Oklahoma Sooner vs. Iowa State Cyclones

Good morning, Sooner fans. Warmest of greeting and salutations to you on this fine Saturday. Today our Sooners travel to Ames, Iowa to take on the Cyclones in what will hopefully be a pretty entertaining game.

We last saw our Sooners two weeks ago against Kansas. The situation was bleak at best and dire at worst. The Sooners had to win it and a path forward was difficult to find. Well, the Sooners beat the spread and eked out a 52-42 victory over the Jayhawks. Thankfully, the home faithful did not storm the field, but it did feel like a massive relief mixed in with a little bit of hope for something positive the rest of the way.

The Sooners follow that up with a well-timed bye and now face the surprisingly hapless Cyclones.

CUE GUS JOHNSON VOICE

It's the Battle for the Bottom in Ames!  

OFFENSE

It turns out that competent quarterback play is important and, against the Jayhawks, Dillon Gabriel put on his best performance as a Sooner. The offense looked, dare I say, modern and more often than not had the Jayhawk D grasping for straws and trying shit that you just don't see football teams do like play a prevent defense in the red zone.

The Cyclones will be much better, in spite of their record. The Sooners have to keep Gabriel comfortable. The backfield combo of Eric Gray and Javontae Barnes is becoming pretty lethal and opening things up for Marvin Mims and Drake Stoops. Gray, in particular, has made a leap and the Sooners need to find six ways from Sunday to get him the ball. 

Eric Gray is my OPOG but the offensive line needs to play their best game of the season so far to really give the Sooners their best chance of winning. DG doesn't take many sacks and his TD:INT ratio is fire at 13:1. Good things happen when DG is not getting terrorized. 

DEFENSE

The bye week could not have come at a better time for this unit. They have been getting their asses kicked for the better part of almost two months both on the field and off. They looked better against Kansas and still allowed 42 points. 

Billy Bowman still appears to be out for the Sooners and he might be the piece that makes this unit go just as DG does so for the offense. In his stead, Key Lawrence has been the most competent but is inconsistent.

The other story thus far is the lack of pass rush. Maybe that changes today since quarterback play seems to be a weak point for ISU.

The key, though, is the Sooners selling out to stop the rush. They have to get back to basics against a quarterback that is prone to turning the ball over. There can't be any bailouts on obvious running downs or first downs on "white flag" long down running plays. 

I'm not going to pick a DPOG because they are playing like such shit but I have a feeling that the off week gave some younger guys a chance to get some reps in practice and the staff is really separating wheat from chaff. 

Why not spend the rest of this season working on cohesion amongst guys you see as future pieces? Today is the perfect opportunity to identify the pieces that give you the best chance the rest of the way.

THE SCORE

The Sooners are favored by 1.5 and ESPN gives Iowa State a 65% chance to win. That...doesn't seem good. It's predicated on the idea that the Cyclone D will give the Sooners fits and that the Sooner D can't contain a wet fart and also ISU has been close to beating the Sooners in recent years while coming up just short.

It's mostly about the Sooner D though and I am truly interested to see if this coaching staff can take advantage of the bye week and is able to solve any of the issues that have plagued it ever since the Nebraska game.

Obviously, I have faith they have and, as such, I like the Sooners today in a somewhat surprisingly dominant fashion.

I like the Sooners 34-17

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner

Oklahoma Sooners Vs. Kansas Jayhawks

 Hello Sooner fans and welcome to another gorgeous Saturday for college football. Gird up your loins and prepare yourself mentally for it to be another disastrous day for our Sooners. Our boys are fresh off a historical defeat against the rival Texas Longhorns, are losers of their last three games and are inexplicable favorites against the #19 ranked Kansas Jayhawks, a team that is almost certain to play over its head today in Norman. 

The way I see it, three things need to happen for the Sooners to secure a victory. All are big ifs. 

First, what crowd is on hand for the Sooners needs to be engaged and positive as long as possible. This team does not need the collective palpable anxiety of 90,000 weighing it down.

OFFENSE

Secondly, Dillon Gabriel needs to be set up for some early success. There has to be a scheme that takes advantage of what he does well (run) and what he does not (throw deep downfield). There are endless ways of doing this that do not include Gavin Freeman reverses. 

DEFENSE

Third, the Sooners D needs to feed off the success of the offense. I want to see effort like we had at Nebraska. While these guys have been historically bad, it doesn't help that the offense can't stay on the field.

David Ogbegwu is my DPOG

SCORE

There is a very good chance the crowd is flat, Dillon Gabriel is below average and the sails on the defense lay slack. This would not bode well. 

If the crowd is in it and stays in it after early success maybe the Sooners can string 60 minutes of competent enough football to beat the vaunted Kansas Jayhawks. 

It takes all of my crimson colored glass optimism to say the Sooners can put up 31 and hold the Jayhawks to something less than that. 

