Regular Season Review

Sure OU has one more game left, but it’s probably a good time to review the high points and low points of the season with some key storylines.

1. Landry is a conference championship caliber QB. That is no longer a debatable topic. He has a Big 12 championship and OU doesn’t win without good to great play by Landry the last 3 weeks in the year. Now, Landry did keep OSU in the game, but he also twice put OSU away.  Considering the defensive competition and location of the game, his game against Nebraska was his best in a Sooner uniform. With a win over UConn, Landry can match Nate Hybl as the only 2-0 bowl game QB in Stoops history.  I’ve been mentioning all year that Landry has a ceiling and floor in terms of performance. We’ve been seeing the ceiling at home with games where it looked like Sam was still playing, and against UT ( save for one massive brain freeze in Dallas). We saw the bottom of the floor against Missouri and in the coaches’ lack of trust in Landry at ATM. And we’ve seen a very different Landry in the 4^th QTR in Stillwater and in Arlington, showing leadership and poise that haven’t been seen before. Can OU win a national title with Landry? With more weapons at WR (a big WR to compliment Stills/Franks was really needed Saturday night just like the UF title game, fortunately his name is Trey Metoyer) and at TE (more Hanna and hopefully the emergence of Haywood) and an improving OL, if Landry can continue to progress and avoid the “floor” then OU can get to title game with him at QB. But it’s not all Landry….

2. Three injuries derailed OU’s national title hopes this year.

• Adrian Taylor’s leg: OU struggled all year to field two OU caliber DTs. And never did. The weakness was never filled in our conventional 4-3 look. Sooner coaches kept playing Taylor hoping that he could return to form.

• Austin Box’s back: OU’s running game defense against spread formation teams was just transformed when Box returned.  OU’s defense was suddenly much better putting teams into more 3^rd and longs (the punt down).

• Ronnell Lewis’ knee: Lewis provided depth at DE and his impact on special teams is huge as well.  12-0 versus 19-0 in College Station proved to be very significant. Also, it wasn’t until Lewis returned that BV broke out his 5-2 defensive scheme that was so productive against OSU and Nebraska.

While some may point fingers at the offense as the sole reason for the losses at Columbia and College Station, the defense was unable to make big plays in the 4^th qtr to keep those games in hand. Running game defensive problems especially were big.

3. BV’s decision to use the 5-2 scheme saved this season.

Despite his maddening use of 3 LBs all season long in 2007/2008, BV in the last two years has showed a great flexibility in changing schemes to better fit his available talent. Last year the benching of Reynolds and the use of Ibiloye took the defense to another level in the  Texas game. This year the changeup to going with one pure DT, 2 DEs, and 2 OLBs was genius as well. With McGee and McFarland the only productive DTs and needed to get them rest, BV changed our base defense. Save for 3^rd and long against 4/5 WRs, OU has been a Base 4-3/4-2-5 team since Bob has been in Norman, this was a pretty risky move. And it paid off handsomely.

4. Never, ever write off players as busts or non-contributors.

Jamell Fleming who prior to this year has had zero starts turned in an all conference year at CB. Fleming got banged up in the middle of the year, but prior to that was playing at an elite level. He had an awesome two games to end the year, and teamed with Demontre Hurst and Aaron Colvin gives OU their best CB trio since Andre Woolfolk, Antonio Perkins, and Derrick Strait were available to Mike Stoops.

James Hanna after two pretty uneventful seasons, including last year when Sooner fans with the loss of JG were clamoring for him to play, had something just short of a breakout season. Hanna became a valuable weapon in the passing game, and key weapon in the red zone. Hanna seems poised for a huge senior year.

Pryce Macon. Almost completely forgotten and buried in the depth chart. After one of the best stats line ever for a Sooner DL against NU, Macon is the example of why you don’t give up kids, ever.

Huge edit required- Cameron Kenney. How did i forget the amazing 2 game comeback of Cameron Kenney. After Dejuan Miller went down, OU started using Trey Franks more as their 3rd WR. Franks in the OSU game kind of hit the freshman wall, and Kenney came off the bench to play a solid second half before making the play of his Sooner career. After that great OSU game, Kenney turned in a similar effort against Nebraska with a number of huge catches against a very good NU secondary. Kenney even made those plays against Prince Amakamura a projected top 15 pick in the draft. All credit Kenney for staying game ready after being demoted, and to Norvell for coaching up Cameron. 

