Well, sheitt..... That second half sucked.
But I'm pretty damn encouraged by what I saw this week compared to last week or, say, 87% of the last 100 or so Fall Saturdays.
No Myles Price (or Sparkman). A beleaguered offensive line. A QB making his first career start on the road, against a top 10 team that's won 11 straight games at home. We were 10.5 point underdogs for a reason. But you wouldn't have known any of that if you watched the game.
To my eye, that was the best the offensive line's played all season. They gave up some cheap sacks late when we were down and obviously throwing it, but it was a big improvement from what we've seen the last few weeks. It will be interesting to see during a rewatch how much of that was the OL playing better versus Behren making a quick decision & getting rid of the football.
SaRodorick ran really hard. 20 carries is the most of any running back this year. We just needed a few more yards on the ground in some really key 3rd and 4th and shorts. Part of me wonders why we didn't try to use Donovan as a battering ram in some of those situations.
Major shout-out to the WR corps. I thought they played great, despite having just 5 scholarship guys dressed out. Behren throws the ball, what seems like, 96 mph. Sometimes it's 2-3 feet over your head. We caught all of them. WRs made plays. They broke tackles. Got open. Bradley looked like the guy I thought he was going to be going into the season. Trey Cleveland has really emerged the last few weeks.
One of the biggest plays of the game, though, was when Jordan Brown turned around to the wrong side on a comeback route on 3rd and 7. If that's a completion, it's 1st & 10 at the 30-yard line going in, already in range for a game-tying FG, at the worst. That was huge.
Behren is going to be really good one day. Hell, he may already be. He's athletic. Very decisive. And he has a friggin' rocket launcher attached to his shoulder. He completed more throws 20+ yards downfield in one half than we have all season. The same goes for throws over the middle of the field. Way more than the last few weeks. He didn't make many mistakes. At least, not any more than we're accustomed to seeing.
The offense is so much different with Behren. I don't quite understand what it is about Behren that makes our tempo so much faster. But it is. It was crazy fast. Not every team we play is going to be used to defending an offense like that (Oklahoma State's offense is fast in its own right).
I thought the defense played okay, even if allowing over 3 points per drive isn't anything to brag about. They definitely played good enough to win.
In the second half, even though Oklahoma State had already ran 70+ snaps, the defense got 3 consecutive stops that, maybe, should've been enough for us to pull it out. The game is tied 31-31. We throw an interception that's returned inside our own 20 yard-line. The defense forces a FG and then 2 consecutive punts. We ultimately failed to score on our last 6 possessions after taking 31-23 lead.
We played a lot of guys defensively -- Wooten, Tryique Mathews, Rodriguez, Tyler Owens, Kobe Minor. All played big roles, probably because Ok. State churned out almost 100 plays. I thought the secondary won their fair share of battles in coverage against a good group of WRs.
I loved all the aggressive decisions to go for it on 4th down. We shot our shot, no question. McGuire's willingness to do the right thing gives us a chance to win some of these games that we shouldn't win on paper. A lot of coaches around the country don't have had the guts to make some of these decisions.
The next time we see something on film with the other team's kick-off return unit, I hope we try a traditional onside kick. You know, one that bounces. The likelihood of the opposing team calling a fair catch goes up by a lot when you are trying to recover a kick that's never touched the ground.
If you're trying to point the finger at one side of the ball to explain this loss, it's probably special teams. There was the missed FG -- although not a lot of shame in doinking a 45+ yarder.. that happens -- the missed onside kick, multiple bad punts by McNamara (wtf is going on w/ him), catching a punt inside the 5-yard line, an explosive KR for Ok. State, and a couple bad kick returns by us. All of those plays, collectively, probably cost us the game.
I have no clue what we are about to do at the QB spot. I'm pretty confident that Shough will be available two weeks from today. If someone made me put a % on it, I guess it's like 50% Shough / 50% Morton. Really have no idea, though. The clamoring for Behren by the fanbase in general is going to be deafening after today's performance. It's going to be really hard not to run him out there.
Texas Tech is 3-3. Being .500 sucks, but the gauntlet of our schedule is behind us. We play 4 out of the remaining 6 games at home. And there's a legitimate case to be made that we've already played the best 3-4 teams on our schedule.
Ryan left it all out on the field in everything he did. In his honor, we bring you Fields of Gold, so that others facing bone cancer can keep on playing. A portion of proceeds from every case sold is donated to The Little Warrior Foundation.
The Little Warrior Foundation's mission is to fund & find a lasting cure for childhood cancer, with a specific focus on Ewing's Sarcoma.
shop.summerlandwinebrands.com
@Saynotobarefoot
But I'm pretty damn encouraged by what I saw this week compared to last week or, say, 87% of the last 100 or so Fall Saturdays.
No Myles Price (or Sparkman). A beleaguered offensive line. A QB making his first career start on the road, against a top 10 team that's won 11 straight games at home. We were 10.5 point underdogs for a reason. But you wouldn't have known any of that if you watched the game.
To my eye, that was the best the offensive line's played all season. They gave up some cheap sacks late when we were down and obviously throwing it, but it was a big improvement from what we've seen the last few weeks. It will be interesting to see during a rewatch how much of that was the OL playing better versus Behren making a quick decision & getting rid of the football.
SaRodorick ran really hard. 20 carries is the most of any running back this year. We just needed a few more yards on the ground in some really key 3rd and 4th and shorts. Part of me wonders why we didn't try to use Donovan as a battering ram in some of those situations.
Major shout-out to the WR corps. I thought they played great, despite having just 5 scholarship guys dressed out. Behren throws the ball, what seems like, 96 mph. Sometimes it's 2-3 feet over your head. We caught all of them. WRs made plays. They broke tackles. Got open. Bradley looked like the guy I thought he was going to be going into the season. Trey Cleveland has really emerged the last few weeks.
One of the biggest plays of the game, though, was when Jordan Brown turned around to the wrong side on a comeback route on 3rd and 7. If that's a completion, it's 1st & 10 at the 30-yard line going in, already in range for a game-tying FG, at the worst. That was huge.
Behren is going to be really good one day. Hell, he may already be. He's athletic. Very decisive. And he has a friggin' rocket launcher attached to his shoulder. He completed more throws 20+ yards downfield in one half than we have all season. The same goes for throws over the middle of the field. Way more than the last few weeks. He didn't make many mistakes. At least, not any more than we're accustomed to seeing.
The offense is so much different with Behren. I don't quite understand what it is about Behren that makes our tempo so much faster. But it is. It was crazy fast. Not every team we play is going to be used to defending an offense like that (Oklahoma State's offense is fast in its own right).
I thought the defense played okay, even if allowing over 3 points per drive isn't anything to brag about. They definitely played good enough to win.
In the second half, even though Oklahoma State had already ran 70+ snaps, the defense got 3 consecutive stops that, maybe, should've been enough for us to pull it out. The game is tied 31-31. We throw an interception that's returned inside our own 20 yard-line. The defense forces a FG and then 2 consecutive punts. We ultimately failed to score on our last 6 possessions after taking 31-23 lead.
We played a lot of guys defensively -- Wooten, Tryique Mathews, Rodriguez, Tyler Owens, Kobe Minor. All played big roles, probably because Ok. State churned out almost 100 plays. I thought the secondary won their fair share of battles in coverage against a good group of WRs.
I loved all the aggressive decisions to go for it on 4th down. We shot our shot, no question. McGuire's willingness to do the right thing gives us a chance to win some of these games that we shouldn't win on paper. A lot of coaches around the country don't have had the guts to make some of these decisions.
The next time we see something on film with the other team's kick-off return unit, I hope we try a traditional onside kick. You know, one that bounces. The likelihood of the opposing team calling a fair catch goes up by a lot when you are trying to recover a kick that's never touched the ground.
If you're trying to point the finger at one side of the ball to explain this loss, it's probably special teams. There was the missed FG -- although not a lot of shame in doinking a 45+ yarder.. that happens -- the missed onside kick, multiple bad punts by McNamara (wtf is going on w/ him), catching a punt inside the 5-yard line, an explosive KR for Ok. State, and a couple bad kick returns by us. All of those plays, collectively, probably cost us the game.
I have no clue what we are about to do at the QB spot. I'm pretty confident that Shough will be available two weeks from today. If someone made me put a % on it, I guess it's like 50% Shough / 50% Morton. Really have no idea, though. The clamoring for Behren by the fanbase in general is going to be deafening after today's performance. It's going to be really hard not to run him out there.
Texas Tech is 3-3. Being .500 sucks, but the gauntlet of our schedule is behind us. We play 4 out of the remaining 6 games at home. And there's a legitimate case to be made that we've already played the best 3-4 teams on our schedule.
Ryan left it all out on the field in everything he did. In his honor, we bring you Fields of Gold, so that others facing bone cancer can keep on playing. A portion of proceeds from every case sold is donated to The Little Warrior Foundation.
The Little Warrior Foundation's mission is to fund & find a lasting cure for childhood cancer, with a specific focus on Ewing's Sarcoma.
Summerland Wine Brands - Shop - Fields of Gold
@Saynotobarefoot
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