Sooners 31, Jayhawks 30

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner

Kansas

 As a more-than-casual/less-than-obsessed fan of the Sooners football team, I'm certainly not privy to the list of things one has to do to be fired as head coach of the football team. I don't know what items are on that list. I don't know how many of said items need to be checked off in order to merit a firing. I'm fairly certain that a physical list of such doesn't even exist. But I feel confident that there is a mental list kept by every booster, every board of directors member, all alumni and anyone who is a fan of the Sooners. And I know, with no uncertainty, that losing to texas 49-0 is high on, if not the top of, that list. When John Blake was the coach, and yes I'm again comparing this team to those teams, and not unfairly I might add, he won exactly two games my freshman year at OU: texas and Oklahoma State. They were most certainly miracles (at least texas) and they most certainly bought him another couple of years as coach. Brent Venables seat got notably toasty last week. Losing is one thing, but getting absolutely embarrassed and destroyed in every facet against texas is something on a different level. This team has gone from cautiously optimistic playoff contender, to get it fixed or your ass is gone in the span of three games. That's no small feat. It's fair to say that we've been spoiled as fans, things haven't been this bad in nearly a quarter of a century. But here we are, and OU football is no longer frustrating. It is flat out bad and hard to watch. I have nothing good to say, my apologies. 

Offense

I will pick Braden "Whachootalkinbout" Willis here. He and Marvin Mims have so far shown they are the only capable members of this offense. The only time the Sooners moved the ball with any real promise last week was when Willis was installed as a gadget-y wildcat QB. Of course with that type of "success", Lebby and company quickly moved away from it and went back to the Davis Beville aerial display. 

Defense

There is nothing good to say here. Somehow the defense, with mastermind Brent Venables, is worse than last year. In fairness, aside from the run game, deep passes, intermediate passes, short passes and screens, they've been pretty good. Danny Stutsman? I guess?

Score

KU is actually decent. In a normal year I would expect the Sooners to get up for the opportunity to put the Jayhawks in their place. This year, even with the KU QB out, I don't see a lot of reason for optimism. OU is somehow -9 in this, that feels like easy money to me. But, I will throw ill-advised blind faith at it and say the Sooners somehow stay above .500 and win it 17-14.

Boomer to the Motherfuckin' Sooner

texas

 Good morning Sooners fans. Coming into the Red River game on the heels of the shittiest of shitshows, our Sooners will try to do their best impression of a football team today. What a strange season it's been. I am aware of the fact that Nebraska sucks, but there is no way they suck enough to make the defense that showed up last week look good. What the hell happened? After Lincoln, for the first time in many years, I actually felt like the defense could win us some games. Then, they got absolutely destroyed by KState and TCU who aren't exactly the 99 Rams. Last week when talking with Mitchy before the game, he offhandedly joked that this wasn't a John Blake team, but honestly I don't remember a Sooners team getting embarrassed that badly since Blake was at the helm. Nothing worked on defense and in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for scenario the dreadful Dylan Gabriel went down and Davis Beville came in to dispel any rumors that he might know how to execute a forward pass. In two short weeks the Sooners went from a top 10 team with playoff aspirations to out of the top 25 and standing around with their dicks in their hands. 

On the other side texas gets back their QB Quinn Ewers who looked like the real deal before going down against alabama. Plus they have probably the best RB in the country with Bijan Robinson. Sprinkle in a dash of completely inept Sooner defense and we have a 3 Michelin Star recipe for an absolute ass beat. But....you never know in this one (speaking of John Blake: James Allen > Ricky Williams anyone?).

Offense

This is the worst OU quarterback situation since Justin Fuente duked it out with Jarrail Jackson in the 90s. Only Patrick Fletcher is not walking through that door. Has anyone checked out the Snow Junior College QB? While entertaining myself with this trip down memory lane aka nightmare OU football era I am simultaneously disgusted with how far the QB situation has fallen. We have been so spoiled for the last two-plus decades. And for the first time since Mitch and I have been doing this exercise in futility known as our "blog" I am struggling to think of who is a good candidate for OPG on offense. I'll dart throw a Marcus Major pick our there. I just can't envision a WR or TE going off with no one to give them the ball.

Defense

What a tire fire this has become. Again. I'll say DaShaun White for no good reason.

Score

I really have no confidence today. Pathetically enough I'm just hoping we don't get blown out again. But, I will sit down and watch at least the beginning with hopes that there is a miracle somewhere up Venables sleeve, maybe if he yells enough they'll play well. Sooners pull off the improbable, 31-30.

Boomer to the Motherfuckin Sooner

Oklahoma Sooners vs. Texas Longhorns

 Sooner fans, this is a bizarre situation. I understand the talent level of the first three teams the Sooners faced may not be the same as the next two but I don't know that I've ever seen a drop-off on defense the way that I've seen from when the Sooners played Nebraska and the following two weeks against Kansas State and TCU. Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt were jerking off on the Sooner defense in Lincoln. Against Kansas State they got manhandled. 

OK fine. We all knew the Wildcats are tough. I hoped the Sooners could not only match that toughness but exceed it. They didn't. They Wildcats put up almost 700 yards in Norman. 