5. The FG kicking issue continues

Despite some clutch short FGs to end the year, the NU game highlighted what a difference a real weapon at FG kicker can make. OU needed to get to the 15 yard line to ensure a good fg, while NU only needed to get to the 40 yard line. Every loss featured a critical short miss, and on Saturday night OU even had to overcome another short missed kick. OU badly needs a real option for kicking FGs 30 yards and longer. This problem cannot be allowed to continue into year 3.

So Auburn is the new number on the basis of wins over LSU, Bama, Arkansas, and South Carolina. Oregon is still number two but the Pac 10 is starting to fade in terms of SOS conference wise.

I have Wisconsin as the best one loss team. Road loss to a top ten team, early in the year and it was a very close loss.  

Stanford is next with a road loss at Oregon (but the margin is the reason that they are 5th)

Ohio State due to scheduling issues does not have a win over a top 25 team, so I'm placing 11-1 Michigan State who beat Wisconsin over them.

Boise is learning that you can play a crappy schedule and go undefeated, but lose a game and you've just played a crappy schedule. Nevada is now the conference winner and beat Boise so they are ahead of Boise

VA Tech has won 10 games in a row and went undefeated in conference that makes them a better team than Boise at this point.

With two impressive back to back road wins, OU vaults back up to the top of the Big 12 charts with their matchup with NU to decide the title. Right now OU is ahead of NU due to losing two roads to Top 25 teams versus Nebraska losing at home to the worst Texas team in basically two decades.

If Oregon loses, then I'll move TCU to play Auburn. If Auburn loses, then I'll move TCU to play Oregon. TaW doesn't make the rules, but if you are undefeated, then you are undefeated. Just ask the 1984 BYU Cougars who got to win a title playing a 5 loss Michigan team in their bowl game. TCU will get to play either Oregon or Auburn to prove the whole Non AQ argument. Why TCU? Stanford has already lost once so there's no point in them playing Oregon again. Wisconsin lost to Michigan State and is only "winning" the Big Ten via tiebreaker due to one loss Ohio State which didn't play Michigan State.

Finally one last paragraph for outraged TexAggie fans. 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. You can NEVER use head to head to break a tiebreaker involving 3 teams. You lost to Arkansas that's why you are not going to the Big 12 title game. 10-2 is better than 9-3, always has been in the history of college football. And you needed an OU win to even force the 3 way tie. You cannot conveniently forget that OSU beat you, just like the math impaired Longhorns in 2008 cannot ignore that they lost to Texas Tech. If you want to blame anyone, blame Sherman for not benching Jarrod Johnson in Stillwater.  

So no changes at the top. Some folks might rise Boise over TCU. However, San Diego State is a pretty good team with a better resume than any conference team Boise has played to date.  If Boise beats Nevada, then this might be a discussion especially after the Utah collapse in South Bend.

The bottom five is a total swag swinging to bigger name teams with big wins over lesser well known teams holding their ground. Really there's a top 15 but that's about it. 

Tilting at Windmills Ballot - Week 12

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	TCU Horned Frogs	--
4	Boise St. Broncos	--
5	Stanford Cardinal	--
6	Wisconsin Badgers	1
7	LSU Tigers	-1
8	Nebraska Cornhuskers	--
9	Ohio St. Buckeyes	2
10	Michigan St. Spartans	--
11	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	-2
12	Nevada Wolf Pack	6
13	Alabama Crimson Tide	-1
14	Arkansas Razorbacks	--
15	Missouri Tigers	6
16	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
17	South Carolina Gamecocks	--
18	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	4
19	Miami Hurricanes	--
20	USC Trojans	-1
21	Arizona Wildcats	-8
22	Iowa Hawkeyes	-5
23	Florida St. Seminoles	--
24	Utah Utes	-9
25	Texas A&M Aggies	--
Dropouts: San Diego St. Aztecs, Central Florida Knights, Syracuse Orange, Pittsburgh Panthers

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Texas Tech Game Non Recap

OU blitzed another team at home, and it provides absolutely no more data on how OU will play at Baylor and at Stillwater.

OU is still struggling on defense to stop the inside running game of spread teams from the shotgun. Both Baylor and Oklahoma State have dangerous running backs and dangerous passing games if OU decides to blitz too much. So OU is in danger of giving up 28+ in both games, but could in theory score 35+ points if their offense plays up to their potential.

