Texas and Nick Saban

[Forneysooner]

I got to thinking about this whole Texas and Nick Saban thing that was about to happen a couple of years ago. Some of the Longhorn people say Mack Brown sabotaged this and prevented it from happening. The more I think about this, the more I understand that it wasn't all about money, but I think Saban thought it out and decided it would be a bad move because of the conference. Saban wants to play for NC's and I think he realized he wasn't going to be able to make that happen here.

It's going to take a Saban or Urban Meyer type to change the culture of this conference, if it is even possible. Love Bob to death, but he just doesn't have whatever it takes to change the culture of the conference. Other than some good high level skill position players, such as running backs and WR's , this conference has a major deficiency in O'line and D'line talent. It's largely because of the systems. Our Big 12 teams are getting mauled by better teams with upgraded talent in their O'lines and D'lines. Those teams bring pain and beat you up physically, while our teams pamper the line and open up paper cuts.

How do we change things in our conference? Gentleman, I think we are doomed playing, for NC's. I just don't see it happening. Texas A & M vs Texas recruiting isn't even close to use an example. OU offers scholarships to the same guys now offered by TCU and Baylor (who I believe ruined the conference), who by the way get offers from Houston, Utah State, and the New Mexico States of the world. No disrespect to those schools, but this is where we are.

People get excited for the conference when they see Baylor, TCU, and OU in the top ten during the year. Folks, it's fools gold and we all know it.

 

[bdshull2001]

Oh, give me a break. We have put just as many quality OL's in the pro's over the past few years as any SEC team....

 

[L. Ron Mexico]

Oh, give me a break. We have put just as many quality OL's in the pro's over the past few years as any SEC team....

Maybe but after watching the OU, Tech and oSU game it was apparent to me that right now we all got out athleted imo.

 

[bdshull2001]

Maybe but after watching the OU, Tech and oSU game it was apparent to me that right now we all got out athleted imo.

Better teams this YEAR. Just that simple and I have no problem with that. We'll be fine. Jeez guy's we had a true freshman and a AA freshman tackle this year (Freshman team). Clemson was just better. End of the argument...

Go to the SUC and become Georgia or Tennessee. It's not for me........

 

[Forneysooner]

Since 2007, OU and Texas has put some quality (first round) OL players in the NFL drafts, but for the most part, those positions are dominated by the Big 10, SEC, and Pac 12 schools. It's probably a little worse for D lineman. I'm speaking from a conference standpoint.

 

[bdshull2001]

Since 2007, OU and Texas has put some quality (first round) OL players in the NFL drafts, but for the most part, those positions are dominated by the Big 10, SEC, and Pac 12 schools. It's probably a little worse for D lineman. I'm speaking from a conference standpoint.

Sorry, I don't do the "collective society". I stand by my statement.


BTW, welcome to the board...post often.............

 

[Forneysooner]

OK...whatever...

 

[bdshull2001]

OK...whatever...

Don't do that....Defend your position if you truly believe it. That's what we do here. Have some fun...............

 

[TAVlonghorn]

Catoosa is breaking in a new guy.

Don't worry Forney, we won't treat you like a blow up reindeer in Stoolwater...

 

[bdshull2001]

Catoosa is breaking in a new guy.

Don't worry Forney, we won't treat you like a blow up reindeer in Stoolwater...

No such a thing as a new guy, IMO. He's a Sooner and I like him. I just disagreed with him. No harm.....I'm sure some others will be on to agree with him. I'll disagree with them also............

Or build them a cardboard coffin....HA!

 

[coeSooner81]

Its not the players, like everyone is saying we have put several top ol into the NFL. We need to be a run first team, our line is pass blocking 75% of the time. We need to use the KSU/Baylor passing philosophy, have the oline run block and get to the linebackers, so they think run and then throw the ball where they use to be. The rule sucks but something we need to take advantage next year, with our two backs.

 

[mgoetts]

No such a thing as a new guy, IMO. He's a Sooner and I like him. I just disagreed with him. No harm.....I'm sure some others will be on to agree with him. I'll disagree with them also............

Or build them a cardboard coffin....HA!

 

[Raysor]

The issue isn't about the culture of the conference. It's about high school football in Oklahoma. The state is flawed and that flaw hurts OU in recruiting. The big two may be becoming the big three, but it's still a situation where there is recruiting so blatant that the most prominent prospects in northeast Oklahoma end up at Jenks or Union. Or maybe now B.A. I believe it discourages the best big school athletes in the state from playing football to some extent.

There may be other factors contributing, but there just aren't enough top players in the state to go around. Throw in that OSU has upgraded enough to attract a few more, and it means that we can't rely on even five or six instate players in most seasons to fill out even a quarter of a recruiting class.

When you go head to head for elite guys elsewhere, you're going to have a disadvantage to schools closer to home. And those guys from elsewhere can be convinced to come play at OU, but they are less likely to stay if they're not starting pretty quickly.

There is also the issue of the predominant style of football in both states, especially in Texas. I can't remember which talking head was making the point over the weekend, but he was right. The linebackers at Pac 12 schools and Big 12 schools tend to be 215 pound guys. At Big Ten schools or SEC schools, the linebackers have the size of pro linebackers. It's part of what the OP talked about.

