Special Teams/Coaching 2009 Recap

Special Teams

This will be short and sweet.

Tress Way was ranked 3^rd in the nation in punting (OU’s punt coverage was also excellent 5^th nationally in net punting). In fact, Way’s punting pretty much won the OSU game, and saved OU on any number of occasions.

Last year, OU’s kickoff coverage basically cost them the Texas game and was a season long abomination. This year the coverage was vastly improved with only one TD (KState’s Brandon Banks) and was ranked 27^th in the nation and massive improvement from their 102^nd in the nation ranking in 2008.

Unfortunately while punting and the coverage teams were excelling. FG kicking literally cost OU two games this season. OU was an awful 18 of 28 in FG kicking between 3 FG kickers (Jeremy Stevens, Patrick O’Hara, and finally Tress Way). Stevens continued his inconsistent kicking from the previous year. He missed extra points again, and in the Texas game missed a FG that would have put OU up 9-0 (this missed FG cost OU the game). Finally, fed up with Stevens missing anything over 30 yards, Bob went to Tress Way. Unfortunately, Way ended up being just as unreliable and missed anything over 30 yards as well, missing 3 FGs against Nebraska. OU had huge momentum in that game and could have been up 9-0 on the Huskers but instead OU kept chasing points all night. OU appears to have settled now on Patrick O’Hara as the FG kicker who is the only kicker to have hit a 40+ FG this year, but O’Hara continued this FG nightmare by missing an easy FG against Stanford that would have pushed the OU lead to 7. I still think O’Hara is the right guy, his leg strength and velocity look far superior to Stevens’.

Broyles not only was a playmaker at WR, but was ranked 4^th Nationally in punt returning. Broyles only got one TD in his return game, but made a large number of key punt returns which setup the Sooner offense in great field position

OU’s kickoff return game however, was far more pedestrian and I really think that some different players than Madu and Franks should be given a shot next year at this task (and OU has recruited some great kickoff return players, but I’ll get to that in the look into next year article that is on the way).

Coaching Recap

So this might get a little ugly on the offensive coaches side of things but here goes.

OC/TE Kevin Wilson

Grade: D

Clearly, Kevin Wilson must have felt like all year long he was heading into a gun fight with a knife. The injuries to Sam and Jermaine put the offensive into chaos early and the OL and WR shuffles continued that chaos. Still, Wilson took way too long to pare down the offense and ditch the power sets from the spread that were not working at all due to no longer having the right personnel. In addition, the decision to continue with the no huddle was a huge mistake. It amplified the OL confusion and the red zone problems OU would have most of the 1^st half of the year. In addition, clearly Wilson was out of sync most of the year with Patton’s development of the OL. Wilson also gets his grade lowered due to the total lack of development at TE of James Hanna and early in the season using Eldridge/Ratterree flexed out like they were Jermaine Gresham.

OL James Patton

Grade: F

It’s very strong to call a coaching effort a complete failure, but really the OU OL was a total disaster. The first half of the BYU game it almost looked like the OL had never practiced at all. Nearly all of the responsibility for the BYU loss lies at the OL performance. Patton didn’t develop an OL during spring and didn’t develop an OL during August camp. Clear mistakes were made in both evaluation and development especially in trusting Jarvis Jones and Corey Brandon to handle RT. Injuries certainly were a big problem, but the constant rotating of players inside didn’t help either. Stephen Good seems to have regressed. And the jury was certainly still out on Ben Habern before he got hurt. (again both kids were not really healthy this year) Even Trent Williams and Brian Simmons had uneven years when they were not injured. Williams in particular just isn’t a LT. The biggest positive surprise was how well Eldridge and Mensik played at OL. But again, this comes with a negative spin of why those players were not moved after the uneven spring performance of the OL.

WR Jay Norvell

Grade: C

Norvell really gets this grade due to the constant shuffling of WRs and the inability to get the WR core ready for the season. Norvell put a lot of trust into Adron Tennell and he got burned. Then, Norvell seemed hesitant to put Dajuan Miller into the game when hindsight would indicate that he has the 2^nd best skill set of all the WRs. Now, this grade would have been lower but the WRs performance in the Sun Bowl was such a stark difference that clearly once everyone was healthy (and Reynolds development was hampered by an early injury) Norvell focused his development on Miller and Reynolds. And those kids looked great in the game. And on some level you have to give Norvell some credit for how good Ryan Broyles has developed under Norvell.

RB Cale Gundy

Grade: C

Cale mainly gets this grade for going with Chris Brown over Demarco Murray at key times when it was clear that Demarco was running the ball harder and looked like the better RB. Gundy’s RB rotation has always been a bit of a mystery, but when the OU running attack was gaining yards what did it matter. This year OU could have used a lot more Murray and less Brown (maybe even some Miller/Calhoun instead of more Brown)

Defensive Coaches

Grade A

Save for a meltdown in Lubbock (and OU’s defense showed signs of getting out of that funk before realizing the offense couldn’t get it done), this was a great year for the Sooner defense. We saw creative uses of personnel (putting a lot of faith in using Ibiloye in the UT game and sitting Ryan Reynolds against multi WR looks, adjustments in personnel (subbing Nelson for Proctor being the biggest productive change), and career years from some Sooner defenders. It was a return to the Sooner defenses of 2000- 2003.

The only possible negative comment was not getting more playing time for the young defensive kids McFarland, King, RJ Washington, Ronnell Lewis, Jayden Bird, Demontre Hurst, and Marcus Trice.

Bob Stoops

HBC Grade: C

Special Teams Grade: C

Overall Bob as CEO lets his assistants coach, but the OL mess has to extend to Bob himself. The August move of Eldridge to OL was about 5 months too late, and let's remember Bob called out the OL big time in Spring so he knew that they were a problem and everyone knew OU's season was going to be tied to fielding a competent OL.

Finally, the mess at place kicker lies with Bob directly. He should never have gone with Stevens at all and instead gone with O’Hara or taken the redshirt off Easly. Stevens is just not a Division 1 kicker.