No more real analysis needed.

So let's move to the real topic of this season in the Big 12 South.

How bad is UT really?

Beyond setting the new low standard for Mack Brown Texas football teams, what exactly is going on in Austin?

When highly ranked teams start tanking two powerful forces are usually at work;

THE SUCK and THE QUIT

OU last season for instance was mostly infected with a huge case of the THE SUCK at WR (other than Ryan Broyles and he was hurt for 3 games), at QB (Home Game Jones' road performance was awful), at TE (loss of Gresham was crippling) and at OL (helped greatly through injuries, but still the OL at times was awful).

There was only game were OU was completely infected with THE QUIT. The Texas Tech game where once down 10 points early, the Defense just completely quit. And OU even managed to rally from that QUIT game to shutout OSU in the final game.

Now it should really worry UT fans (and they are worried) that UT has huge areas of THE SUCK and there's a full blown infection of the THE QUIT on the team.

UT has THE SUCK at

WR – OU last year at least had Broyles and late in the year Dejuan Miller. UT's got Mike Davis and that's about it.

RB – UT has nothing. Malcolm Brown walks into Austin with as much pressure to star as a true freshman as anyone I can recall in college football

TE- UT has nothing at this position

OL – UT loses two seniors and there's little real optimism with their young players. They do have a great OL class coming in, but you don't want to see those guys starting

QB: Gilbert has played awful. He's throwing INTs left and right. He's not making plays and his accuracy seems very suspect. He's also getting a very high percentage of passes knocked down and deflected passes becoming interceptions.

DT: Randall is playing well, but UT has no one else at DT and has been forced to move DE Okafor inside. In a very disturbing sign, not one of their freshmen DT recruits have been called into action.

LB: UT's backers have been frequently terrible in run support and pass coverage

DB: UT's vaunted secondary is leaking holes left and right. Aaron Williams is probably  thinking about the NFL while Blake Gideon/Christian Scott combo is just not making plays (Baylor game alone their play led to about 3 TDs).

Return Game: UT's fumbling punts and kickoffs at a tremendous rate.

THE QUIT has appeared early for the Horns

UCLA game in the second half the D just quit.

ISU game after another Gilbert INT, the D just quit and gave up a quick rushing TD which ended up being the difference.

KSU game. The D flat out quit in getting rolled by a one dimensional offense.

OSU game. Down by ten with an inept offense, the D quit again. Only a conservative 2nd half by OSU kept the score down.

So a really disturbing case of THE QUIT infection in the only side of the ball that was playing well.

Theory 1:

UT is just having a terrible injury plagued season like OU had in 2009.

Well, UT's OL injuries are starting to add up (UT had 3 freshman/redshirt freshman starting v OSU), UT has not had anything like the injury problems that OU had last year. UT's has known all off-season that Gilbert would start at QB. UT's had all off-season to adjust to the graduation of Jordan Shipley. So UT fans can hold onto this theory, but it doesn't ring true.

Theory 2:

Mack is out of touch in his role as CEO and his assistants have lost the team completely.

Mack is certainly fueling this theory with his post game interviews throwing players and coaches under the bus with some velocity. Greg Davis' inability to get any kind of improvement on offense is certainly concerning, especially the total lack of improvement by Gilbert. Muschamp's inability to limit THE QUIT on defense, and the inability to improve the defense during the season lends heavy credence to this theory on the defensive side (Other than Kenny Vaccaro no one seems to be improving). Does Mack fire his long time OC Greg Davis (this is almost like Bob firing Brent Venables)? Who was really responsible for the botched offensive strategy change this summer that might be the real source of UT's horrible season? Has Muschamp proved he should not be the head coach in waiting? There appear to be massive chemistry issues with the Horn coaching staff.

Theory 3:

UT's efforts in early recruiting are creating too many recruiting evaluation mistakes.

