3rd and long

The ONE factor working in our favor is that his agent is Boras. He always seems to hold his clients out for ridiculous amounts of money, sometimes to the point that they don't get signed. Also some MLB teams will stay away from potential players just because they have him as an agent. Heres to hoping.

If Carnes is the real deal at QB, and is at least #2 on the chart, and with the thinness at WR, what are the chances they try to make a position change with Cody Green? Seems like he could be an asset as a WR.

Yep, and that holds with our new offensive philosophy, if it's working, get the hell out of it....fast!

Now, I just really wanted to put up that bold part in your quote because it does happen to be just about the exact opposite of what everyone else is saying about this last game. I just can't figure out if Watson is being stubborn and refusing to change it up, or if Watson is too arrogant and has to get cute/outsmart himself by constantly changing from what is working, with no rhyme or reason to it. What we really need to do is be adaptive. Er, I mean, find an identity and stick with it. One of those two. Or maybe both, I don't know. I guess I'm confused here Zoogie, are you saying everyone is saying we changed things up offensively? Because it looked to me like we continued to run either the zone read with Taylor, or straight drop back pass with him, which didn't look anything different to me. I 100% agree with you that it appears Watson also gets too cute/Outsmarting (don't know if that's a real word or not), when he did (on the rare occasion) change things up (Wildcat) and it worked two or three plays in a row, he immediately then went back to Martinez in the shotgun, and usually ran the ZR.

Because that would be ...m*******? I think we did change it up though, all sniping aside. The gameplans we put together to attack teams like Washington, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Missouri, Texas - all very different. If you watch the way we went after those defenses, it was not the same way at all. Of course, down the stretch we were fairly limping at QB and more limited in our options. I could say the Colorado plan with Green was fairly good, given that Green was a third stringer. house/Nexus I honestly don't know anything about different footwork requirements in the I as opposed to the shotgun. Can one of you elaborate? Thanks. I agree with you up to a point here Zoogie, our gameplans were varied and different going into the games, but it didn't appear they were adapted at all during the game. We seem to be an offense that, when the defense takes something away, we insist that we are not going to something different. Maybe the overall offensive scheme is "stubborness".

Boy did he prove me wrong, I really thought he would struggle due to his size, but he seems to have terrific instincts to slip tackles and find the ball. And when he finds the ball, he finishes the play. I wonder as me move into the bigger but maybe a tad slower Big 10 if he will move into a role a little bit similar to Haag, move him around quite a bit on D and let him cover backs out in space. Something just to maybe keep him from being tied up with the big O linemen. Should be an impressive LB corps next year.

First off, I'm not bashing the D at all, they absolutely kept us in the game with numerous great stops. But my thought is, if you bring pressure, which Landry has not handled well, maybe we force him into a bad decision where we have an opportunity to make a big defensive play. I'm sorry, if you give a D1 qb six or seven seconds to throw, someone will get open, no matter how good the secondary is. This play was eerily similar to the A&M game, we had them pinned back inside their five in third and long, no pressure, lots of time to throw, and another long third down conversion. Our front four did not put consistant pressure on the QB this season, and if not for a superlative secondary I think we would have seen several more big plays put up on us. Again, let me emphasis, I'm not ragging on the D, I think they were really, really solid all year. I've just always been of an aggressive mindset coaching, and I like to see our D playing that way. I realize that playing that way leaves you open to giving up the big play, but I still feel that our D could have made more big plays that would have taken some of the load off our offense.

No I agree with the first part. It's why I said, that would have been better and it's what I think we should have done. But it's a different ball game when the other team knows you have no threat to throw (Burkhead...not really. His throws are like fake punts, but a little more usable. You get a few shots to use them instead of just one, but that's it. Maybe reverses are a better comparison. You can run 2 or 3 in a game, but it's never a threat on its own, just something to keep defenses honest.). Without the presence of a throwing threat, OU's defense or even most any defense could just load up and stop the run with a good degree of effectiveness. Still, that could have happened and we could have still protected our lead, or clawed back to get the FG at the end. So I completely agree. On the second sentence, I hope it's the last time to say this but Taylor can't roll out because he can't throw on the run. I don't know if he can throw on the run or not, have we seen it this year to be able to tell? But I know one thing for certain, he can't throw off his back, and if you roll him out, at least then the option to tuck it and run presents itself. At least it would be something different.

