The Reasons For The Loss

(DISCLAIMER: This ENTIRE post is about football, and specifically Sooner football. If you're not interested, check back another time.)

So I'm still hurting from Saturday's loss. It's a lot like it was last year when we lost to Colorado...at least this year, I'm in the majority here in OKC and I don't have to spend the entire year hearing from classless Texas fans, like I had to spend a great deal of last year hearing it from classless CU fans.

Whether you know this about me or not, I'm a background guy. A troubleshooter. A technician. An analyst. I'm the guy in the background who doesn't necessarily create the world or build the world, but who keeps the world running after it has been built. That's what most of my career has been, that's how I am at home, and that's what I am today. I look at negative situations and immediately try to figure out what broke and how to fix it. So with that in mind, in the aftermath of Saturday's game I thought about what broke. (I'm not sure, really, how to fix any of these, though...I'm not a coach.)

1. OU had several opportunities to put the game away in the first half and did not do so. This is partially a credit to Texas and their spunk, but it's mostly a knock on OU. Giving up the big kick return for a touchdown. Getting defensive stops but not when they needed them most (like, after a touchdown drive). Stupid offsides penalties that gave Texas first downs. (I'll get into some of the other penalties further down.) If OU had taken a full two-touchdown lead in the first half when they had a chance, if they had gotten a key defensive stop IMMEDIATELY after a touchdown drive, if they had held serve that ONE time on kick coverage, OU would most likely have taken the wind out of Texas's sails and would probably have been able to either roll to a blowout or at least hang on for a close win. Instead, OU just let Texas hang around, and that allowed Texas to believe they could win it. Texas played behind nearly the ENTIRE game, yet won by 10 points.

2. Offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson overthought his offensive calls. There was only one drive...ONE DRIVE...where he really worked to keep the OU offense in a very quick tempo, and that was the most impressive drive by either team all day. In fact, if OU had maintained that pace on half of their drives, they probably would've put Texas away by the second quarter, as they've done with every other team they've played. What made that drive special is that OU's coaches made the calls, didn't audible, and forced Texas to really work to get up to the line and be in position to run the play. You can work the no-huddle two ways: a) make your call quickly, get up to the line quickly, and snap it quickly, counting on the speed to keep the defense off-balance and giving them no time to adjust or make a counter-call to stop what you're doing, or b) get to the line, wait for the defense to line up, then call your play, with possibly another audible to adjust slightly to what the defense shows as they set up. OU spent most of the game in the second mode, allowing Texas (who was looking and hoping for this very thing) to re-align and adjust every time OU got set. That one second-quarter drive in which OU went to the first mode, they made it look like OU was playing a bunch of high school kids. Texas never adjusted properly during that drive, and the result was an easy touchdown. Instead, Wilson spent the entire game getting OU to the line quickly, but then trying to figure out the best play every time, when a merely good play every time, as OU got during their quick-tempo drive, would have sufficed and most likely would've been much more effective over the course of the entire game.

3. Because OU let Texas stay in the game, and because OU did not maintain the quick-tempo no-huddle that had brought so much success earlier in the season and earlier in the game, OU completely lost the game when Ryan Reynolds went down. Now, Ryan is a great player, and he has done a wonderful job as a leader of the defense, getting everyone set up and going. But he also is one of those injury-plagued stars. Some kids are just star-crossed, and Reynolds seems to be one of those kids. He had just suffered his third season-ending knee injury in as many seasons. After the first two, you would think that OU would have had a solid plan for a backup for him, not knowing, but perhaps expecting that something like this might happen. That way, when it DID happen, there was someone ready and waiting to step in quickly and easily. Instead, defensive coordinator Brent Venables left EVERYTHING on Reynolds's shoulders, and when he went down, the strength in the defensive middle, along with the leadership Reynolds provided on the field, completely disappeared, leaving OU's defense in shambles. After Reynolds went down, OU was completely unable to stop Texas, who already had a full head of steam, all the momentum, and a great deal of confidence in knowing that they had managed to stick around for so long.

These things, more than anything else, triggered OU's defeat. Let's take a look at some red herrings that will get a lot of talk, but that really didn't amount to much (and I will explain why).

1. OU's inability to run the ball effectively -- true, this was bad. But notice that Texas also was completely unable to run the ball effectively until the fourth quarter (and even the huge Ogbonnaya 62-yard scamper on Texas's last TD drive succeeded only because of a blatant hold on an OU linebacker that wasn't called...more on that in a moment). This game was, for all intents and purposes, a duel between two of this season's most incredible quarterbacks. The running game didn't matter for either team, so to say that OU lost because they couldn't get the running game going, while technically true, wasn't as big a factor as it might at first seem. The same could be said for Texas: "If Texas had gotten their running game going early on, with Colt McCoy playing the way he did, they would've beaten OU into a bloody pulp."

2. Officiating gaffes (and there were many) -- There were some HORRIBLE calls in this game, both ways. I remarked to my dad that it's a terrible shame that when you have the #1 team in the country playing against the #5 team in the country, in a game with huge implications not only in the conference race but also the national championship race, and one of the nation's biggest rivalry games to boot, you know both teams are going to bring their A game. You would expect that the officials would understand the game situation and would be able to do the same. Instead, the officials blew call after call, making horrible calls at some times, and horrible non-calls at other times. Two ridiculous roughing-the-passer flags that, seriously, weren't there. A questionable roughing-the-punter call against Texas. The botched interception-in-the-endzone call...interpretation or not, the ground should only be allowed to cause an incompletion if it is the FIRST contact with the ground that a receiver makes. (That should be obvious and logical. If a receiver grabs the ball, has control, and gets a foot down (or in Lamont Robinson's case, TWO feet down), let him have the catch. Robinson obviously had control of the ball in his midsection, took two steps, then fell to the ground, dislodging the ball.) Calling super-light pass interference penalties at some points, then losing the flag on calls that were much worse. Rampant holding all game, including on the "defining" run by Ogbonnaya in the fourth quarter, in which a Texas lineman had two hands on an OU linebacker's jersey...completely from behind, which is the definition and interpretation of holding (I speak both as a trained football official as well as a long-time fan and observer...check the replays from the endzone camera that ABC showed after the run and it will stick out like a sore thumb). Even the replay booth blew it on several occasions, refusing to review calls that should have been reviewed.

Now all that being said, the officials were pretty bad both ways, and this was one of the most mediocre games I've seen by a Big 12 officiating crew, who are usually pretty good. The curious lack of consistency by this game's officials, though lamentable, didn't really make the difference...though it certainly might have. In any case, it certainly would have been a better game if it had.

3. Bob Stoops fake-punt call in the third quarter -- I'm glad I haven't heard this one rehashed over and over, and it might not have made a difference if it had succeeded. However, I thought the call itself, the time and situation in which it was made, and the execution that came up a mere yard short of the goal, was excellent. Stoops is a gambler, always has been. The only unfortunate thing about his gambles over the past few years is that they haven't succeeded nearly as often as they used to. A Stoops gamble used to be not much of one, as OU nearly always made those gambles succeed. Over the past couple of years, it hasn't been that way, and this is just another example of that unfortunate fact. Of course, if OU had made the first down, win or lose, everyone would have chalked it up as an incredibly gutsy call and a awesome execution by OU's much-maligned special teams. And come on...did anyone believe that Mike Knall could run that fast??? Holy cow, put that guy in the backfield!!

Now, to the really sad point to me, and it was immediately obvious as soon as the game was in the bag for Texas. Sure, OU is in a bad spot to play for the Big 12 championship, let alone the National Championship. Worse, though, is the story for Sam Bradford, who put up incredible numbers and played his guts out for his team, with numbers as good as or better than Colt McCoy's numbers. He will be forgotten now in the Heisman run, at least for a while. You heard it already by ABC's coverage crew late in the fourth quarter...the inevitable human-interest crap that gets spun up by those guys with one player. Colt McCoy is such a great guy...one of the best you'll meet...Colt McCoy was the story of this game...what an incredible game by this gritty player...blah, blah, blah. Don't get me wrong, McCoy had an incredible game and was definitely the difference for Texas. However, there were TWO incredible quarterbacks out there who played their games-of-the-year, and let's NOT forget that. Bradford showed he deserves at least a similar treatment, even for a moment and even in a losing effort. Someone could have said, "And before we give everything to Texas, let's say what an incredibly impressive game Bradford had, throwing for 5 touchdowns and nearly 400 yards and completing 72% of his passes. He deserves better than he got." Then move on to the Tex-ASS kissing.

My one consolation in all of this, is that Texas will choke down the stretch. Just two years ago, after OU had lost its only Big 12 game to Texas, Texas thoughtfully lost its last two games to let OU move back to the top of the Big 12 South. Texas has a brutal schedule this year, especially over the next month or so, and they will either emerge completely unscathed, in which they deserve to play not only for the conference but for the NC...or they will most likely have one or even two losses. If they do, OU will have the opportunity to get back in it, but they can't have any more down games. They better get up for Kansas this weekend.

Thanks for reading along.