Sooners' Great Defense...?

#33
#33
Hacksaw said:
I keep seeing the storyline of this game as our high-powered offense versus Oklahoma's "great" defense. Many of the talking heads have questioned whether or not our offense has REALLY been tested in our 3-0 start. I have NOT seen the same degree of scrutiny applied to Oklahoma's "great" defense. So, out of genuine curiosity, I took a look at their first 3 opponents, Temple, Houston and Tulane (combined 2024 record to date, 2-7).

Temple was held to a single FG against the Sooners. But Navy also held them down, allowing just 11 points. By comparison, Navy's defense gave up 21 points to Bucknell in Week One.

The Sooners allowed 12 points to Houston in a close game at home. Houston only managed 7 points against UNLV. To be fair, UNLV's results do suggest that they may have a decent defense. The verdict is still out. I submit that the same could be said for OU's defense.

Tulane managed 19 points against the Sooners in what is OU's best win to date.

I don't know what it all means and I'm not drawing any conclusions, but I do find it interesting. I expect the game to be competitive and that OU will play their best game of the season. I also believe that our team will be ready to play at a high level.

Go Vols!!!
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To me, Oklahoma’s defense proved itself tonight against us. They are legit.
 
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#36
#36
Hacksaw said:
I keep seeing the storyline of this game as our high-powered offense versus Oklahoma's "great" defense. Many of the talking heads have questioned whether or not our offense has REALLY been tested in our 3-0 start. I have NOT seen the same degree of scrutiny applied to Oklahoma's "great" defense. So, out of genuine curiosity, I took a look at their first 3 opponents, Temple, Houston and Tulane (combined 2024 record to date, 2-7).

Temple was held to a single FG against the Sooners. But Navy also held them down, allowing just 11 points. By comparison, Navy's defense gave up 21 points to Bucknell in Week One.

The Sooners allowed 12 points to Houston in a close game at home. Houston only managed 7 points against UNLV. To be fair, UNLV's results do suggest that they may have a decent defense. The verdict is still out. I submit that the same could be said for OU's defense.

Tulane managed 19 points against the Sooners in what is OU's best win to date.

I don't know what it all means and I'm not drawing any conclusions, but I do find it interesting. I expect the game to be competitive and that OU will play their best game of the season. I also believe that our team will be ready to play at a high level.

Go Vols!!!
Click to expand...
That Houston game was a head scratcher. Houston is terrible this season and they gave OK a big time scare.
 
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#37
#37
Our Defense won the day today. I just didn't understand the running the ball straight at the middle of their defense. they loaded the box all night. josh really seemed to take his foot of the gas today.
 
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#38
#38
Hacksaw said:
I keep seeing the storyline of this game as our high-powered offense versus Oklahoma's "great" defense. Many of the talking heads have questioned whether or not our offense has REALLY been tested in our 3-0 start. I have NOT seen the same degree of scrutiny applied to Oklahoma's "great" defense. So, out of genuine curiosity, I took a look at their first 3 opponents, Temple, Houston and Tulane (combined 2024 record to date, 2-7).

Temple was held to a single FG against the Sooners. But Navy also held them down, allowing just 11 points. By comparison, Navy's defense gave up 21 points to Bucknell in Week One.

The Sooners allowed 12 points to Houston in a close game at home. Houston only managed 7 points against UNLV. To be fair, UNLV's results do suggest that they may have a decent defense. The verdict is still out. I submit that the same could be said for OU's defense.

Tulane managed 19 points against the Sooners in what is OU's best win to date.

I don't know what it all means and I'm not drawing any conclusions, but I do find it interesting. I expect the game to be competitive and that OU will play their best game of the season. I also believe that our team will be ready to play at a high level.

Go Vols!!!
Click to expand...
Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama will have the toughest run defenses.

Bishop and Sampson EARNED their yards in that game.
 
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#39
#39
OU has the horses on defense. I think that was pretty evident last night. They may not be Georgia out there, but they have a top 25 caliber defense in the NCAA. Several future NFL draft picks on that defense.

That being said, the offense was very vanilla tonight, particularly in the 2nd half. It's possible we were confident in the defense and didn't feel like we needed to be aggressive. No need to risk turning the ball over with a 3 score lead, especially after we turned it over twice in the first half. But I would prefer we don't play that vanilla again.
 
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#40
#40
Their defense did the right thing. Sold out to stop the run. That's why we struggled to maintain drives or use tempo effectively.

Thankfully we have a good enough QB to make the throws this offense needs.

They got good pressure on Nico and set their offense up a couple times.

Thankfully our Defense was the best unit on the field last night.
 
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#41
#41
Sarms58 said:
After having played them I would say they have a very good D. They manhandled our OL and smothered our receivers. We gritted it out, took advantage of their mistakes, played great D and won.

But their D is legit.
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Yep…. The receivers were getting zero separation
 
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#42
#42
I believe if OU's QB even had a pulse it would've been a different story for sure, maybe not even close. He's as competent as our version of "JG."Our OL is not even close as to even being average, and my only real complaint of Nico is just needing to hold on to the ball a little better since probably gonna get sacked quite often this yr. I wish if he ever does get more time they let him air it more cause they definitely didn't respect our passing to me, but that happens when you have no time to show as well. I will say my expectations for us was way too high as well.
 
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#43
#43
greenbacknative said:
Our Defense won the day today. I just didn't understand the running the ball straight at the middle of their defense. they loaded the box all night. josh really seemed to take his foot of the gas today.
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Running up the middle is what our offense is based on. They were absolutely eating up our WR screens, end arounds, and anything behind the line.

In the second half you could tell the runs up the middle wore on their defense. Just had to beat them up a bit to get there. There were a couple times I thought we should have gone for it on 4th and short because we were finally getting some push.
 
#44
#44
Sarms58 said:
After having played them I would say they have a very good D. They manhandled our OL and smothered our receivers. We gritted it out, took advantage of their mistakes, played great D and won.

But their D is legit.
Click to expand...

They blitzed a lot and mixed up their blitzes nicely. It was something Nico hadn't really seen before. I would have liked to have seen us throw down field more, but our WRs weren't quite getting enough separation and often Nico didn't have time for the play to develop because of the blitzes.

I wish we had utilized screens more to offset the blitzes. If they are gonna constantly stack the box and send 5 guys or more blitzing, then that leaves them vulnerable to screens and RB/TE delays.
 
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#45
#45
m1al said:
On the surface, OUs defense holding our offense down looks like a good showing for them.

OTOH, It's such a great feeling to be able to lean on our defense when the offense is struggling..
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This game was one of the first ones in recent memory, for me at least, where I wasn't worried about the offense having to score more points (after having a decent lead) to win. I just knew that no matter what OU did in that second half, the defense was going to be the reason UT won. It was a sight to behold.
 
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#46
#46
Carp said:
They blitzed a lot and mixed up their blitzes nicely. It was something Nico hadn't really seen before. I would have liked to have seen us throw down field more, but our WRs weren't quite getting enough separation and often Nico didn't have time for the play to develop because of the blitzes.

I wish we had utilized screens more to offset the blitzes. If they are gonna constantly stack the box and send 5 guys or more blitzing, then that leaves them vulnerable to screens and RB/TE delays.
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Their pass rush seemed pretty legit. And I dont remember the names but the MLB's are supposed to be some of the best in the country.
 
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#47
#47
I saw 3-4 times on replay where Nico had an easy TD if he had just about 1 more second of protection. The WR was just breaking free on a post as soon as their OU DL/LBers were getting to Nico.

We also had TDs on both offense and defense called back due to some ticky tacky penalties, so we could have easily won this game by 30 points.
 
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#48
#48
jvols5 said:
I believe if OU's QB even had a pulse it would've been a different story for sure, maybe not even close. He's as competent as our version of "JG."Our OL is not even close as to even being average, and my only real complaint of Nico is just needing to hold on to the ball a little better since probably gonna get sacked quite often this yr. I wish if he ever does get more time they let him air it more cause they definitely didn't respect our passing to me, but that happens when you have no time to show as well. I will say my expectations for us was way too high as well.
Click to expand...
Hopefully Heard returns and we can have an average to good OL. We signed three 4 star OL last year and have commitments from two more plus a five star in this coming class. I hope we can build an OL to match our DL. Be like the old TVA days…
 
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