Normally, I wait until I've re-watched the game to post these, but I've pnly watched it live at this point. I reserve the right to change my mind about any of these thoughts upon re-watch or add thoughts later.
First of all, we have some fans on social media complaining about the conservative play-calling in the 2nd half. That's ludicrous. Josh Heupel called the 2nd half to win. He didn't trust his 2 backup OTs to pass protect (because, well, they hadn't....and they'd already caused 2 fumbles on blindside hits) and that field was a mess. The SEC needs to tell OU to fix that crap. So his choice was: 1) Keep an attacking style of offensive play-calling in the 2nd half which might score more points, but could very well lead to turnovers...which at that point was OU's only path to victory; or 2) Trust the defense to win the game if we ran clock on offense. Basically...trust the defense or trust the Oline. Pretty sure he made the right choice. Good to see a mature coach who can adapt in-game and do what needs to be done to win with various styles of play.
My thoughts:
-Nico wasn't great. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't great. And that's fine. He saw things from a great defensive mind that he had not seen before and he will learn more from this game than any he's played in. And now he has an off week to practice and instill what he experienced. But he still made plays. The TD throw was an elite throw. He made plays with his legs, including the game-sealing first down. He'll play better, but he was good enough.
-The RBs were way better than their stats. The Oline didn't give them much and they made way more out of what they were given. Sampson's TD is a great example.
-That might be the best defensive line performance I've ever seen in a big game for Tennessee. They were DOMINANT. The thing that sticks out most was seeing the depth of the DLine make plays. Jaxon Moi, Jayson Jenkins, Joshua Josephs, Tyre West...all non-starters who made huge plays. We're going to be good on the DL again next year too.
-Pili and Carter are studs. I can't believe how fast Pili is for his size. Carter is becoming one of the better LBs in the SEC. He'll play on Sundays.
-The secondary is better than any of us thought. McCoy and Gibson are the best CB tandem since I don't know when. Christian Harrison isn't just a place holder for Boo....he's a player. And he made plays last night. I love Jakobe Thomas. I think he's our best Safety, including Turrentine. There's a lot of value in having a safety who is willing to turn his body into a missile. He looks like an NFL safety to me. Much of the coverage issues in the past 3 years were also on the LBs. This year's group is just better in pass coverage...at al levels.
-The offensive line wasn't good. Having to play down both OTs completely changed our offense. This should be the last year we're that lacking in depth, but we really need Heard and Campbell to stay healthy. The good news is, Campbell came back a bit before leaving and looked okay. I'm guessing they were managing his health for the long term. Both should be fine in 2 weeks. But OU's Dline still manhandled our OLine, including the interior. Some of that has to do with scheme. They loaded the box and brought a ton of pressure. This unit needs to get healthy and get better. It might be too much to ask, but it would be nice to see some depth develop over the bye week. When/if Umarov gets healthy soon, I wonder if he could play some OT?
-Related to OU's scheme, that was a new tactic from a great defensive mind. Instead of keeping everything in front of them, they brought constant pressure from everywhere and loaded the box. Long term, that will be good for Tennessee. Heupel and Nico saw things that hadn't been thrown at them before. That's now on film. They have an off week to digest and come up with a counter-attack. We have one of the best offensive minds in football as our head coach, so he will find solutions. But the thing that stuck out to me...the announcers said Venables had been preparing for Tennessee since January. That's one of the best defensive minds of this century preparing for our offense the entire off-season. Then he's given a gift when both OTs are injured. Tennessee won anyway.
-Hard to comment on the WRs because I wasn't there and didn't see their separation. Seemed like they may not have gotten separation at times. But here's my biggest question...where is Squirrel this year? Normally, the slot EATS in this offense. This year, Squirrel isn't getting near the targets a slot normally gets, at least not down the field. It'll be interesting to see if that continues.
-Isn't it nice to have a kicker who is almost automatic?
-We played a lot of players on defense. I noted the DLine, but we rotated LBs. We rotated Safeties (Charles played and played well at Safety). Harrison and Boo rotated. I saw Telander and Spillman in at LB. This has been a criticism of this staff the last few years....glad to see them playing more dudes now. It's because, I assume, they trust more dudes.
Overall, great win. We got another monkey off our backs (first road top 15 win since 2006), which keeps happening under Heupel. We won on the road in a hostile environment against a good team with a fan base that was hyped for its first SEC game and a coaching staff that had targeted this game in its preparation since January. And while they scored at the end and made us sweat for just a moment, we controlled the game throughout. On to bye week, then on to Arkansas.
