Sort of a Week 2 Recap

I'm going to give my two cents on the Florida A&M game as well. Keep in mind the fact that I saw not snap one of the contest, as it was on PPV and unavailable here.
Side note: if one is selling a product in today's age of information and data overload, wouldn't you think you'd try to make that product available to as wide of an audience as possible. As opposed to selling it exclusively in the one place where it is least marketable as the vast majority of those who would normally want to purchase it aren't need of it as they are going to see the game in person. That last rant was a shining example of the crisp, concise writing style I pride myself on.

However, from what I read it sounded like a pretty solid assbeat as I had expected/hoped for. From all accounts Damien Williams was an animal again, he certainly had the numbers to back it up. Let's talk quickly about the DD v Damien thing. Mitch, I know you love the DD. For whatever reason when I hear it I picture a stereotypical secretary circa 1983:

Boss-type: DeeDee? Can you bring me my dictaphone? Also, Xerox 3 copies of the Thompson file, and when you're finished have the Town Car gassed up and waxed.

Anyway, it seems that the folks at the Oklahoman keep calling him Damien (which might be enough reason for me to stop). I don't know what to do. I'm sticking with Damien for now while reserving the right to change my mind at any moment.

One disturbing trend I did see is that, predictably, Lonnie completed about 97.4% of his passes to Stills. This is his last year, he's been the starter for 4 years now. When can he figure out the fucking progression? In my lifetime I cannot remember a college QB so lauded who is so obviously destined to fail at the next level. Unbelievable.

Now I'd like to speak to the point of "worst pass ever". I do hate Lonnie, and certainly no one does it on a bigger stage, but I make a strong claim to title holder of worst pass ever. It happened about 6 years ago. My wife and I were on vacation with Mitch and his best gal down in Mexico. Now, we were at one of those all-inclusive beach resorts where the beer flowed like wine and the women instinctively flocked like the salmon of Capistrano. I had the foresight to bring a football along. As we had little to do to while the hours away apart from playing catch on the beach (you could do worse), we threw roughly 1,000,000 passes over the course of the week. As you might expect, we were in pretty good practice. So one afternoon late in the week we're at the pool when they announce a football tossing contest. Basically you stood on this sort of island in the middle of the pool and tried to toss a football threw a hula hoop about 10-15 yards away. Several contestants made their tosses, some respectable some not so much. When my turn came I uncorked my claim to "worst pass ever". It had the all of the tight spiral of a kick off, and was about 5 yards short and 10 yards wide right. I felt my face turn red and was soothed by the sounds of Mitch cackling uncontrollably at my hideously errant throw. I'm not sure how well that re-tells, but it's certain to get a laugh from my co-author at any mention (Co-Author's Note: He's right. I laugh every time I think of it. It was truly the worst). So with all due respect, I'll argue that it was the "worst pass ever".

Well, with that digression out of the way, I'm about done with this. Tony going down hurt, no doubt, I'm certainly glad we have the extra week for him to heal up. The D seemed solid apart from the mistake by the backup that Keith mentioned. All in all it was the drubbing we needed to soothe our worried minds after the UTEP debacle.

No games this week, but K-State the following weekend should provide a challenging opening to conference play.

Great photo essay Mitch, really captured the "mood" of game day in Norman. I, for one, am looking forward to more of that down the road.

OU - Florida A&M Recap - TCB

Not a lot to say about this one. The Sooners needed to get crisp in some areas and they needed to build some confidence heading into the Big 12 opener vs. Kansas State. They needed to stay healthy. For the most part they did all three.

Tony MF Jefferson "went out with an ankle" but he'll be good to go on the 22nd. Hopefully.

As far as being crisp it was an exhibition for the offense. The Sooners piled up nearly 700 yards of offense, 350 of which came on the ground. DD Williams was a beast again. He has that coveted breakaway speed. I am not making a comparison here but OU hasn't had a threat like this since DeMarco.