Now the last 3 years Mack has moved to this exclusive February/March blitz to almost complete his recruiting classes right after signing day. The kids are all ranked high by the recruitniks, but there's a massive case of over inflating UT's kids. Now UT is signing a group that everyone wants (Aaron Williams, Reggie Wilson, Jackson Jeffcoat), but UT in grabbing kids who want to be Horns is also grabbing 10 to 15 kids per class that are being ranked high due to their UT verbal, but are not necessarily blue chips kids. Also, are UT's kids highly ranked as juniors but have maxed out athletically and potential wise? UT's Texas only bias is also hurting the Horns. It was a great RB class last year nationally, but UT signed an in state RB who was pretty average on the national scene. It should also worry UT that OU's best freshman include kids from Oklahoma, Missouri, and California. Another worrying sign, UT settled for Miles Onyegbule early while OU focused on Trey Metoyer. Now, Metoyer is looking like the best WR in Texas in the last 3 years, and UT desperately needs playmakers at WR. Now, it's too early to call this theory validated, but the lack of young playmakers at WR, and DT should scare Horn fans. And Mack shows no sign of slowing this trend of early offers to kids who want to be Horns. If this trend is the real problem for the Horns, UT might be looking at 2 or 3 years of bad seasons and even longer to get back to their national level.

Oregon and Auburn unchanged. TCU with their dominating win over Utah at Utah moves firmly ahead of Boise State in this poll for the rest of the year, there's nothing Boise can do to get ahead of TCU. If TCU or Boise does not make it to a title game I really hope that they get games against great competition like Stanford.

OU not only lost by double digits to a terrible ATM team, but everyone of their quality wins is cratering. FSU - bad, Texas- awful. Cincinnati - awful. Beat Baylor on the road and/or OSU and I'll rerank the over rated Sooners.

South Carolina's win over Bama only last so long. Just a terrible loss to Arkansas at home.

Bama's now lost two close games, but I think they were over ranked anyway. Still you can bet that Saban will want to derail Auburn BCS bid very badly.

I really wanted to stop this poll at 20. The last five teams are complete SWAGs with more negative feelings on why teams deserve to be unranked.

Tilting at Windmills Ballot - Week 11

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	TCU Horned Frogs	--
4	Boise St. Broncos	--
5	Stanford Cardinal	2
6	LSU Tigers	6
7	Wisconsin Badgers	-1
8	Nebraska Cornhuskers	1
9	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	6
10	Michigan St. Spartans	6
11	Ohio St. Buckeyes	2
12	Alabama Crimson Tide	2
13	Arizona Wildcats	-5
14	Arkansas Razorbacks	6
15	Utah Utes	-10
16	Virginia Tech Hokies	6
17	Iowa Hawkeyes	--
18	Nevada Wolf Pack	6
19	USC Trojans	--
20	San Diego St. Aztecs	--
21	Missouri Tigers	-11
22	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	1
23	Central Florida Knights	--
24	Syracuse Orange	--
25	Pittsburgh Panthers	--
Dropouts: Oklahoma Sooners, Baylor Bears, South Carolina Gamecocks, N.C. State Wolfpack, Florida St. Seminoles

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Where to begin discussing the wholesale carnage that was OU's pathetic effort against ATM?

I'm going to break this down to several key areas. Unfortunately it's long that's how angry I am about the game last night.

1. What's gone wrong and what signs were ignored?

The moment Adrian Taylor received his absolutely gruesome ankle injury in the Sun Bowl Bob and Jackie should have been on the phone to every JUCO coach they trust and signed the best DT that they have found on film. The consequences of moving McGee to OG last fall and playing Taylor/McCoy 95% of the time in 2009 have been dire. McGee is a year behind in development and gaining weight, and McFarland is still struggling with the position. I can count at least 6 times a game where Taylor misses a tackle because he's a step slow playing with his gimpy leg. It's a so sad to see.  But it's a massive recruiting miss, and it's impacted our defense all year long. It's the number one reason why the defense is not improving game over game.

Landry doesn't have it. For those saying he's still developing, that was his 19th start last night. The signs were all there last year, but given all the other chaos on offense it was hard to assess whether Landry could improve. QBs given the starting job without internal competition lead to dangerous consequences. Every practice, every scrimmage should have been open in spring to see Landry compete against Drew Allen. Bob's maniac desire to shut down all access to the program is killing the sense of competition that a QB needs to go through a real QB debate with real pressure. Sam's injury has ensured that we are stuck with 4 years of Landry starting at QB. It's too late now. Landry has seniority from game experience which is gold currency with Bob.  Landry's QB game last night was awful. Considering the level of competition (and Landry's level of support at WR) it ranks up there with the all time worst OU QB games of the Bob era.

