Posted by Dr Fro 7:47 AM
I love the smell of fried bacon in the morning...

Random thoughts on the game:

What can I say? Saturday was simply awesome. No doubt, the best TX-OU game I have been to. My record has improved to 9-3-1 when I attend the game. Other notable statistics:

- UT is getting very close to having the 2nd most wins in football:

Michigan 871
ND 828
Texas 826
Nebraska 811

I think it is safe to assume we will pass ND this year.

- To my knowledge, we are 2-2 versus the #1 teams since I enrolled at UT. We beat USC in 2005 (season) and OU in 2008. We lost to Ohio State in 2006 andOU in 2003. Help me out here if I am wrong. That seems unlikely to have even had four games against #1 in 5.5 years, much less to win 2 of them. Hmm.

- We have now won 3 of the past 4 against OU by a cumulative margin of 61 points. They beat us by 7 last year. Nevertheless, the public perception will continue to be that OU owns us. Our experience from 2000-2004 has a disproportionate effect on public perception.

- We are 58-40 against the Land Theives all-time. I think there are 4 ties in there, too.

How about a few pics?






How do I feel about being #1? Not great. It was wonderful to fly under the radar for a while. I reckon our opponents will want to knock us off our perch. Heck, three teams that have been ranked #1 (USC, UGA, OU) have already lost this year. Let's just say that I ain't booking a flight to Miami just yet...

I did, however, put $5 on UT to win it all several months ago. If that pays out, I get $95. A friend of mine (we'll call him Radam Rickey) didn't have the confidence to make the same bet when we were in Vegas this summer. Sucka!

As far as being #1, I think that it is hard to discern much difference between Alabama, PSU and us. I think PSU has the easiest remaining schedule. Bama and UT have some tough ones and a conference championship game. I would not be surprised if we both dropped a game down the stretch. That said, I think we have a >90% chance of winning the conference, as we would have to drop 2 and OU would have to win them all (notice I am ignoring Tech) to not win the South. I am not afraid of the B12 North in the championship game.

One funny outcome of the game was that Sam Bradford put up great statistics (better than Colt except the 1 real INT), but because his defense let him down, he dropped in the Heisman polls. Go figure.

We got to our seats only to learn that two OU fans were sitting next to us. I guess that they finally figured out that they could have more fun by moving and found two UT sorority girls sitting in the O-Who section to trade with. These girls were showing about 93% of their mammary glands. Mrs Fro told me not to look. I did my best. Can somebody tell me when "whore" became en vogue for UT sorority girls? It was not en vogue when I was in school (1991-1996), but man it is now. It isn't limited to UT sorority girls, I think that it is kinda in style for all women. Is it the Paris Hilton effect? Whatever it is, it is the coolest thing that has happened this side of Will Muchamp moving to Austin.

Big Game Bob lost again. What is his record in big games? He's lost several straight (to my recollection, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003) BCS games, 3 of 4 to us and he dropped the B12 CCG in a big way in 2003. Seems to me that Stoops is Poops. No, seriously, he is a very good coach. He exudes confidence, and his teams thrive off of that. He goes for shock-and-awe, and that helps him pile it on inferior opponents. But when he plays a team that is not afraid, he loses that advantage. Then it becomes Xs and Os. This weekend, he didn't expect three Os lined up on one side running crossing patterns. He also thought our Xs in the secondary could not cover. They could.

Bring on Missou. They are terribly overrated (still), and we have their number We have OSU's number, too. Neither one has beaten us in Austin since we formed the conference. The game in Lubbock will be a war. Should be fun.

7 Comment(s):

Posted by  Beau, at 9:32 PM, October 13, 2008  

Your seats were better than mine. On the lighter side, I figured out how to upload a video to youtube...The Eyes

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Posted by  Dr Fro, at 8:21 AM, October 14, 2008  

Acutally, those weren't my pics.

My seats were just a little to the left of yours.

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Posted by  Unknown, at 10:06 AM, October 14, 2008  

What an unbelievable game!! It was the 2nd best ut game I think I have ever witnessed. Bring on Missouri and lets just take this thing one game at a time!!

Glaze

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Posted by  Anonymous, at 11:07 AM, October 14, 2008  

Sooner Fan analysis of the game in 10 points....

#1 RYAN REYNOLDS being hurt is why we lost .........partial myth ...
in the run game, he was a huge loss ... the first long run Crow did not react and then got himself blocked very quickly .... RR is very good at reading the play and would have been huge against the run.
IN the pass game ... RR was just as bad as crow (we will get to the differences in production for texas in a sec) our success and failure as a D against the pass was 90% scheme and 10% players.

#2 so if it was scheme and not execution then what happened/what was the first half vs second half difference?
ok we all know by now that the big problem was the texas new formation with shiply in the TE roll (this is trips to the strong side with shiply in the near slot)
this formation puts our corner out wide ... our SAM/nickel (more on him later) on the far slot and in cover 2 (both S in deep halves) the MIKE on the near slot (shiply) off the line of scrimmage (not in man but more of a matchup zone)
why didn't this formation kill us in the first half ... and for parts of the 3rd q?
ANSWER scheme in the first half texas threw from this formation only 5 times ... in 2 of the times we shifted to cover 1 before the snap (1 S deep) with the SS (harris) in man coverage on the near slot. and the mike only in a short zone or blitzing. texas did not hurt us in these 2 cases.... another time we got a great pass rush and mccoy threw the ball away.... in the other 2 we were in 2 DEEP and shiply had 2 REC one short and one for 15 just passed RR. The rest of the first half we played mostly great D with the exception of dumb offsides and questionable late hits. up at the half 21-20 only giving up 1 TD on D

#3 Second half what changed? well we did a good job early on in the second half.... on texas first position they came out in the formation twice and we went to cover 1 both times.... and got off the field....
as the second half went on we mixed in more and more of cover 2 vs that formation.... and each time they hit shiply on either a hook ... or on a seem right behind the MIKE backer ... with or with our RR we only stoped that formation in the cover 1 ... and basically never in cover 2 ...

