Dear Shawn Watson,

[zoogs]

The loss was not on the D. Yes they may have given up quite a few yards, but 4 turnovers assisted the OU O.

 

Yes, and I am not pinning the loss on the D. But 17 OU points are on the board directly because of 3 defensive gaffes. I suppose we could cut that down to 13, since the 30-yard pass after the fumble would only have been a likely field goal otherwise. I am saying it's a team loss and pinning everything on the offense when all of that happened is crazy.

 

TM has no clue of pocket presence. Of the 7 or so sacks he took tonight, 5 were preventable if he would have made the decision to tuck and run or throw the ball away.

 

Yeah, definitely. This has frustrated me all year.

 

Where was the Power running game. Seemed to work the very few times it was ran.

We do not have very good recievers. Kinnie and McNeil are good, but McNeil is slow and an undersized TE. Good hands and a good route runner, but not a threat. We didn't have a deep threat all game. There were opportunities for shots deep but the personel wasn't there.

 

OU loaded up to stop the power runs early, and I think throughout but am not totally sure.

 

You're dang right on the personnel. More than just receivers, Taylor doesn't really bring the deep vertical passing game with him. If you don't have the personnel, that ties your hands a lot with the playcalling. Taylor to begin with, with his lack ability as a quarterback to sit back, stare down pressure and pick apart defenses with his arm, limited playcalling. Taylor without his running ability and being effective in the Zone Read...why is he even out there? Honest question, what is Taylor without the zone read and threat of running? He brings something to the table passing, but once he went cold and stayed cold, we were really in a tough spot.

 

If you ask me, we weren't conservative enough on offense. I don't understand that.

 

If you include the Martinez intereception in the endzone and Burkheads fumble when it looked like the Wildcat was starting to roll in the middle of the 4th Quarter tied 20-20

 

I'm glad you bring this up, because these are more instances where our offensive design and playcalling did not hurt us, but player error did. That was an incredibly poor decision and a bad throw by Taylor, and it was one of MANY. I don't remember how many plays Taylor completely busted on his own but I think it's got to be 10 or more. Talk about single-handed destruction.

 

The would-be third down conversion to Kinnie that is thrown way behind, some other dangerous misfires to nobody apparently, all the sacks and all the poor reads, if they were even reads. When this is what your starting QB is able to do, you can pick apart playcalling given that the OC had nothing to work with. I am very critical of some of the playcalls, but then again I guess you got to keep this in mind.

 

I stress again I'm not saying the defense won the game. But that vaunted secondary was embarrassed more than a couple of times and sadly it made a big difference each time. I still think we have a great D, but this was a team loss today.

[krc1995]

dp

[krc1995]

Still shaking my head at the whole tmart-deer in the headlights playing, and now I have some more questions?

 

1. Does he practice? He looked like game one- not sure where to find the receivers or which way to run. Then if he would have scampered out of the pocket he would have made 4-5 yards going to his right, but he always doubled back. His indecisveness is what just killed the O

 

2. If he's hurt, why is he playing wideout? At what the hell is so "tricky" about him lining up at receiver. Is it just because he's a big target?

 

3. Sorry Zoogies, I agree completed with your take, save for blaming the D. Landry is awesome and OU gots some great receivers. Although I didn't realize we gabe 450 yards. The were just awesome on 3rd down and in the redzone. I am not sure why we didn't get a little more creative on the blitzing but I thought they played very well. How frustrating is it to a on our defensive and know that your O is never going to give you a lead?

[husker_99]

Zoogies please quit defending Watson. All 3 of our losses were winnable. We were 17-0 up on OK and he blew it by being ineffective for 3 quarters. I think everyone wanted Watson to succeed but he has done this to himself time and time again. Unless we get rid of Watson he will continually lose us games we should've won and those are the hardest to take because we know we had them and let them off the hook again. You can sit there and blame everybody else except Watson and it won't work. A good OC overcomes injuries and finds a way to win. Something Watson can't do. Sure 10-3 is great but i can guarantee you we won't be anything near it next year if Watson is still calling plays. In fact we probably will be a .500 teams because of him next year.

[zoogs]

1. Taylor always had his work cut out for him as raw as he was coming in. Husker_x said it best; D- QB, B+ runner. Long, long way to go. Unfortunately those areas where you really need to see Taylor making strides are not the kind you can address while he's out there in the line of fire and starting games. It's the kind of stuff that will take a long, patient offseason (or more...) to hone. In the meantime, the idea with starting Taylor from the beginning was that his game-breaking ability was too much to pass up. But now that he is injured, I really wonder what value Bo sees in sticking with him, other than loyalty. And not to make a dig here...well, OK, I will. Where was that loyalty to Zac, Bo?

 

2. He wasn't really playing wideout so much as QB in the Wildcat. We go every play with Taylor in the huddle along with Rex and sometimes Rex will come out and QB and sometimes Taylor will. That's the whole premise of the Wildcat, so that the defense doesn't know what to expect going into the huddle. Otherwise it's just a straight up QB substitution. It'd be like sending in one QB to run a certain set of plays and another QB to run a different set of plays.