2. Schematically what's wrong with OU's offense and how it's not fixable as currently designed.

Right now we are a finesse offense using a spread no huddle attack. Have been all year. Spread folks out, get the ball to the WR playmakers, and use a zone running game to compliment the passing attack. That's what we run most of the time.  There are several huge problems with this approach.

• Our QB is unable to execute a passing attack downfield. He's not accurate downfield and is unable to generate the big plays that are there every game. This becomes an even bigger issue when defenses start sitting on the horizontal bubble screen game which is really part of our running game.
• Bob won't let Wilson use the zone read option running game (QB run game) that is implicit and integral to our running scheme. We even run fake zone reads that are actually called plays to the RB, defeating the whole point of an actual zone read option.
• Without the assistance of the QB run game to move the sticks and to create the occasional garbage touchdown in the red zone, this offense has to have an elite QB to create the big passing plays available when the D stacks the line of scrimmage, and ideally an elite TE to create mismatches in the red zone to ensure a high TD ratio.

As big as those problems are, the other structural/fundamental problem is that with this finesse offense, Bob/Wilson in the 4^th qtr often pretend that the offense can morph into a Wisconsin like power running game offense that can salt games away (Bob's also deluding himself that we always have a dominant D that can protect leads no matter what), and that we can morph into this power running team in the red zone. This problems leads to conservative 3 and outs in the 4^th qtr which are amplified by defensive breakdowns blowing established leads. Even with a new QB, we are still going to have these issues without changes in structure, we're stuck in between offensive schemes neither fish or fowl in crunch time.  It's like Bob wants to be the UF Fun and Gun and then switch to being Iowa/Wisconsin.  Our offense suffers from multiple personality disorder.

3. Trends in BV's defense and why the D this year isn't getting better.

For all the criticism of BV's defenses since he become sole DC in 2005, generally speaking his defenses become better over the year. Keeping in mind that we are playing primarily nothing but spread teams, this usually occurs due to the one of 3 things

• Dominant MLB
• Veteran playmaking LB core (can overcome no dominant MLB)
• Dominant run stopping DTs who also provide a consistent pass rush

This year we have inexperienced underclassman at DT (McGee might be a star next year, maybe), and a crippled version of an all conference DT.  At MLB, we have a struggling Tom Wort (his injury season last year was just a killer). That combo has killed our ability to stop spread teams running the ball which is giving offenses too many 3^rd and shorts. With limited interior pass rush and Beal neutralized by double teams, then on 3^rd and long teams are getting too much time to complete passes.  Add in a horrible senior year by Quinton Carter in coverage and it's the worst BV defense with no hope of improvement.

What do we have in 2011?

Right now, no dominant DTs, and no dominant MLBs.  CB and OLB/SS are the only possible returning strengths of this team. It's not going to be a great defense.

4. Odds on what should change (but likely won't)

I.      Landry going through a real QB competition in an open practice environment.  0% Unless Landry has some horrible injury in August, he's our opening game starter for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Bob is not wired to pull the hook on a QB. And the safety bubble of Norman provides the ever hopeful belief that Landry can improve.

II.    Wilson is replaced as OC.  0% Bob has not fired a single coach in his tenure at OU. Wilson is not likely to get a head coaching position. In reality, after the ATM debacle Bob should pull Wilson's play calling duties. The major problem with Wilson is that he has no lateral job movement. OC at OU is as high an OC job as he is going to get. So he has to get a head job to move on.

III.  BV is replaced as DC. 50%. There's a decent possibility that Martinez could be named co DC after a successful first year integrating into the OU staff.

IV.   A coach is retired/fired to make room for a special teams coach.  0%  OU so badly needs someone to fix this field goal kicking mess that is continually costing us games. One person responsible for it.

V.     Patton replaced as OL coach. 50%  Most folks will completely over react to our red zone shortcomings and place the blame on Patton, when those plays should never have been called in the first place.  Patton has managed to piece together a reasonably effective OL this year and has a great group redshirting and seems to have found an effective new OL recruiting strategy using OU's summer camps.  But Patton could leave for the same job somewhere else, he has lateral job movement.

VI.   Bob cuts the ships of 3 or 4 kickers and gets a new kicker into the program. 0% This is the kind of cut throat decision Saban or Meyer would make that Bob just won't do. But it so badly needs to happen.