Quick Story: I'll argue with anyone who will listen that as time goes on DeMarco will go down as the most underrated running back in Sooner history. I nearly mentioned OU hasn't had a threat like DD since AD. See what I mean?

Landry did take his obligatory stab at "World's Worst Pass" in the 1st quarter when he hit a Florida A&M DB right in the chest. The next drive ended with a fumble but then the Sooners reeled off 8 straight touchdowns.

Justin Brown is also proving to be more than capable returning punts. A very nice development indeed.

Defensively there was one major breakdown by Tony's replacement, Jesse Paulsen (From here on he shall be called, "His Name Was Jesse Paulsen" - Shoutout to Nick Pointer for coming up with it).

Stats, stats, yada yada. The day was more about getting back into the swing of tailgating, seeing old friends and enjoying absolutely perfect weather (which rarely happens to start the season).  I took full advantage and the late start gave me plenty of time to, "pull the cork".

My goal for the day was to snap some pics. I pride myself on making terrible photo essays. I feel like I succeeded.

Self Contained

Clearly ready to accept more tailgaters, particularly lady-folk

The Schooner grill, Amurrican flag, Firefighters, guitars, beer, multiple coolers.
The proprietor of this tailgate has an eye patch.
You could not cram more America or Sooner Nation in a tailgate.

Amurrica

Ribs

The official vehicle of our tailgate

There's only one
Pictured: Crimson-colored glasses wearing Father-in-law

Obligatory art shot

At left: Sooner Steamroller Co-Author
At right: A Steamroller fan asking to pose for a picture
Note: I always have time for fans, don't be shy

Action photo

The student section has packed it in.

Florida A and M

Here we go Sooner fans, another game to start our home football season. After a lackluster debut against a pretty bad team, the Sooners look to right the ship and dominate a presumably bad Florida A and M team. It may be a good sign that the Oklahoman's biggest piece on these guys centered around their marching band, but then they employ Berry "I dress like an 80's talk show guest" Trammel, so maybe that was the "angle" he thought would sell some newspapers. Whatever it is they aren't that great to begin with and in following the OU lead, managed to get several of their players suspended for the game.

Like the UTEP game, I've done very little to learn of Florida A and M. I have no idea what type of offense they run, what type of defense they run, or what players are key to their success. Again like the UTEP game, it really shouldn't matter. We should have our way with them. However, if this game is tied in the 4th quarter again, I may go "chimp" and throw my own poo at the TV. Oh wait, never mind this won't be broadcast here in the NYC. My TV is safe...for now.

The Sooners got some good news this week when the return of Casey Walker was announced. My understanding is that he won't play today but is hopeful for the K-State game in two weeks. I'm just glad he's practicing again. It's likely we'll be able to handle today without him, but we sorely need his depth on the D-line if we hope to do anything worthwhile in conference play. Also, barring a last minute change we should see the debut of Geneo Grissom today as well since his suspension was of the one-game variety. Hopefully that makes a difference in what was a subpar OU passing game last week.

Offense

I have to admit, as I alluded to briefly earlier this week, I really liked that Kenny Fuckin Shitbag Stills stepped up last week. I think he's more comfortable in the slot and the position suits him well. He was clearly Lonnie's "go-to" guy. In fact Lonnie is already in danger of developing the same tunnel vision with Stills that he had with Broyles. I don't care much for this plan of attack, but if we move the ball like we have in the past I won't complain. Now that I've said all of that I'm picking Dom Whaley again. He looked good last week I thought, but with little to work with in terms of places to run so the numbers were down. I think the line actually opens some holes for him today and he responds with 100+ and a touch.

Defense

Here I'm not sure what to do. I don't know enough about what they do to make a very good pick I don't think, so I'm just going to go with the old gut. I think David King has a really nice day today. I know he's more end than DT but I still see him being a force. I think he disrupts their offensive front all afternoon and maybe even tallies a sack. Let's be honest, he's the best guy we've got up front and I think he takes it personally that they got ran over last week.

