Initial thoughts on the Rice win

I remember the Mason Walters pancake – he has a mean streak and that is good to see.

A lot of fixable mistakes out there, but damn I hope Rice wins more than two games this season. Overall, it tempers my expectations for the season. I was happy that we stuck with the run, but it is going to be tough to do so as we roll out a cadre of average at the position.

I think the UT offense felt we were still playing Bama through the first quarter – very tentative, nervous, almost like feeling around, through, and under a girl’s shirt who has already given it up to the entire basketball team. They never seemed to get in a rhythm, and I expect that to be the case for most of the season as we continue to run the ball and count on big (read: 2x more powerful than Mack’s explosive plays) plays to move the chains every third or fourth series. As someone else said, we are now an SEC team. In that regard, Gilbert did exactly what he is supposed to do – not turn the ball over.

Wasn’t it nice to see the defense make adjustments?

Oh well, only one week until we play Scrimmage #2!

Hook ’em!

I was at the game and agree with most of your observations. Scip is right that we need to think SEC style team. Pound the ball on offense with a few big play-action passes (like the passes to Malcolm and Chiles that almost scored). Suffocating, athletic defense that can score points off turnovers (one defensive score yesterday and should have had one or two more).

The number of talented young players that got a lot of snaps yesterday made me think the coaches are looking a year or two down the road. Stringing together the ‘09,’10 and ’11 recruiting classes suggest an improving but green team this year and a potential monster in a year or two.

When Mack told Powers and Dodds to expect three losses this year, I think he got it about right.

I agree our high expectations need to be for 2011 and 2012. There are defensive coordinators in Norman and Lincoln that are still laughing out loud at the “offense” that GD threw out on the field yesterday.

Offense: we have a fuzzy-cheeked redshirt freshman qb who may be good some day but has a high release point on many of his passes, causing the ball to come out nose down. He also locks in like a laser on most of his throws. Good db’s would have had several ints yesterday.

It turns out, as many suspected, that The Answer is not the answer to our rb woes unless the question is: who is still too big and slow to be anything other than a situational player? The Answer looked EXACTLY the same as he has the past three years—same body, same lack of speed, same tentative running style. The staff benched him and I suspect he won’t be seen much except on short yardage plays the rest of the year. The other two rb’s are average.

No H-back, no TE and no reliable receivers like Ship mean that good defenses will stack the line and shut this O down without much trouble. Football 101.

Defense: It’s a bit disturbing when one of your top cb’s gets embarassed by Rice and then benched. Otherwise, its a talented and deep bunch that will have to produce points in the big games. AW continues to be inconsistent and why can’t our cb’s catch the ball?

Specials teams: an F. As many of us suspected, we STILL don’t have a kicker who can kick the ball into the endzone [indoors!] and it still makes no sense on a campus of 50000 kids. Rice repeatedly started drives outside its own 30. We don’t have anyone who can field punts.

Overall, Nebraska, Bama, Ohio State all pounded their cupcakes. Our cupcake did a good job of exposing our youth and talent gaps.

Thanks for the insight. My favorite quote was Macks about “winning on the road.” Heh, even he smirked as he delivered it.

Even that feels better than talking about “anticipatory breach of contract” for months.

I think you could hear everyone in the stands laugh when the annoncer said that it was the largest crowd for a Rice opening home game.

We will be fine. Too many athletes. Rice fired off the ball really well.
Regarding Cody, I do not understand why the coaches benched him after 5-6 plays. That really concerned me.
“uh Cody , we thought you hit the Holes quickly, it seemedthat way over the last month of practice. But after all that practice and spring game, uh we were wrong – your actually big and slow. We like our backs like LT not Brandon Jacobs. Sorry but we have decided that we can’ t use a 250 lb RB.

Not sure anyone in Norman is laughing today.

The other thing about playing a lot of first and second year players is we can no longer afford to play talented youngsters sparingly with players leaving for the NFL after three years in the program. You have to play them while you have them.

If the ut offense isn’t yet in midseason form Ransom certainly is.
I did not see a team that is going to lose three games absent key injuries.
Look the 2005 team would ass rape this version of our team but those guys aren’t on the schedule. Instead we have 4 gimmes in non conf and our toughest annual game is against a sonner squad that needed a late pick to hold onto a seven point win against Utah freaking state. This is a transition year in college football with no trancendent teams. UT could win the national title in this down year. Defense was nasty after the typical rough first possession. We aren’t a finished product but we’ve got a high ceiling and everyone we play seems like they kinda suck.

We’ll be fine. The emergence of a coherent run-blocking scheme dwarfs everything else, even if the results were middling out of the gate. There would be a much bigger shine on Gilbert this morning Kirkendoll and Goodwin hadn’t gotten armbarred on their deep balls and Malcolm hadn’t fallen to the ground on what should have been a 70-yard TD.

Agreee with Wulaw. The only way we lose 3 games is if Gilbert goes down.

The playcalling was atrocious. I hope it is because we wanted to work on and see specific things and weren’t really trying to score, but with this offensive staff……

The defense is the fastest that I can recall. Our ends run 4.7s, our LBs are the best we have had in decades and the secondary goes 6 deep with quality and we haven’t even seen much of the young guys yet. Barring two fluke plays, they give up 3 points and 150 yards to a Rice team that actually has decent skill players. Stay healthy Keaston.

The o-line looked better than last year, but that is a low bar. I really liked what I saw out of Snow and Walters on first viewing. Our TEs didn’t block particularly well and were a non-factor. T is a problem. Would love to get Allen back and slide Walters over to RT, or if Hopkins is really ready to play move him into that G spot.

The RBs are average. They all do one thing well, but none do multiple things well. Gilbert looked o.k. He is going to be very good, we have to be patient and pray that Davis/Mack let him play to his strengths, downfield passing. That would be a first for them, so I am skeptical.

Overall, we are very good. Relax.

Mack’s summation is perfect. Everything that could have gone Rice’s way did, including the reviewed calls “standing”. If not for the BS TD to end the 1st half and the Aaron Williams muff, the final score is 34-3 or worse. The running game is a work in progress. I liked what I saw with the fake end arounds. The reverses were pretty bad. I know it’s gimmicky, but it did seem to work better than our completely predictable one-back running game.

What happened to Whaley/Berryhill/Matthews or whoever at H-back? Are we really saving a lead blocker as a surprise for stoops?

Our D will keep us in any game we play so figuring out what is going to work on O will require patience, like Mack said.

We won this game while logging 50+ reps in a new scheme with a first year starting qb, and I didn’t even count the reps that Case played. That is not insignificant. If you don’t believe that assessment, just ask a Sooner. Unfortunately, they may all be hungover today.

Western Kentucky is a Div I school that plays in the Sun Belt Conference. Here is a link from their website about the Nebraska game. Of special note, their running back had a career high yesterday.

http://www.wkusports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&ATCLID=204988540&DB_OEM_ID=5400

Scroll down to the bottom of the following page to view Western Kentucky’s schedule, ransom, then please provide your expert analysis.

http://www.wkusports.com/SportSelect.dbml?ATCLID=204988540&DB_OEM_ID=5400&SPID=2242&SPSID=28825

I do think that we saw an improved Rice team yesterday. They seemed more aggressive and more athletic. I hope they win more than 2 games this year!

Of course, we know that the Ags played SFA, so be it. Typical. I think it is silly to play for it all on opening day, but to play a team in a lower division is foolish.

For the most part, the Longhorns made youthful errors yesterday. Chykie made some mental errors. Maybe he needs some Wheaties for breakfast.

Hook ’em!

Cody Johnson also seemed to get gassed as the first half went on. He might be better suited as the pounder who comes in against a defense that is tiring (or already tired) from chasing Newton, Whittaker, et al. See the second half of the 2009 OU game. In any event, wouldn’t want to see him consigned to mothballs solely on the basis of this first game.

LonghornScott’s analysis, even though he missed some stuff in the run game watching it live (which is understandable), is pretty spot on.

The key to our offense is protecting Gilbert by running the ball effectively and moving the chains we we MUST, thus reducing the dependence on Gilbert and limiting errors in the passing game (Gilbert will still make his fair share of mistakes).

We’ll see if Chiles turns out to be a dependable option for him, but if Goodwin is GG’s only reliable option, it will only deepen the need for us to run the ball well in tight spots. I saw little from Mal Williams to make me believe he will improve sooner.

So, fewer reliable options in the passing game + GG’s inexperience + ambivalent dedication to the run game at ass-pucker time = breakdowns in big games.

Maybe the defense will be great vs. very good and maybe the H-back/TE situation will provide some reliable options for GG, but until then, this work in progress is just that – we may see a season-long work in progress, lighter on progress during the season than we all hoped.

The 4th down toss sweep to Cody Johnson has drawn a decent amount of fire and it isn’t the play I’d call . . . but didn’t he score on a toss sweep against OU in 2008? . .. And wouldn’t Melton have scored on a toss sweep against Ohio State in 2005 if he looks for contact instead of taking to the air?

2008 lead blocker=Roy Miller (and we showed play action as well, but Roy dropped an easy pass)

2010 lead blocker=Jared Norton who failed to find someone to block on 3rd down and then whiffed on getting a seal on 4th. Of the two plays, the 3rd down version was much easier to execute. So, what dow we do? We send CJ on a sweep, with Norton leading again, and the quick Rice front 7 blew it up.

It was a moronic call.

“It was a moronic call.”

Agreed. And why the fuck is a LB who was quetionable to even play this year due to a shoulder injury being used as the FB to begin with?