VII. OU signs a stud Juco DT. 33%  OU could pull this off, but with no home games after next week and no JUCO DT targeted/offered, OU is left trying to bring someone in for December visits and quickly verbal to enroll in January if possible. OU should have visits from their top 3 guys scheduled. We're late to the party and only getting later.

5. Massive diatribe over our red zone play calling in the 4^th qtr.

In 25 years of watching college football, the two goal line series by OU late in the 4^th qtr have to rank as the worst play calling series that I have ever seen. OU already had demonstrated an inability to just pound the ball in the endzone throughout the game. So from a technical standpoint, it's flawed play calling.However, over riding everything at that point in the game was time management. We needed to score twice, potentially 3 times depending upon 2 point conversions, and we're wasting minutes trying to run the ball into the end zone against a defensive front we have not moved all game.

There's only one possible justification for this insane (despite all evidence to the contrary, trying the same thing over and over expecting the conclusion to be different is the very definition of insanity)play calling. After 19 starts, our coaching staff (Bob included) do not trust your QB to throw the ball in the red zone. If that is really true, then you need to bench your QB and find someone else.

There's only two possible responses that can be drawn from watching those two series as a fan.

Bob must fire Wilson as play caller because he is clinically insane when it comes to play calling and clock management

Use the Texas Tech home game as a chance to give some reps with the first team offense to Drew Allen/Blake Bell so that they could be a more viable option for the Baylor game when Landry's struggles inevitably surface.

Oregon/Auburn stay 1-2. TCU's win over Baylor gives them the edge over Boise, and Utah gets their chance to jump Boise with a win over TCU.

Boise's resume continues to slide. If any conference opponent would give Boise a game, then you might be able to rationalize putting them in the title game. As it stands, Boise is basically playing a 2 game OOC schedule. And that resume should NEVER get a team into a title game. way OU for instance if they run the table will have played 5 ranked teams. Boise may have played 1. Do I think Boise is better than OU, probably. But you have to earn your way into a title game through a full season resume, not win two games in September and cruise through October and November while everyone else is playing 3 to 4 meaningful games.

Best one loss team? Wisconsin, close road loss at Michigan State. Dominated Ohio State and beat Iowa at Iowa. Bama despite all the media love needs to prove that they are the best one loss team.

Classic ranking dilemma between OU, Missouri, and Nebraska. Nebraska has the best win, but also the worst loss. OU and Missouri both have good wins, and road losses (with OU having the best loss, but the weakest win). I'm going with NU first, Missouri next, then OU. If OU wins out, then OU and NU will get to settle this debate in Dallas.  But OU has to beat ranked teams in Aggie State and Baylor (yes Baylor)

Iowa is the best 2 loss team in the country.

Tilting at Windmills Ballot - Week 10

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	TCU Horned Frogs	2
4	Boise St. Broncos	2
5	Utah Utes	2
6	Wisconsin Badgers	2
7	Stanford Cardinal	4
8	Arizona Wildcats	1
9	Nebraska Cornhuskers	5
10	Missouri Tigers	-7
11	Oklahoma Sooners	2
12	LSU Tigers	-2
13	Ohio St. Buckeyes	2
14	Alabama Crimson Tide	-2
15	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	2
16	Michigan St. Spartans	-12
17	Iowa Hawkeyes	1
18	Baylor Bears	4
19	South Carolina Gamecocks	1
20	Arkansas Razorbacks	-1
21	N.C. State Wolfpack	--
22	Virginia Tech Hokies	-1
23	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	--
24	Nevada Wolf Pack	--
25	Florida St. Seminoles	-9
Dropouts: Miami Hurricanes, USC Trojans, Michigan Wolverines

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

So Oregon is still number one, Auburn is still number two. Missouri jumps up big time with their home win over OU, a better win than Boise, TCU, or Michigan State right now. Sparty is next with their earlier win over Wisconsin. Then the undefeated trio of TCU, Boise, and Utah. The TCU v Utah winner is poised to be ranked ahead of Boise.

Wisconsin with wins over Iowa and Ohio State is the best one loss team in the country. Lost to undefeated Sparty.

I don't understand all the Bama love, their best win is over Arkansas. Their previous wins over UF and Penn State mean nothing since those teams are flat out awful. Zona and LSU both lost close games. Bama and Stanford both lost big on the road, but Stanford lost to Oregon, Bama to a 2 loss South Carolina team. OU's win over FSU keeps them ahead of the other one loss teams.

