USU Recap

Written by atlantasooner | 06 September 2010

USU Recap

When does a win feel like a loss? When does a win feel like your whole season is now in doubt?

So let’s start with the necessary clichés

• You are never as bad or as good as you look in your first football game.
• You make the biggest improvements in your season from game one to game two.

TaW understands these clichés and their foundations in reality. And it’s better to 1-0 versus being 0-1 like last year with your QB hurt and things in total disarray.

So let’s start with the Good, the list will be small.

1. Ryan Broyles – Ryan Broyles is playing WR at a level not seen since Mark Clayton was a Sooner.
2. Demarco Murray – Was a real workhorse at RB last night for the most part showed nice vision and did a good job finishing runs. He’s faster than last year, but still missing that extra gear that two injuries have cost him.
3. Travis Lewis – made plays in space. Was effective blitzing the QB. He was definitely frustrated trying to get all the young Sooners in alignment.
4. Tony Jefferson – Tony not Ronnell Lewis had the hit of the night smashing a USU RB. Tony also made a nice ankle tackle saving a probably first down. It was a good game one for the California Sooner.

The Average

1. DEs – Beal, RJ Washington, and David King did a pretty good job with containment and pass rush. They just couldn’t close the deal on the scrambling USU QB.
2. DTs – McFarland, McGee, and Walker. Ignoring Walker trying to pick up a fumble with his claw hand, instead of falling on it (game over probably), the DTs did a pretty good job stopping the run, and provided some interior push at times. For 3 guys playing their first real snaps ever against a multiple spread scheme it was something to build on.
3. OL – I’m not going to suggest the OL had a great game. But OU rushed for over 200 yards and the OL created the big lanes for Murray’s big runs. The newish OL had problems with blitz assignments and OTs struggled with speed rushes at times. Still like DT, enough positives to move forward.
4. Tress Way – He had one massive punt, one bad punt, and about 3 average ones. One short kickoff, but everything else seemed fine.

The Invisible

1. Brennan Clay – one carry. One kickoff return. No idea what he brings to the table
2. The TE position – no receptions, one pass interference penalty for 2 yards. Some decent blocking at times, some horrible blitz mistakes. No factor at all in the passing game. Zero signs of best receiving TE Austin Haywood.
3. Ronnell Lewis – For all the preseason hype we got one kickoff tackle and one tackle for a loss. He was a non factor at DE.
4. Any WR not named Ryan Broyles. There were some plays made by Stills, Kenney, and Miller. But no big plays, and we’re going to need some big plays by someone not named Broyles.

The Bad

1. Tom Wort – missed tackles, over run tackles, and then we have the back to back personal fouls that setup the first USU points. His first personal foul was a game changer. It was his first game and it was a bad one. Hopefully better play coming for game two.
2. Any DB not named Quinton Carter – So this was the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde game. 3 ints (USU QB only threw 4 all last year) caught for Dr. Jekyll. Mr Hyde? Well please send your cards and flowers for Jamell Fleming, Demontre Hurst, and Jonathan Nelson to the William Shankle Memorial Burn Unit for Defensive Backs. Part of the problem was the front seven tracking down the QB, but our CBs could have had 3 or 4 more ints if they had just turned around to look for the ball. Nelson inexplicable thought that the offsides on Jeremy Beal had led to a whistle (Beal held up on smashing the USU QB as well) and just let his guy go. Now some first game jitters from Fleming and Hurst were understandable (both made big INTs as well), but Nelson’s struggles were puzzling. We’ve seen this type of effort before early in the season, so while a massive concern we’ve seen the issue get much much better as the year goes on.

The Unknown

We still have no clue what our FG kicking game looks like. O’Hara hit the world worst looking FG (only a 32 yarder). PAT’s looked good which I guess is something.

The ***king Awful

Landry Jones

Most of the bad/average on the defensive side was saved for players starting for the first time or getting their first real significant snaps. So there’s a real reason to believe that they will get better. Even the OL had 3 guys starting for the first time or coming back from injury. Landry Jones has none of these excuses/reasons. He's now in his 3rd year at OU (he's been through 3 springs since he enrolled early), and this was his 12th start and 14th game where he's played major snaps.

So let’s count the litany of horrible QB play by Landry

1. He was wildly inaccurate. A major number of WTF passes.
2. He was so locked into his first read. It almost looked like we were calling where he was going with the ball in the huddle with no regard to defensive coverage.
3. One of his INTs was related to this locking onto a WR issue. The other one I have no idea why Landry didn’t throw it into the turf the WR screen was beyond covered.
4. To talk about Landry’s poor pocket presence would imply he had some. He was awful in the pocket, stumbling into 3 drive killing sacks.
5. He still is unable to find any open WR for a big play not named Broyles, missing open targets.

So that’s all the bad stuff. Development wise, the real concern is that this is the first time Landry has played an awful game at home and against an overmatched opponent. Usually Landry blitzes this kind of opponent. Weighing location and relative defensive strength, this is probably Landry’s worst game in a Sooner uniform.

I’ve been having a discussion with some Sooner fans about Landry’s ceiling as a QB. Use Sam as the benchmark and giving him a 10 where is Landry? Last year most of us placed Landry at about 5 or 6. This year with a better running game (200 yards is better) and better WR corps we placed Landry’s ceiling at about 7.5/8. Well last night, Landry was about a 2 or 3 and I’m starting to wonder if his ceiling is 5 or 6.

Proving that I’m no college football coach. I seriously would have benched Landry for a series last night. It couldn’t have been worse. And while Allen and Bell might be worse than Landry now, will they surpass Landry’s ceiling/ability given playing time? If we're going to get games like USU from Landry consistently, isn't it better to go through the growing pains with someone with a higher ceiling?

The Impossible to Evaluate

I wasn’t thrilled with the game called Saturday night, but with the horrible QB play OU was getting I’m not really sure what Wilson had to work with. He rode his only reliable weapon, Murray, for the bulk of the game. It was predictable, but it worked at times.