 

3. I added a disclaimer to my original post. Not blaming the D. Just saying their miscues played a part in this loss, so it was a team loss.

 

How frustrating is it to a on our defensive and know that your O is never going to give you a lead?

 

I suppose somewhere there's a defensive coordinator wondering that, but it's not Bo or Carl tonight after we went up 17-0, and Oklahoma marched 80 yards in 4 plays to score a touchdown before marching 91 yards the next drive to get a field goal and cut it to a one-score game.

[krc1995]

I don't think OU was fooled when tmart lined up WR. We consinstantly used up most of the play clock(unlike them), so there was plenty of time for their D to adjust to Rex being in the wildcat. We need to get out there and run the dam play instead of being so indecisive.

 

and I still think 450 yards given up on D does not represent the way they played. Hell, we turned it over in the first possession of the 2nd half, on what, our own 30 and they couldn't convert that to points. That's pretty dang good

[Haspula]

Martinez tries to do way to much sometimes. He thinks he is facing western kentucky hilltoppers when he is actually facing a number #9 ranked team in the country

[The Dude]

Oklahoma is taking away the zone read. Pretend your a football coach.

 

 

Signed, The Dude.

 

Wishfull thinking I suppose.

[zoogs]

A good OC overcomes injuries and finds a way to win.

 

The only thing we had to overcome was Taylor Martinez unfortunately. I like the guy as a player, but he had a really second half.

 

Wishfull thinking I suppose.

 

I think we saw it go away though, basically, didn't we? Except for the Wildcat - which was working -

[krc1995]

My point for the D being pissed about the O's not scoring points, is that during the normal ebb and flow of a typical game, the D would not being playing with their backs up against a wall. This game, our O gave the Sooners great field possessions at least four times. I think that was a little wearing on the D to get jerked off of the sidelines back into play. Plus all the 3 and outs, I think our D did a great job.

[zoogs]

My point for the D being pissed about the O's not scoring points, is that during the normal ebb and flow of a typical game, the D would not being playing with their backs up against a wall. This game, our O gave the Sooners great field possessions at least four times. I think that was a little wearing on the D to get jerked off of the sidelines back into play. Plus all the 3 and outs, I think our D did a great job.

 

I think our D did do a fine job in the end but you have to be balanced here. We got a 17 point lead on them. The Sooners get the ball at their own 20. And get a TD. Then the Sooners get the ball at their own 20 again, and drive 71 yards (sorry I said 91 before, but Yahoo! messed it up) for a field goal.

 

Before then their average field position was their own 25. The farthest downfield being the 40. It was only after the game was 17-10 again, that Helu's fumble (more of a takeaway by the OU defender, I guess) gave them the ball at our 31. I think that one, and the start of the third quarter, are the only 2 times the O gave them great field position. A few other times they got it at between their 30 and 40, but at least one or two of those were off punt returns. You can certainly blame the O for the 3-and-outs, though. Taylor

[wilber24]

Tmart is a talent at some level. But he is not a team player and I dont think he did us one thing to win the game. Give me a break. We were up 17 0 there are no excuses. He choked plain and simple. Its almost like he tried to make us lose he played so bad. I wont be sad if I never see him in red again.

I am on this bandwagon.

[strigori]

Watson manages to look decent when he has superior talent. When the talent is equal, we get what we saw last night, and against every good team in the last three years.

 

 

Maybe Scott Frost is not ready for being the OC, but good god, he's got to be a massive upgrade over Gilmore.

 

Changes need to be made. If we go into the Big Ten next year with Watson has the head of the offense, we will be lucky to get 7 wins. Changes need to be made, other than Beck and Brown I'm all for the removal of the rest of the offensive staff.

[Cy the Cyclone]

Offensive line was horrible, especially on pass protection. Backs can't hang onto the ball. Receivers are too slow to be perceived as a threat by any credible defense with Paul gone. QB's can't throw accurately even when healthy. Depth is totally lacking in almost all areas of the offense.

 

The Huskers started off hot with Martinez but turned into a one trick pony after achieving some success. The Wildcat formation was a nice gimmick to keep the mirage going a few more games but this offense was destined to fall apart once a few good coaching staffs got a look at it. Luckily the season was back loaded with the poorer teams or we would be looking at MU as the North champs right now...

 

As a prediction...with the loss of a lot of defensive players, I'm thinking things are looking real rough for NU in the Big 10 next year unless a QB develops quickly over the off-season because a one diminsional offense just ain't gonna get it done even against inferior Big 10 talent.

[zoogs]

How in the world was the talent level equal on offense last night?! You are seeing things out of our walk-on receiver (heck of a job, though) and 70% Taylor that I am not.

 

I don't know, I guess most coaches would struggle without superior talent.