Iowa is the best 2 loss team in the country.

Congrats to Baylor for being ranked for the first time Grant Teaff was coaching the Bears.

And congrats to Texas for guaranteeing that I may be able to keep the Horns unranked the rest of the year.

Tilting at Windmills Ballot - Week 9

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	Missouri Tigers	10
4	Michigan St. Spartans	1
5	TCU Horned Frogs	1
6	Boise St. Broncos	-2
7	Utah Utes	1
8	Wisconsin Badgers	3
9	Arizona Wildcats	7
10	LSU Tigers	-3
11	Stanford Cardinal	-2
12	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
13	Oklahoma Sooners	-10
14	Nebraska Cornhuskers	3
15	Ohio St. Buckeyes	--
16	Florida St. Seminoles	3
17	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	-3
18	Iowa Hawkeyes	-8
19	Arkansas Razorbacks	5
20	South Carolina Gamecocks	--
21	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
22	Baylor Bears	--
23	Miami Hurricanes	--
24	USC Trojans	-2
25	Michigan Wolverines	--
Dropouts: West Virginia Mountaineers, Kansas St. Wildcats, Texas Longhorns

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Missouri Recap

This won't be pretty.

What worked?

• Roy Finch - What a shame that Roy got injured in preseason so he's missed so much practice and game reps. OU's not had a chance to fine tune Finch/Murray playing together for full effectiveness.
• Passing Game for 2 quarters -  If OU had executed in the red zone correctly, OU would have been up 28-10 or even 28-7 at half with massive momentum and perhaps a dead home crowd. Landry did a good job mixing up his throws and using all his weapons,  had 250 yards passing.

What Sucked?

• Our pass rush or complete inability to get pressure on Gabbert. Venables didn't mix things up at all. Very little blitzing or zone blitzing, our front four got very little pressure. Taylor looked gimpy at best. Alexander looked like he had no burst off the line. Macon did nothing, and our young DTs got little pressure and got worked in the running game.  Beal can only do such much with the attention he is receiving.
• Our safety play. Jefferson looked like a lost freshman, had to happen sometime. The real mystery is why Nelson and Carter were so ineffective when Missouri passed in the field of the field. They didn't get their hands on one  pass all day. Carter's launching himself at the Missouri TE after playing awful coverage, gave Missouri 50 yards of field position. Nelson did strip Egnew on one play, but was consistently beat by Jackson again and again.
• Our kickoff game. O'Hara cost OU 7 points with a terrible kickoff to star the game. It was like a horrible replay of 2008 again.  Even after that, O'Hara had two more suck ass kicks giving away 20 yards of field position each time. Just dreadful
• FG kicking. It's time to end any and all chances given to Jimmy Stevens. He's as unreliable  a kicker as there is college football. This 3 year circus fiasco is all on Bob Stoops. It's only cost us key points in about 7 losses the last 3 years.
• Landry's 4^th QTR. Trailing 26-21 and needing to reclaim the lead, Landry's first pass is picked off. Even after that, OU is still only trailing 29-21, but Landry proceeds to go 0 for 7 in passing. In crunch time while trailing Landry just bombed.

What else is going wrong?

• Landry made two horrible decisions (both hideously timed play calls) among 30 or so good to great passes. In addition, when it counted in the 4^th QTR Landry was horrible. I honestly don't know what to think about Landry's progress or ceiling.  The INTs were killers, 10 points in a 9 point game. OU could have taken a two score lead on Missouri and perhaps applied some pressure to the Tigers who never really pressed all game. Can OU's current scheme being managed by a good but not great QB?  It all runs through the QB in crunch time due to good defenses ability to stop our running game. Can Landry ever get that big time win on the road (for all his accolades Sam only had one game like that over OSU in 2008)? There appear to be two firm Landry camps at this point. One, Landry is steadily improving under Heupel's guidance and with improved weapons and blocking, Landry can be a conference championship caliber QB.  Two, Landry just doesn't have it, and is always going to choke in the 4^th QTR in a big game. I'm hoping Camp 1 is right because. Save for a major injury, Bob's never benched a QB with seniority, and Landry as a sophmore has never played so badly that benching him has ever made sense. Benching Landry in 2009 was just silly, this year you could argue at least that Drew Allen could come into the game. Camp 2 is going to be further frustrated by never seeing Allen or Bell in practice or in scrimmages to have any idea what we have at QB behind Landry.
• WR depth is becoming a problem. OU clearly missed Dejuan Miller with the way the Tigers were bracketing Broyles. In addition, the injury to Broyles really hurt his ability to cut and accelerate on those bubble screens, also Broyles probably catches that TD instead of OU missing the FG, and Ryan had a number of catches where he probably gets more RAC yards. Caleb hasn't played a meaningful snap until Missouri for obvious reasons.  Kenney made some nice catches but he doesn't present the physical matchup problem that Miller can create. Trey Franks is strictly a slot WR right now.  Jaz Reynolds being deep in Bob's doghouse is not helping at all. OU may need to use Finch and Murray in more two back sets to get as many playmakers on the field as possible.

