My Thoughts on the Oklahoma Game, After Sleeping on it

#26
#26
That pisspoor field, some very questionable calls and a makeshift offensive line held Tennessee back from being up 42-3 instead of only that "meager" 22-3 lead we had before we went all prevent on 'em. Great conference road win over a top 15 opponent at night in the spotlight. GoVols. 🍊
The field was terrible.
 
#28
#28
Dayne Davis had a really bad game on to many plays yesterday. The total line did not play as well as expected. Davis missed to many blocks he should've made.
Yeah, I think he was the primary reason we ran the ball so much in the 2nd half. He got beat badly both times Nico fumbled. We need Campbell and Heard to be healthy to unlock this offense and our passing game against better teams.
 
#29
#29
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.
Thank you, great job! As usual your perspective/analysis pointed out some things I had not realized. Hopefully, some of our doom and gloom fans will read this.
 
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#32
#32
It is much more than that. He isn't getting seperation or catching the ball when he does. If he does catch a pass he is falling or getting blown up. Just not sure because he has been so dependable in the past.
Yeah it's just weird to see
 
#33
#33
CJH is doing exactly what I hoped he would do and that is adjusting our game to the personel on the roster. I had hoped that the high speed play would slow down a lot and if that happened it meant we had a very good defense. I appears we are almost there and able to switch gears when we need to. Play fast to get the edge and slow it down when the score is enough to win. This keeps the defense healthy. That being said I hope we play fast and play great defense against UF! Good defense equals consistency.
 
#35
#35
Great writeup. I asked this in another thread. They run a 3-3-5. Did you notice that sometimes Mays would literally snap the ball and look up and have no one to block for 2-3 seconds? The whole snap to initial contact looked so weird at least 6-7 times. I couldn't tell if it was false starts or delays or what.

I thought it had to do with Venables and his style of dissecting and blitzing but with the SEC I am not sure this will work.
 
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#36
#36
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.
Good write up. Great win but UT still has alot more upside to improve the rest of the season. Our passing game will be inhibited if we have to max protect all the time. Often yesterday, Nico had no one to throw to because so few receivers were in routes and he didn't have any checkdowns available. Our offensive line had its hands full against Oklahoma. Their defense is legit. I thought we could have tested their speed a bit more on perimeter runs but overall the gameplan and how we adjusted during the course of the game was very solid.

Defensively, we dominated but we can still get better. Pearce, in my opinion, had a bad game. He didn't play much the first 3 games but this was a game and a stage for him to be a difference maker, yet he missed an easy sack and let Arnold slip a tackle and he badly misread a read option where the RB (who had the ball) went right by him. Not sure if any issue but he didn't look explosive yesterday. Four games into the year and objectively he isn't even our best LEO right now. Our 3-deep depth at DL and LB is going to continue to win us games. Get Pearce going and we hit another level. McCoy and Gibson haven't been tested but thus far are significantly better than what we had at CB the past 3 years. Christian Harrison and Boo Carter have been solid at star and will still develop further into the season. Our safeties have been in the right spots and Jacobe Thomas hits like a Mack truck. That guy is intimidating in the middle of the field.

Special teams have also been rock solid. That punt which pinned Oklahoma near their goal line which resulted in a safety was underappreciated and helped give us momentum. Would like to see them allow our kick returners to run the ball out more often.
 
#37
#37
Squirrel if he isn't careful could be replaced by Matthew's. Not a knock on Squirrel but he just isn't playing well and he does not have the luxury of size.
Could NOT agree more. Wasn’t impressed by his punt returns, and as a WR he doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything. He doesn’t seem to either be playing with confidence or something idk. 🤔
 
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#38
#38
Squirrel had a bad drop last night that would have extended a drive and given the D some rest. No excuse for that by a veteran.

It looked like Bru missed a read from the 5 yd line that would have been an easy inside slant for a TD. The middle was wide open because of the blitz. Instead he ran an out route in the end zone that took too long to develop and they ended up kicking a fg.

Brazzell needs to be more physical outside. He was unable to create any separation that I could see.

I really wish they would have run some quick release or inside slant routes to slow that pass rush/blitz down a little bit.

One thing I know, OU’s D was ready to create havoc and they brought pressure the whole game. I expect every team to do that now. Kirby and Saban both made the blueprint to slow this O down and if the fornt 7 is good it works. They have to figure out some calls to get into the empty space quickly and exploit the pass rush.
 
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#39
#39
Great writeup. I asked this in another thread. They run a 3-3-5. Did you notice that sometimes Mays would literally snap the ball and look up and have no one to block for 2-3 seconds? The whole snap to initial contact looked so weird at least 6-7 times. I couldn't tell if it was false starts or delays or what.

I thought it had to do with Venables and his style of dissecting and blitzing but with the SEC I am not sure this will work.
I didn’t notice that, but I appreciate you mentioning it. I’ll look for it when I re-watch.
 
#40
#40
Good analysis. Just my opinion but I think OK watered the field heavily this week to try to negate our speed. Oldest trick in the book when you’re outmanned from a speed standpoint. It was way too muddy for having basically no rain and around 100 degrees for several days.
 
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#42
#42
After the 2 strip sacks think Hyp had no more confidence in the tackles and called no more drop back passes, hence the 2nd half play calling. I didn't like it but thought it was a good safe plan and it worked.
 
#43
#43
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.

Solid post overall, and I would reiterate the point about the complaints about Josh's conservative second half approach. This idea that if we don't score 'fiddy' then something went wrong is so incredibly shortsighted and doesn't take into account the flow of the game. The OL was banged up, their DL was getting pressure routinely, our defense was dominating the game, and the field was a joke. The only way we could lose the game would be turnovers, and Josh took that out of the equation and rode the defense. Brilliant job by a guy who has become an elite coach, not just a great offensive mind.

The only thing I would add would be how big a weapon Jackson Ross has become and how vital he will be in tight games against better teams. He consistently pinned OU deep, and allowed the coverage to get on top of the punt returner immediately. He is a weapon.
 
#44
#44
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.

I’ll take the no show from Squirrel after seeing Bru bust back onto the scene.

Wasn’t much to brag about on offense last night but it was very great to see Bru coming back and being big factor.
 
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#46
#46
...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.

My guess is somewhere falling down with a football in his hands.
 

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