OK fine. Surely against TCU in Fort Worth the Sooners would rebound and look coherent against, at best, a more balanced offense. Nope. The Sooners regressed again. On one play the Sooner D dropped eight on a  third down passing situation and let someone break free over the top. It doesn't matter who it was for the Horned Frogs or who got burned on defense. It was unacceptable. 

It begs the question: Are there bad apples? Bad talent? Poor coaching? All of the above?

I wonder though, if quarterback play doesn't somewhat contribute to the decline of the defense. It shouldn't, let's be clear. But, it has to be frustrating seeing your own quarterbacks sailing passes over open receivers or hanging on to the ball too long and having to go back on the field cleaning up messes.

That is not an exoneration of the defense. Dillon Gabriel has been terrible, though. I imagine if you broke down tape and judged passes that 8 times out of 10 should have been completed, the OU offense looks completely different. And a completely different offense take the pressure off the defense, etc.

Make no mistake, though, there are real problems. There are way too many penalties across the board. There are way too many defensive lapses. And the offense can't stay ahead of the chains.

Now here comes Texas. Perpetually overrated. They can lose any game they play. And yet, it feels as if this season is already lost. It may be. Dillon Gabriel probably isn't going to play. Even if he did, he's clearly not on a level the Sooners are accustomed to. 

What the fuck is going to happen this Saturday?

OFFENSE

Dillon Gabriel is probably out. It sucks, but fine. He's been pretty piss poor. Sooner fans rightly should be concerned that he was named the starter before he attended his first kegger and it was because of what was behind him. Davis Beville filled in after DG was concussed on a vicious hit at TCU and he was not good. He held on to the ball too long. He was 7 of 16 for 50 yards.

OK, so, the Sooners have played three QB's in practice this week not named Dillon Gabriel. Can one of them be solid enough to win the Red River Rivalry?

My OPOG is whoever plays QB, whoever plays the most snaps and whoever gains the confidence of the offense and the defense, if that's even possible.

My guess, and 100% pure guess, is that it will wind up being General Booty. He has playing time under his belt at at least a college level unlike Nick Evers. And he's not Davis Beville or Dilllon Gabriel.

I mean, that's really the best I can hope for.

DEFENSE

I honestly can't recall a faster fall from grace then the drop-off from the Nebraska game to the TCU game.

Now, you face a Longhorn team that has a first class running back. Okay, so the Sooners sell out to stop him. What if they can't? A legit question. This is a team that dropped 8 on third and long and still let someone leak out over the top for an easy score.

What is on  the table that is positive for this Sooners team on defense? They get no pressure on the QB, cause no turnovers and are tackling poorly. It's a mess.

Obviously the Sooners have to stop Bijan Robinson. If he gashes for 6.8 yards the Sooners are fucked.

For traditions sake I will take Danny Stutsman for DPOG but I don't think anyone is worthy.

THE SCORE

I've listened to a lot of arm chair quarterbacks say that this will be blowout one way or the other. I hate to say it but I'm not sure the Sooners have enough on either side of the ball, particularly at QB, to get the job done. 

That said, the Longhorns can lost any game they like. If the Sooners can bottle up Robinson to the tune of 3-5 yards per carry and they can manage to put the Longhorns into predictable situations and they can get lucky with whoever is at quarterback, then maybe they pull off a miracle. 

I don't think it's gonna happen. But, if it does, the Sooners can win 27-24 or something very close.

These are two teams who are wounded, not particularly good, and desperate for something positive. It could be pretty entertaining. But the difference is the Sooners don't have anything remotely close to Caleb Williams under center. That's tough to overcome. 

Sooners 27, Longhorns 24

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner

TCU

 Quicker than expected, we've reached the point in the season where this become a lot less fun. KState, the team OU refuses to beat did their thing again last week and ruined our season. More accurately, we ruined our own season. A few takeaways, the defense looked very vintage OU in making Adrian Martinez look Drew Brees and Tom Brady had a baby with Steve Young. Which is really a feat considering he's got quite the body of work proving that he's excitingly mediocre to sub-par. Second, Dylan Gabriel is not the answer. He's pretty terrible actually. I've been saying all season that his horrible inaccuracy would burn us against a good team. Turns out I was wrong, it burned us against a team that Tulane beat. But, in spite of his shittiness, this one falls on the defense. OU shouldn't lose to anyone when scoring 36 points. 

Offense

I will go with Marvin Mims here. Even though DG will likely leave about 75 yards out there with missed throws, Mims is too good to contain. I think he goes off for 100+ and a score today.

Defense

I'm really down on the D after last week. It was so frustrating. But, I'm still not defeated enough to quit picking someone so I will say Billy Bowman for the simple reason that he is the first guy I thought of.

Score

I saw this as a trap game earlier in the year as TCU always plays us tough, it's on the road and I presumed we'd be coming in undefeated and getting amped for texas. Sadly, that is inaccurate but I'm still nervous for different reason. Notably, that we don't look very good. Still I will ride with OU in this one in what I assume will be another track meet as I have doubts we can stop anyone halfway competent. Sooners win 38-33.

Boomer to the Motherfuckin' Sooner