My views, feel free to disagree...
1) The vitriol directed at Taylor is over the top. Cut his scholarship fund? Taylor sucks? Freshman had a rough game, but that's unmerited IMO. Another example of hype becoming a player's downfall. More moderate voices since the beginning of the year nailed the situation for what it is: Taylor is an athlete at QB, who brings explosion and the big play to the offense while being completely raw as a passer, and prone to cold spells, and extreme cases of nerves. I felt Taylor should not have started, and that's why. But Taylor doesn't suck either...and attitude or not, shouldn't deserve the kind of hate he is all of a sudden getting. I guess I did become a fan of the guy over the games, even while acknowledging that he's a potential bomb waiting to explode and implode the team. Which is a separate issue. I thought Taylor battled quite well tonight and made it obvious he is here to stay. He was hurting quite badly by the end, physically and emotionally. The fact is that he has significantly degressed since the Ok St. game. I see it as a result of posiion coaching (Watson dedhoarse ) in what has turned a mobile and very athletic qb who can throw quite well when he's feeling it into a statue pocket passer. Even against ok st. when he threw for over 300 yards, he also ran for over 100 by making plays with his feet when the pressure came. He didnt even attempt that tonight and it was sickening. Freshman or not, hurt or not, it's poor coaching b/c he has considerably digressed.
2) Defense: you got owned. 17 of Oklahoma's 23 points at least were directly caused by three huge plays given up by the secondary. Cassidy, Hagg, and pretty much everyone (I guess it was Dennard's man). These are good players in a very good defensive system. But these three plays are more costly than I could even begin talking about. There was a lot of good defense today, and a lot of sharpness from Jones with his pinpoint passes. But there was also some giving up big runs up the middle (DL?...) and those three ugly, inexcusable plays. You cannot expect to go against a quality offensive team and make THREE miscues like that, and still expect to win. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE YARDS today by the Sooners. I will not call for anyone's heads though. But just think about that. 4-5-5. Strong disagreement here. Defense gave up two drive with no excuse but the rest of the game, 455 yards and 23 points i thought was very impressive considereing how many plays they ran. Just like last year when they had 380 yards with 85 plays. Defense did what they had to do and they just simply got tired into the 4th with our incompetent o constantly turning it over and going 3 and out time and again in the 3rd. Fact is, the D made two huge 3 and out stands despite the exhaustion late in the 4th deep in ou territory to give us good field position twice.
3) Starting Taylor. Watson called a great game early. The fourth down playaction was ballsy and masterful. Then Taylor loses his cool and doesn't regain it for the rest of the game. Taylor was not prepared to play today IMO. I don't know what to say since we are so thin at QB and Green was even more scary of an option. But this decision to start Taylor, which is Bo's as well as Watson's, should be something to be talked about.
I'll agree with this but it is hindsight. tounge in cheek. These coaches are with the team in practice all week, they know more than we do.
4) Watson and the Last Drive. We scored 20 points in the first half and looked on track to do more than our fair share against the Sooners. Indeed, probably most felt if we could put this number up on Oklahoma, we'd win (but see #2: defense). At some point you got to commit to Burkhead/grinding it out. Why am I so defensive of Watson in spite of 2009? Because I loved and embrace the 2009 philosophy, which Bo directed. Shut it down on offense, grab a lead and hang the heck onto it. Keep it out of the realm of killer mistakes, and I don't care if we average 3 yards a carry as long as we are chewing clock and getting a field goal here or there. you already answered it, i remember the turning point last year after the Prince pick against OU and the insertion of Lee. Tonight however, things were working well until Taylor threw the pick in the endzone.
So WHY, when the game is on the line, we have the ball thanks to Rex on our own 40, with just 20 yards at minimum to go, and nearly 2 minutes on the clock to get there, do we not run it? Rex had success in the Wildcat and we have enough time to average 3 yards a clip and still get to field goal range with a break or two. So we throw a quickslant on first down, fine. But on 2nd and medium, after seeing how Taylor has reacted to pressure ALL DAY, and really, Taylor's dancing around into linemen in the pocket has been a chronic occurence all freaking year. When we can rely on any of our multiple ways to attack the defense on the ground to put us in third and short, why do we call something that has ANY chance at all of putting us into 3rd and 16? There's no criticism on the two plays after that because we were desperate anyways. It's these first two plays that killed us.
no disagreement on this
There, now I know what it's like to play armchair OC. I don't think Watson should be fired, for the usual reasons. Just like I don't think the defensive coaches should be fired. But I think this is fair criticism of a couple of very costly decisions.
Watson's time to go is now. Last year i was the first to say he had reasons/excuses. But this year he has the players. But a physical offensive line that is not a pass pro line. A mobile running type qb with ok throwing ability is not Tom Brady. Rex Burkead and Roy Helu need to get the ball straight ahead a heck of a lot more than they did. Wats just simply does not have the ability to identify the strengths and weaknesses of his players, and too many times over the last two years he has gone away from strengths the to the weaknesses.
5) Bo. This goes right with the above. I loved 2009 because of the conservative approach. Why did Bo go away from that today? It was especially evident on the last game, unless Watson went rogue on Bo, which I doubt, because it was evident on Bo's approach through the day. He did go balls out on this one, which is to his credit, but honestly there were some very dangerous decisions there that could have cost us the game at multiple times. The 4th and 1 was surprising, but it worked. That doesn't mean it wasn't hella dangerous. The fake punt - also surprising, and I'm sad I didn't get to see it. But also EXTREMELY dangerous. We are talking Les Miles dangerous or CU 2008 dangerous if we don't make those 4 yards, late in the game and down 3 in our own territory. And of course the end of the game.
Since when did Bo have little faith in our defense? I suppose this game gave him no reason to have faith. Still, I really believe going away from the 2009 approach when the chips were down was a questionable decision. Using it opened up Watson to a ton of unfair criticism, but using it the way it was used in the 2nd half of this game opens up Watson to a lot of valid criticism.
I dont think it was lack of faith in the d, but rather it was obvious that the d was not quite what it was a year ago. BUT they did make some big stands late deep in ou territory to give us 2 more chances. The gutsy playcalling i thought was good, and i do agree with your assessment of the conservativeness of a year ago, but this team may have a different attitude when it comes to playing to win as opposed to playing not to lose. That fake punt? Was going to be a beauty i bet, it was set up pretty nice, but that again is good coaching on the part of ou.
6) Misc things on playcalling...the zone read was fine IMO. Not with Taylor, though, after the first few drives. But with Rex out of the Wildcat. All those Wildcat plays were pretty good. Although I would say the throws were very dangerous. Rex should have thrown the second one away (or sooner), and the first one was off target. Good to give them something to think about though. The one that failed was Mike Caputo's bad snap that resulted in a fumble. Throwing the ball with Taylor quickly became a completely untenable option, and yet we stuck with it. I like showing faith to your players, I think it enables them to succeed. But this is a situation where no faith was deserved.
