OU - UTEP Hangover

I've had a few days to marinate and make snap judgments on the Sooners ho-hum 24-7 victory over UTEP.

From the "Polishing a Turd" Department I offer the following. First, 1-0 is better than 0-1. Do not lose sight of the fact that the Sooners are still in the title hunt! Second, as FIL (father-in-law) pointed out, the Sooners learned a lot more about themselves than, say, OSU did in their mockery of a game.

Now back to reality. This game was 10-7 going into the 4th quarter because the offense just looked putrid.

There still hasn't been a time since Ryan Broyles went down where the Sooner offense has had anything resembling rhythm. On this night it would be easy to blame the O-Line, Josh Heupel, dropped passes or Landry (in that order). If the first two do not drastically improve it's going to be a very long and depressing season.

There's no real sugar-coating the lack of depth at O-Line so Josh Heupel has to figure out a way to work around it. The answer in El Paso was a steady, nauseating dose of screens and swing passes. This is done under the guise of trying to get players into the flow of the game but this does not play to Landry's strengths. He does not throw this pass particularly well. What Josh did try that worked was the hurry up offense. It was really effective the three plays it was used.  Fingers crossed that this number goes up by the week. I will not hold my breath.

Now, Landry looked quicker than ever moving around in the pocket. He must have done a lot of cone drills with the QB guru out in California. He also made one hell of a throw to Kenny Fucking Shitbag for the first touchdown (backhanded compliment alert) albeit on a desperate 3rd and long cross-field heave. But it was a beautiful pass. Other than that I almost spewed beer out of my nose when the announcers said Landry was in the Heisman discussion.

Dropped passes are going to correct themselves. This will not be a lingering issue.

In other news, I'm pretty excited about the DD Williams era. It's unfortunate it comes at the expense of  Roy Finch's playing time but he looks to be the real deal. Dom Whaley looked healthy but he did not play particularly well. Trey Millard gobbled up yards as he is wont to do. The Belldozer's role has expanded from the goal line to 3rd and short. It'll be swell if he can prove he can throw the ball in this situation as that could be lethal. Last year his passing was poisonous.

Defensively it was mildly disconcerting to see so many missed tackles at the point of attack. Just as on offense, the line deserves much of the blame. There seemed to be very little push. UTEP got to Landry better than the Sooners got to the UTEP QB's. This is an indictment of both OU lines.

The D got off to a rough start but got settled down. Giving up less than 100 passing yards to anyone is pretty legit. Giving up 200+ rushing yards is not. No points allowed is nice although the UTEP special teams unit gave the game away. Individually, I thought Chuka Ndulue looked great. Tony MF Jefferson played as everyone expects. David King seemed to get his name called a lot as well. Tom Wort and Corey Nelson had a pretty quiet 11 tackles between them. I was surprised to see the ball thrown at Demontre Hurst as much as it was and I hope this speaks to Aaron Colvin's cover corner ability. I'll be interested to see how the D-Line looks when Casey Walker and Stacy McGee get back into the lineup.

Overall, everything fell short of expectations. I will do my best not to worry until the K-State game on September 22nd. The Florida A&M home opener and a bye week (so two bye weeks?) should provide all the time needed to get into game shape. Then, we'll see what we have.

OU vs. Baylor

It's been a hell of a couple weeks. Since we last wrote in this space the following events occurred in college football: The Penn State Child Rape scandal, Mizzou's Gary Pinkel got a DWI, a Syracuse basketball coach got accused of being a pederast and a plane crash killed OSU women's basketball coach Kurt Budke.

"WTF"

On the football field, the Sooners lost their Offensive wunderkind, Ryan Broyles. Undefeated Stanford got smoked by Oregon. The Cowboys went ahead and looked like ass against Iowa State and got beat. In so doing, Brandon Weeden bequeathed his Heisman hopes (not too sad about it but I wish OU could have done this for him) and the Cowboys threw a serious wrench in OU's title game chances.

We are in the next to final act of the college football season. Act 1 was leading ourselves to believe there were so many good teams we might see 4 go undefeated and all the BCS speculation that goes along with it. Act 2 had some of those unbeatables losing and people believing that the shakeout was complete. There was anticipation in knowing that the remaining contenders would simply play out the string before meeting to decide it all. We're now in Act 3 which is the most fun. All the experts look like assholes because teams keep losing. It's the "Oh shit what's gonna happen" portion of our season where everyone has to win and everyone needs everyone else to lose and then we'll wait and see what the judges deem the best matchup. All of a sudden we've gone from possibly having 4 undefeated's to determining who's the best 1 loss team. It happens every year.

That's college football.

And now our 1 loss Sooners find themselves in Waco, Texas to face those wacky Baptists of Baylor. Prior to the season I was fairly nervous about this one. Last year I felt the Sooners really dodged a bullet when they played a Robert Griffin III-free Bears team. RGIII is a badass. His numbers this year are PlayStation esque.  Through his first 6 games he had some ludicrous stat like more TD's than incompletions. Unheard of.

He's come down to earth since. The Bears have gone on to lose 3 but  RGIII is still on many Heisman watch lists. He is, without a doubt, the heart and soul of the Bears. The Baylor offense is prodigious and the Sooners will have their hands full.

On the other hand (or, OTOH in text speak) the Sooners offense find themselves in the unenviable position of having to redefine themselves mid-season. Gone is the safety blanket of Broyles and the ho-hum reliability of his 14 catch, 170 yard performances. This loss is huge and cannot be understated. Lonnie Jones's world just got shaken and that's bad. Me no rikey nervous Lonnie. Kenny Fuckin Shitbag Stills is a Number 1 receiver on most any other team but Sooner fans are fooling themselves if they think the loss of Broyles will be completely made up for.

There is good news. It looks like the Baylor defense is pretty shitty so praise Jehovah the Sooners have what appears to be a fine opportunity to work out the kinks of this newish offense before Bedlam.

OFFENSE

Obviously the key is how does Lonnie play without his bosom chum and safety blanket? Which Wide Receiver(s) step up? To what degree does the offense change?

I think Lonnie will be fine the next two weeks. Kenny Fuckin Shitbag is a badass as we all know. Jaz Hands Reynolds has come on "in a great way" this year. It looks like DeJuan Miller will get the first crack at being the new 3rd wheel. If DeJuan doesn't work out there's always Trey Franks and Kameel Jackson.

My head tells me to pick a RB because I think the Sooners will come to rely on the ground game a bit more. But my head doesn't know what the hell it's talking about. The pick here is Kenny Fuckin Shitbag. He's clutch and has the swagger of a number 1 guy. Now there's no deferring to one of the all-time Sooner greats. The moment is his, the time is now.

The real wise pick might be the Belldozer. Dude brah is a force of nature.

DEFENSE

It's pretty simple. Stop Robert Griffin III. The hard part is stopping Robert Griffin III. It will take a total team effort.

Since I really have nothing else to add (This article is free. You get what you pay for) I'm going all heart here. I'm taking a page out of Navin's playbook and picking Big Frank Alexander. Blood flows to my groin region when Big Frank wreaks havoc on the football field. And he's wreaked a lot of havoc this football season. But I haven't picked him too much. So here it is.

THE SCORE

In my perfect scenario (read: Crimson Colored Glasses) I see the Sooners offense as a wounded and cornered animal. They lost their best running back. Now they've lost their best player. What's left is a group that must throw the kitchen sink at the opposing defense to be successful. Implementing the Bulldozer is evidence of this mentality. Now it's taken a step forward. So, it's conceivable we could see a pretty dynamic offense with no page of the playback left un-turned. That's my hope. In reality I think the Sooners look good these next two weeks in a false confident sort of way. By that I mean their opponents just aren't up to snuff. The offense looks like it hasn't missed a beat but they won't have really been tested. Who cares though. It's all about winning football games right now.

Defensively all I care about it making RGIII look human. Do that and we hold them under 30 points and we win.

OU 35, Baylor 17

Boomer to the motherfuckin Sooner