#4 Other problems with Brents calls .... 2 big ones on 2 huge plays ... on 3rd and 7 at the beginning of texas' 90 yard drive ... we run cover 1 (which is good) ... but we rush 6 both Lbers ... leaving the quick slant open ... shiply goes up the field ... and is covered ... and our SAM backer is beat on the slant for 8 yards and a first down as good and clayton is in space for a Lber he is not a DB any more ... if we just rush 5 here we have a backer playing middle zone and we get the stop ...

next and here is my biggest gripe all day .... the last drive on 3rd and 3 right before the long run ... with crow in the game we shift to cover 3 (for only the second time all day first was 2nd and long) ...(cover 3 3 guys in deep 3rds usually 2 S and a corner but in this case we use crow as the middle S) ... cover 3 is fine but not on 3rd and 3 when we need a stop ... horrible horrible call ...


#5 the Dline played very well and i think it is amazing that we were not held one time the entire game ... Mccoy is unblock able ... and granger had a nice return ...
travis lewis is a man on the field and clayton is a good player ... our corners while beaten once each ... did not give up the huge play ... my only gripe here is with jackson ...he needs to not go for the pick and just lay out the WR.
Now we did have way way 2 many penalties and that kept texas in the game in the first half.

#6 on to the O .... great job over all ... 35 points against texas is great and should be enough to win . ... I am not as worried about the run game as some ... first texas is great against the run and second we actually had chance to make several 6 to 10 yard runs ... and 1 guy each time just missed his block JG had a horrible day blocking in the run game ...and he cost us 2 runs at least ... another couple of times ...we had OT chip then go get the Lber .... but their chip was not good enough to let the guard get leverage and the DE makes the play ...... can we run better yes should we have run jumbo and played smash mouth maybe ... but bottom line we scored plenty to win .... I also think we should have gone up top a few times to chaney or to JG ... but that is splitting hairs ...

#7 kick return for the TD ...
i will not get into the non-calls ....we all saw them .... the biggest problem on that return was sam proctor ... leaving his lane and going after the runner early ... it set up texas blocking and gave them the seem.

#8 Fake Punt
GREAT GREAT CALL it was old school bob stoops ... and it should have worked except for 3 things any of which would have given us the extra 18 inches
a. sam proctor falls down for no reason right before he would have blocked the texas defender
b. Gresham looking around and not blocking the texas defender
c. this is the biggest one to me is knall had just run into JG's back right at him he gets the first down ... he tried to dance around and it cost us ...

#9 All is not lost
texas has a very very hard road ahead ... Mizzou will light the texas DB's up ... they will not even care about the run game ... and they will put points on the board ...
will they win?? don't know because texas will score a bunch on them as well ... but it will be a hard test ... Tech also has a great shot against texas in lubbock.
osu IMHO has the worst odds against texas ... it will be a high profile match up with texas maybe coming off a loss ... and osu doesn't throw as well as the other and texas is great against the run.

#10 even if texas doesn't lose 2 ... as long as their L is to tech (or OSU) we still have a great shot at "winning" the south ... as we would be the high bcs team in the 3 way tie.
and there is the chance of an all big 12 national championship game although that would take a 2 loss SEC champion, a loss by PSU and prolly USC.

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Posted by  Dr Fro, at 4:31 PM, October 14, 2008  

Re: point # 10...

I assume you are on OU fan and thus a Big Eighter. I am a UT fan and thus a SWCer. As such, I can speak with authority that Texas Tech will never be a factor in any sort of championship.

The closest they came since I stepped foot on the 40 acres was a 5-way tie for second place in 1994. A&M got first place but due to probation (for cheating, even though they say that they have never cheated), they were ineligible for the conference championship. So, Tech was able to claim a conference championship.

Since this is a real conference, not the SWC and since the powers that be (in this case, UT and OU) are not on probation), there is no way in hell that Tech will so much as sniff first place in the Big XII South. They'll lose to somebody stupid that they shouldn't - maybe even twice.

I am going to do a separate post on the fake punt.

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Posted by  Anonymous, at 5:17 PM, October 14, 2008  

Sooner Born, so yes a Big Eighter... But also a Rice Alum and legacy who spent most Saturdays at Rice Stadium so also a SWC-er (if that qualifies)...

I agree with many of your points and enjoy your posts... but I disagree with your logic of:

"Neither one has beaten us in Austin since we formed the conference"
and
"The closest they came since I stepped foot on the 40 acres was a 5-way tie for second place in 1994."

You seem to assert that just because something hasn't happened before it never can... I disagree - and maybe that is due to the eternal rice fan optimism in me. But if games were strictly decided by the history books they wouldn't be worth playing.

I think the last two seasons have proven that "anyone can beat anyone on any given night"...

The fact is simply that ut, Tech, and OSU control their own destiny at this point.

ut was able to out-scheme OU and make the adjustments, but will not having a Fullback or Tight End catch up with them? can Colt continue to carry the team - can they win if he completes less than 80% vs. mizzou, osu, or tech? Can aTm shock the nation (again)?

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Posted by  Dr Fro, at 10:56 AM, October 15, 2008  

Anybody can beat anybody on any given Saturday, but in the end, the champions keep coming from the same small pool. Last year, OU won the Big 12 despite a bunch of hoo-hah from Kansas and Missouri. LSU won the National Championship despite the fact the teams such as South Florida were once in contention.

Tech will never be relevant. History is prelude (at least that is what Sen. Biden tells me).

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