I hope you're joking about the defense. The offense GAVE a powerful OU offense the ball with great field position 4 times. Any team that gave OU the field position that NU did would be THRILLED to hold them uner 35 points. This is what Watson's offense has done to the fans. We've become accustomed to winning games with tremendous defense and no offense. Now all of a sudden people think if the defense doesn't play PERFECT, then they didn't play well enough to win. I've got news for you, no defense plays a perfect game for 14 games in a row. Unfortunately, if this defense doesn't play perfect, they lose. It was somewhat tongue and cheek, but it's not as though the defense lit the World on fire. OU averages 7.3 yards per pass attempt on average. Against us, they average 8.3 yards per attempt. OU averages 5.4 yards per play. Against us, they average 5.7 yards per play. You would have thought with the times we gave them the short field they wouldn't have had a lot of yards due to not having to go the length of the field. However, they had nearly their average for yards. Then, we look at when we played that juggarnaut Iowa State team. For the season, they averaged 317.4 yards per game. Against us, they had 360 yards meaning almost 12% more than their average. Against Okie State, the D gave up for the most part what Okie State has averaged for the year. It was the offense that had to bail out the defense. What does all of this mean? It means that we're not very consistent at all. It's a very rare occurrence that both the offense and the defense plays well in the same game. We lead the league in penalties, and we have done so since 2008. We're leading the country in fumbles. This team does have a lot of talent. If it were ever to be consistent both on offense and defense, we would be nearly unstoppable. I realize a lot of people want to start chucking coaches as soon as the bowl game is over, but I believe that is premature. In year three, we've had to break a new QB in each and every year. I'd like to see what this offense can do with a two or three year starter. I'm starting to wonder if a zone read team(where the QB carries as much as they do)can keep a qb healthy enough to be a legimate two or three starter, they just don't seem to hold up well to the continuall pounding.

Which coach decides who is in at QB?

Don't settle for three, lets get the six and win it right here. Don't want to trust to our offense in OT, one big play can sink our D there.

We have tohave a 3 and out and try for decent field position.

Man, Martinez just locks on his man.

Get after him here Carl.

Stay with it. Hell, let him throw it if we need to.

Is Musberger going to go off on Bob since he's ragging on the official. Can't afford to lose Haag. Lets give to Burkhead.

Time for Martinez to come out. Does everybody despise Musberger has much as I do.

Give Watson credit there, love the first down call, Martinez has got to start producing. Is he too hurt to take off and pick up a few yards there. Looks like he's just panicking.

Boy did we need that. Give our D a little rest. Here it comes, Watson will not change it will he?

Big series here, if he calls zone read on the first play, will someone go fire him NOW.

We need to throw some, but how about something early in the series, first maybe our defense better get it together.

Now Carl, lets get some pressure on Landry, going to need a defensive TD, can't give him so much time to throw.

More of the same from Watson. Martinez is throwing the ball ok when it's not 3rd and long. Put him under center and get rid of that damn zone read.

Oh man (I can use man, I qualify under the previously listed criteria)is that funny. Sometime take a look at the high school sports board, you'll see lots of that, and not in jest. Maybe we should go to English as a first language instead of the second.

I agree Iowa will be like Colorado, they may want to be our rival, and say they are, but until they turn it into a rivalry on the field, they are just the team we play last in the league. I think Penn ST takes on the role of Oklahoma, a storied program that is respected and for the most part lets their actions on the field as opposed to in the media, say how good they are. We may play them much earlier in the year each season, but that is the one I think people will be looking forward to each year.