Issues to consider?

• Does OU need to recruit/sign a JUCO DE/DT?  OU has a wave of highly recruited young players at both positions and players who have made some players this year. But the Missouri game highlighted that none of those players are there yet. Do you gamble that they become impact players next year or do you go find some insurance/competition.
• Both Baylor and OSU present similar type passing games (with better running games) as Missouri.  I'm already having nightmares of Justin Blackmon going "Rashaun Woods" on our secondary. And Griffin is able to buy time before throwing deep downfield. What changes do you make defensively to make more plays against these types of passing attacks? Ronnell Lewis should be back for both games to give OU another pass rush option. None of the LB groupings were very effective against Missouri (Ibiloye and Lewis maybe) I'm not sure OU has many options in the secondary but I'd probably find some way to get Colvin, Fleming, and Hurst on the field together and pray that Nelson/Carter find some way to play better.

One last comment.

I had compared this year to 2006 in terms of what might happen to OU. Instead it's starting to look like 2002. Number one ranked team drops a road game, defense gives up big plays and offense led by a limited QB (Nate Hybl) is unable to respond in the 4^th QTR to regain momentum for OU.  OU still managed to win the Big 12 that year, and ironically that was OU's last BCS bowl win. OU needs OSU to pick up some losses reducing their momentum for that late scheduled game. Baylor game as well suddenly takes on far more importance.

So Oregon is number one for the second week in a row. Oregon's offense is probably the best in the nation, they have an OU 2008 look to their offensive attack.

Auburn or OU was a tough call. Auburn right now is winning the tie, but if OU beats Missouri then I may change up those slots. Everything else is by the numbers. LSU can vault up with over Auburn. Sparty won't be able to move up even with a road win over Northwestern. Utah is lurking behind TCU and Boise State.

Ranking the one loss teams. Stanford lost to Oregon in Eugene, game was much closer than the score. Iowa at Arizona early in the year is also a very good loss. Wisconsin's win over Ohio State and they lost to undefeated Sparty. Tide lost by two tds to South Carolina who now has two losses.

Missouri and Okie State haven't played a ranked team, yet alone beat one. Beat NU or OU and they will get to move up. Nebraska tumbles due to losing at home to a two loss Texas team. All the teams above them lost on the road.

Last five in the poll is really hard, every team is flawed, every team has reasons for not being ranked, but someone has to fill the last five. It's definitely the highest  what have you done lately influenced part of the poll.

Tilting at Windmills Ballot - Week 8

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	4
3	Oklahoma Sooners	2
4	Boise St. Broncos	--
5	Michigan St. Spartans	6
6	TCU Horned Frogs	-3
7	LSU Tigers	1
8	Utah Utes	2
9	Stanford Cardinal	5
10	Iowa Hawkeyes	3
11	Wisconsin Badgers	6
12	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
13	Missouri Tigers	6
14	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	9
15	Ohio St. Buckeyes	-13
16	Arizona Wildcats	2
17	Nebraska Cornhuskers	-10
18	West Virginia Mountaineers	6
19	Florida St. Seminoles	3
20	South Carolina Gamecocks	-11
21	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
22	USC Trojans	--
23	Kansas St. Wildcats	--
24	Arkansas Razorbacks	-9
25	Texas Longhorns	--
Dropouts: Nevada Wolf Pack, Michigan Wolverines, Air Force Falcons, Oregon St. Beavers

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »