the season by Jabba the Heupel (that final goal line opportunity excepted) and the best game by far for Trevor Knight, our boys also completely shit on any and all chance to get in the four team playoff.

Having now come to this realization will the Sooners respond by whipping the shit out of the below average Cyclones? Or will they sulk around with their bottom lips stuck out feeling sorry for themselves. It had damn sure better be the former.

OFFENSE

As mentioned, the Sooners are coming off their most "dynamic" performance of the season. They racked up 500 yards, Trevor Knight hit about 80% of his passes and, at times, they were able to move quickly and easily down the field.

This group is still deeply flawed.

For instance, the no huddle does more harm than good when you have no clue what you are running when you get to the line of scrimmage. The only thing that meets the definition of  hurry up is the last 6 seconds of the play clock. Nobody outside of Sterling Sheperd and Blake Bell seem capable of catching a forward pass on the reg.

Still, they should be able to overcome these flaws against Iowa State. I look for Trevor Knight to have another good game. I think the staff feels comfortable again in cutting him loose a little. Cody Thomas showed he can step in and command the offense if need be. And, lest we forget, no title shot this year means you can throw caution to the wind with Knight's health. The real exciting news for me is the presumed return of Keith Ford.

I'm going to throw a little audible here with my OPOG prediction and go Blake Bell. If the Sooners needed to learn anything from K-State it's that you have to score TD's in the red zone. Hopefully they spent the last two weeks figuring out how to do that without handing the ball off and running straight up the middle. That's why I'm taking Bell. I want to see that play action bootleg action with Bell running to the boundary. It works in the NFL about 95% of the time and it, gasp, plays to the strength of your players.

DEFENSE

Lost in the unbelievable Honeycut pant-shitting was the fact that had he made his chip shot field goal the Wildcats still would have had four minutes to try to score and win. And if you need evidence to believe they would have done it just look at how they spent their time killing the clock stomping on the collective dicks of Sooner Nation. They ran seven plays, went 22 yards and killed the whole fricking clock.

They toyed with the defense. It was a cat playing with a yarn ball. Oh the 'Cats need 6 yards on 3rd? They get seven and make it look easy. The Sooners are playing the option read? OK. How about faking that then stepping back into a drop back pass and hitting someone wide open down the middle for 60?

And it was like that all day. This defense has serious problems. Notably, they don't seem to have much idea what's coming at them and their best option, blitzing, is backfiring so badly they are now apparently afraid to try it. However, they are not afraid at all to burn a timeout. Two on the same play if need be. If it's the first drive of the third quarter, so be it. That's the cost of doing business.

Yikes. The Sooners need to get something resembling MOJO back today. Again, I'll pick someone off the standard play sheet. I'm going Jordan Evans here. He occasionally shows flashes. Maybe he forces and/or scoops a fumble and takes it to the house.

SCORE

Well, in spite of my doom and gloom I think the Sooners do come out and make a statement today and start mopping up their soilings from two weeks ago. I think they kick the shit out of the Cyclones and win this one going away, 42-14.

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner.