When Baker Mayfield runs, he looks like a meat truck clunking down an unpaved hill.

All week, I've been trying to use the Texas Rangers' series against the Blue Jays as an opportunity to teach my second-youngest son the story of David and Goliath.

Man, if I'd only known, I would've been priming the pump on this one for months.

To the untrained eye, this was David and Goliath on steroids. 30-27 against Okie Lite next to 50-7 against TCU in front of 45-44 against California are three losses that look pretty bad on paper, even if all three of those teams are/were ranked (goodbye California, hello Utah).

But in reality, I don't think this loss should hurt Oklahoma as badly as it certainly will when the new rankings come out. We shouldn't have lost that game against Okie Lite. (Yes, cue the folks with the tin foil hats, I know, but I agree with them. Those refs were crazy.) And sure, we lost to #2 TCU--so we're not one of the two best teams in the nation, so sue us. But the California result could've been flipped entirely had Nick Rose not been taking shots on the sideline every time the radio broadcasters said 'quarterback controversy'.

So I think every Longhorn fan in Longhorn Nation is going to agree with me when I say that we knew we had a team that was better than 1-4 with Jerrod Heard under center.

Yesterday, that team received its vindication--and oh how sweet it is. On to the open date!

For all of us water cooler LBs, here's my take on how the OU win played out:

1. Texas won in the trenches on both sides of the ball. My knee-jerk reaction when I saw the way that Texas was dominating the OU DL was to take a look at the average weight for their starting players. So, after crunching the numbers:

Texas' average OL weight: 311.2 lbs.

OU's average OL weight: 312.4 lbs.

Less than remarkable, eh? In fact, it's downright...similar. And then, in the midst of this date with my calculator, I remembered the Cowboys' game from two weeks ago, in which the Cowboys' OL threw away a potentially winnable game against Atlanta with bad play which no stat could explain. It was just weak sauce, plain and simple. They just lost.

So I figure this is another weak sauce moment. I don't know why or whose fault it was, but I know OU's principle issue was in the trenches, both of them. And I know that Hassan Ridgeway was part of the problem for them.

There was a huge difference between the ending positions of the OU offensive linemen when Ridgeway was on the bench. The man is an impact player--check out this game's tape if you want to see how one power rusher can alter the shape of an entire OL.

(I know this section should be over, but there's one other thing I want to add: I believe Charlie Strong's coaching staff knew full well that their DL would overwhelm the OU OL from the very start, and my evidence for this consists of the defensive calls they made. Check out the very first six plays from scrimmage--five nickel coverages, some with a corner blitz and some without, and then finally a normal 3-4 set, on the sixth play. They were never, ever scared of Perine, one of the top running backs in the nation. Good coaches know their players.)

2. Texas Was Nearly Perfect at Covering Hats in the Context of a Corner Blitz. Texas blitzed a lot. They didn't blitz as much as I was adamantly shouting for them to from my couch, but still, they blitzed a lot. And almost every time they blitzed, every eligible receiver was covered, meaning a correct read was made in the secondary.

Yeah, I saw guys open, too--but Mayfield didn't have time to get the ball out before the pocket pressure forced him to scramble. So were they really open? It's a thinker.

3. Texas' Blitz Was Incredibly, Wonderfully, Majestically Effective. Remember a minute ago, when I told you I wanted Texas to blitz more? Here's why: It worked consistently. It sent the OU OL into a panic.

I saw so many blitzing linebackers missed by the OL I thought fans in the stadium were about to take their turn on the next snap--hell, it didn't matter if they weren't wearing pads, no one would see them until they were lying on top of Mayfield anyway. Bob Stoops needs to check what kind of contacts Perine is wearing, and whatever they are, he needs to change them. That running back missed more blocks than a kid beating Super Mario in eleven minutes.

The other player I want to call out from the safety of my leather, padded couch: Kenneth Mann, number 55. Good heavens, sir. Good heavens. I hope you don't have to sit next to Coach Bob on the bus back home.

OU had some success running to the outside, when they let their WRs do the majority of the blocking. Why didn't they do that more? I have no clue. They also didn't look bad when they rolled Mayfield right or left (particularly right). Why didn't they try that? No idea. The read-option also led to a touchdown for them, but that was only trotted out four or five times. Why? Bob knows.

All I know for sure is this: Most of their runs up the middle, they left a Texas LB uncovered, and they paid for it. That's a message they'll be hearing all week.

4. D'Onta Foreman Looked Like a Refrigerator on Jet-Skates. Did you see the big man go? That's how I'd look running if I ate thirty Twinkies a day for two years. The TV broadcasters showed a highlight of Chris Waley running back that one pick from last year, and I could write the rest of this article on the similarities between the two.

5. Is It Legal for Texas to Trade for OU's Punter? Serious question, folks. Give that man a car, season tickets for his mom, a signed Vince Young jersey--whatever it takes to land him.

6. More Referee Corruption. So it's near the end of the second quarter. The ref gets hurt, there's an official timeout, blah blah blah. Then the ref stays in the game for the ensuing snap, in blatant violation of the very rulebook he is sworn to defend! It's anarchy, I say! We need REVOLUTION!!

IS ANYONE ELSE WITH ME??!

7. And Finally, On A More Serious Note...We Won Because OU Wasn't Able To/Didn't Exploit our Weak Secondary. And that won't happen against Kansas State. Wear your horns high for a couple weeks against the Open Date Fightin' Byes, sports fans, but don't forget: There are an awful lot of freshmen making the 'safety' position of our defense fall short of its name. (Har har.) Don't get too high and mighty, because a whole lot of humble pie might come our way real quick.

But in the meantime, enjoy this win. Really. It's not every day your 1-4 team knocks off #10. Your homework is to kick a Sooner in the shin this week.

I'll see y'all again on the 24th. Enjoy the game. As always, I'll be watching, across the Atlantic.