Another highly ranked Sooner team stumbles early. Where have I seen that before?
This has been an unsettling pattern the last 6 or 7 years. Ranked highly in the pre-season and inevitably lose to one or several teams who where double digit underdogs.
I wish we could start every year unranked. That’s when we have really good seasons for some reason. Like we have something to prove.
The issues going into this season that I worried about most reared their ugly heads in the loss to Houston. Offensive Line play and the lack of talent and/or execution at wide receiver. The running game never got on track as the O-line never got enough consistent push to let Mixon and Perine roam free. I know it didn’t help that Perine got hurt in the first half, but the run game just wasn’t there. And until desperation time, outside of Westbrook, only one other pass was caught by a wide receiver, and he fumbled the ball away.
This has been an unsettling pattern the last 6 or 7 years. Ranked highly in the pre-season and inevitably lose to one or several teams who where double digit underdogs.
This has been an unsettling pattern the last 6 or 7 years. Ranked highly in the pre-season and inevitably lose to one or several teams who where double digit underdogs.
Mayfield had plenty of time to throw on several plays, there was just nobody open. Either that or Mayfield doesn’t trust his receivers yet.
And Houston was a team that had to replace almost its’ whole defensive backfield.
Lincoln Riley called a bad game as well. Although, maybe he was hamstrung because he knew how limited he was with the personnel.
But you would have thought maybe he would have bootlegged Baker out more. To me, Baker is at his best out of the pocket. And Riley gave up on the run way too soon. Maybe the injury to Perine spooked him.
The defense, on the other hand, did just about what I expected. They dared Houston to beat us passing and unfortunately they did. Still, defense gave up just 26 points against a very dynamic QB and offense.
A special teams total melt down gave up another 7. The Houston offense had the ball 10 more minutes than the Sooner offense. Defense can’t be expected to hold up unless the offense does its job.
This loss was on the offense. Just my opinion. Moving on maybe we will play better out of the top five spotlight. We usually do.
The 2016 home opener is this Saturday night against Louisiana-Monroe. Not much to say about this game. Honestly it should be an easy win.
If the coaches didn’t have the players’ attention before the Houston game, they should have it now. This should be the perfect game for the team to hopefully start to work out the problems that we now know they have.
And they better. Because after ULM, there are no more gimmies. The Buckeyes loom large on the horizon.
But until then the Worry Meter is only at 5% this week. Should be an easy one Sooner fans. If it’s not, then we know for sure it’s going to be a long season. With all that being said…BOOMER!!
— Dave
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