Most Sooner fans do not like Pelini and certainly didn't mind him taking the LSU job with Miles. A lot of this boils down to the beating we took in the Orange Bowl. A lot of it boils down to people missing Mike Stoops on defense. Most of the talk on Pelini addresses his style he brought to OU this year. Everyone says he played a "conservative" type defense. Bend but don't break. We didn't create very many turnovers on defense and were especially low in the interception department. Stoops has said that we will return to the "aggressive" type defense next year, more like we had with Mike Stoops.
When I look back on the season, we did pretty well. Early, we beat some very good passing teams, with tricky schemes offensively. Bowling Green, Houston, and Tech come to mind. We shut out Texas, playing the best game defensively that I have ever seen against Texas, from a defensive standpoint at least. I've been watching OU-Texas since 85. We contained Young all afternoon. We were then able to beat KSTATE, OSU, and A&M, on the road. Not bad when you consider we've been hit by each of those teams in the past with the Mike Stoops "aggressive" defense. If we beat USC, everyone probably loves Pelini.