Not Prime Time

October 8th, 2006

by Justin Waganer
Senior Sports Writer

The 2006 edition of Oklahoma-Texas was not unlike many recent games in the series, which is why it is altogether shocking that Oklahoma lost. If you were part of the national audience that watched the game you saw one team laying out the hits, holding on to the ball and not making game shifting penalties … the same thing that happened over and over during Oklahoma’s recent five game win streak in the series. Here’s the kicker though, this time the team doing the right things had horns on their helmets.

Anybody who walks away from this game and thinks that Oklahoma is falling apart en route to a trip to the Independence Bowl is kidding themselves. Anybody who watched and feels that the coaching staff made all the wrong plans therefore causing Oklahoma to drop a Red River embarrassment is sadly mistaken. This game can be described quite easily by talking of one particular aspect of the game that is sometimes ridiculously overblown … confidence. Not confidence in yourself as an athlete, but in yourself as a game breaker, right now Texas has “it” and Oklahoma does not.

Before you start spouting that statistics don’t matter, look at Oklahoma having over 100 yards more total offense than Texas, allowing the Longhorns just 232 yards of total offense. This should tell you one thing about Oklahoma no matter how upset you are about Saturdays loss, the defense IS getting better. The last two times OU faced somebody with an offense that potent 400 and 500 yard games were posted. This loss can’t be blamed on the defensive game plan. They realistically gave up 21 points to the Longhorns.

The Oklahoma offense had a game plan that worked for the majority of the day against the stout Texas defense by using Adrian Peterson on every play. Whether he ran it or acted like he was running it Oklahoma keyed on Texas keying on him and play action faked their way to some pretty impressive drives. Here’s where the problems came in, the Sooner offensive line played well, they just didn’t concentrate. Five false start penalties and a hold or two just for good measure stopped countless drives from having any sort of continuity at all. Throw in some defensive off-sides (at least 3 by my count) and you are hurting yourself even more.

Where the game really was decided was here, turnovers. Every year of Oklahoma’s five game streak over Texas, the Sooners seemed to dominate the turnover battle and did by going +9 over that five game stretch. Saturday, Oklahoma not only lost the turnover battle 5-0, but they luckily recovered three other fumbles. Texas? They never had a loose ball or something resembling an interception all day. That, my friends, is the difference. Confidence, be one of the people that calls it “swagger” if you like, but this game needs its winner to be sure that they are it. Right now, Texas is sure, OU isn’t.

What does it take to change? Not Vince Young per se, but somebody like him or the cast of characters that did it for OU for five years. Somebody to take over a game like Rocky Calmus, Roy Williams, Quentin Griffin, Jason White, or Teddy Lehman did from 2000 to 2004. These Sooners have loads of talent, but nobody seems to be able to turn the tide.

Take my advice if you ever will and don’t be a fan that looks like a moron and call for the heads of the coaching staff. Coaches can’t coach you to not jump off-side or jump early and they sure can’t coach you to hold on to the ball! Just as Mack shouldn’t have been fired for losing to OU these guys can’t be fired for losing to Texas. Remember, they should be 4-1 right now staring right down the barrel of a seven game stretch of VERY winnable games. As a matter of fact, right now, Sooner fans should hope Bob Stoops is as good as Mack Brown was during his Red River Funk; they rarely lost after the first weekend of October.

“The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don’t have it.” – George Bernard Shaw

Entry Filed under: Oklahoma Sports