Score

Last week I made the mistake of getting caught up in all of the hype and excitement of a new season and grossly over-estimated the score. I don't think anyone thought it would be close but I also don't think anyone would necessarily guess a shutout. Last season whenever we would wet fart on ourselves in a game, we would come back the next week and look like world-beaters. I certainly hope this doesn't become a pattern again this season, but I think for today that the motivation of last week plus the fact that it's our first home game puts Florida A and M in for a world of shit. I think Mikey has the D ready as I'm sure his jaws are woefully sore from chewing ass all week. I think the Sooners get it going a little and hammer them 41-7.

I certainly hope I'm right, because laying another turd will shape this up to be an awfully long season.

Boomer to the Motherfuckin' Sooner

OU vs Florida A&M Preview

Florida A&M is getting a check made out to them for $650,000.00 in exchange for satisfying the blood-thirst of the Sooner faithful (or for filling a slot on the schedule). Everyone knows this. But in their locker room you can bet their coach is giving his best Any Given Sunday speech and his team will be fired up to play. The Sooners can sleepwalk their way to victory but can they match or exceed Florida A&M's enthusiasm?

Two factors should inspire the Sooners to get jacked and deliver the beat-down all God and Man (including everyone on the Florida A&M sidelines) expect.

First, it's the home opener (oh, you already knew that?). If running out of the tunnel for the first time in 10 months doesn't get these guys ready to knock someone's dick in the dirt I don't know what will. I want to see some pep, attitude, vim, vigor, swagger, hustle, umpto etc. Excellent teams bring it no matter who they play.

Sooner fans better bring it also. Again, it's the home opener. There are 6 home games a year. Everyone will have all day to tailgate and the weather will be perfect. I hope my gut is wrong about the student section being half empty at kickoff.

Second, last week proved hype and headlines don't make tackles or score touchdowns.There are many phases of the game the Sooners can "execute" better as Bobby would say. There is zero excuse for not doing so on Saturday. This should be a glorified practice except everyone can play through the whistle. Everyone should have ample opportunity to earn their accolades. Anyone who doesn't needs to take a hard look at themselves (The eye of Sauron is focused on the O-Line).

OFFENSE

I'd like to see Josh Heupel get Landry into the "flow" of the game by letting him fire some passes that require less finesse than a swing pass. Anyone who has ever thrown a ball knows you make it harder on yourself when you try to guide it. Let Lonnie stretch his wing out a bit, step into a throw and let the receivers run to it. Worst case it's 3rd and long like usual. Best case you pick yards up in chunks. Of course this depends heavily on the O-Lines interest/ability in not pulling this, "Ole' bullshit!" on defenders.

I'd also like to see more Roy Finch than Belldozer. I apologize in advance for beating this dying horse but until I see Finch perform terribly I'm going to continue to do it. There's something more than poor pass blocking keeping him off the field and it sucks for everyone.

As for the Belldozer, the Sooners simply should never find themselves in need of his services in this one. Let's work on other things in the red zone. You know, in case it could be useful later. Let's see if Landry can pick up a 3rd and 2 on his own. Again, you know, just in case. The Belldozer Package is the only thing the offense does reliably well the last 8ish games. There is room to improve execution elsewhere.

For my Offensive Player of the Game I'm going with the flavor of the day, DD Williams. I'd like to go on record and say how much I like everything about the name DD. But I also want to see more of this scholars game. In the parlance of today's youth, I'm "intrigued" by his skillset.

DEFENSE

Florida A&M will be without the services of their best Wide Receiver. I don't know what best means exactly and it doesn't matter anyhow. Demontre or Aaron Colvin would have shut him down. So let's spend some time shoring up the middle of the football field.

I'm going with David King as my Defensive POG. This should be a nice opportunity for him to settle into his 3-Technique and unleash holy hell.

The Score

I'm not sure I want to live in an America where the Sooners don't score 63 in this one. I'm more pessimistic about this team than any other of the Bob Stoops era but there is no other reasonable expectation.

OU 63 Florida A&M 0

Crack them PBR Tallboys and Boomer to the Motherfuckin Sooner