But elite kids in Alabama are not very likely to leave the state. Same thing with LSU in Louisiana and so on. Now there is a flip side to this. Schools like OU can compete with anybody. Did you see what UTenn did yesterday? They popped Northwestern pretty good. OU came from behind at Knoxville to beat UTenn, who was the most talented team in the SEC East. They played Alabama tougher than anybody, in Tuscaloosa.

I think a lot of factors contributed to Clemson's thorough domination in the second half. One was a great game plan on both sides. But their game plan was better because their athletes were better. But they also had a great college quarterback, who was close to the level of a guy like the one quarterbacking the team with the best record in the NFC. And they were willing to run him a lot.

I have a hunch. Pure speculation. There is no perfect plan about how to handle the long layoff between the last game and the bowl game. You have to have some contact of a high level of intensity at some point, so that game day won't be a shock to the system. But I think we had some tough breaks in that area. Losing Walker really hurt us. I also think that Mixon came in well less than 100%. We ran him inside once. And when we ran him outside, it didn't look so good. He was banged up. Don't know if that was a carry over from the reg season or not.

Samaje has this ongoing ankle thing that needs to heal up. Once he dinged it again, he was so game, but he just couldn't be him. We were still contending until that happened. But the three and outs started to wear down OUr D. Clemson had over 90 offensive snaps.

When was the last time OU lost to an SEC team? A&M in 2012. That was one year after we beat them in Norman by 16.

The time before that was UFlorida for the national title. That Sooner team was as good as Florida. But we had to play them with no experience at middle linebacker and Demarco Murray in street clothes. A&M was running the same style that we are. They just had a whippet playing quarterback. All he did was beat the national champion at their place earlier in the season.

OU beat Bama when we were outmanned in the OLine and DLine despite having to play three guys in the OLine at positions they hadn't played much at all before that night. And this style of offense overcame that.

In this part of the country, not a lot of high schools are playing smash mouth football. One of our OLine starters comes from a high school that still did when he was there. But he has been a good, not great player. Now Baylor had four of their five OLine starters make first or second team All Conference, and they showed why with a heroic effort when no real quarterback was available. They also didn't play the greatest defense in the world.

Clemson is in a part of the country where there are just a lot more quality players.

The point I think is that OU is not going to have as much depth as some other schools when it comes to big highly ranked OLine road graders who can also pass block. And we've had some non football attrition when it comes to that area looking forward. But I think you'll see Samia be a much stronger, more able to compete OLineman next year and Orlando is already there. Both will learn and OU will have as good a pair of tackles as there is in college football. But for the last two years, at least, we've not been as big/talented at guard and center as we need to be. Good enough against most of the schedule.

But let's face it. Clemson was just better, especially when we were banged up with key guys.

When most of us looked at this season, when it was a future discussion six months ago, we mostly had no idea who was going to play tackle. The tackles ended up being pretty good. Samia had a tough time the other night with Clemson left D End who had a lot of experience over him. It showed a little too often.

Frankly, I see more differences outside of the big guys. OUr receivers and db's look a lot thinner to me, than the guys at those positions on the elite teams. And OUr linebackers seem smaller than opposing running backs. Sometimes, not much bigger than their quarterbacks.

Clemson had a great plan to deal with Striker and it was a big factor in the game.

I think we can be elite with OUr style in OUr conference. But opening with UHouston and Ohio State next season, we'll know a lot about how good we might be, pretty quickly.

 

[TAVlonghorn]

Cardboard coffins are cheap and don't last very long. They don't smell good and worst off, the damn corpse has a tendency to fall out the bottom when they are carried.

Best bet is cedar... although to be honest, it is really a juniper, as there are no true cedars in North America.

 

[bdshull2001]

Cardboard coffins are cheap and don't last very long. They don't smell good and worst off, the damn corpse has a tendency to fall out the bottom when they are carried.

Best bet is cedar... although to be honest, it is really a juniper, as there are no true cedars in North America.

I'm not worried. I'm going to be Cremated..

 

[TAVlonghorn]

I'm not worried. I'm going to be Cremated..

Hmmm... care for a nice cedar urn?

 

[bdshull2001]

Hmmm... care for a nice cedar urn?

Those are about as high as a coffin. I know, we looked at them after my step-dad died. Nope.....card board is fine with me......

 

[Blair Sanderson_rivals]

Maybe but after watching the OU, Tech and oSU game it was apparent to me that right now we all got out athleted imo.

Well I think we are quick to remember that this O-line included two freshman. Go into this season, the O-line was the weakness and UT exposed it. That game sent a starter to the bench and elevated a freshman to the starting role. My point is, we were just out played by smarter more experienced d-line on NYE. As far as the d-line, OU is still suffering from a lack of talent from the Shipp days.

It's the LB's that I think we have issues with.

 

[JB4AU]

It's the LB's that I think we have issues with.

Yes. No doubt that was the most glaring issue the other night.

 

[mgoetts]

The fact that we put an occasional OL into the league doesn't change the fact that we at OU have a very average 5 man OL each year and it gets exposed when facing a physical defensive front. We get caught up in the hype because we are able to run against B12 defenses that sometimes have a big name individual but never have a quality front 7.

On the defensive size of the ball, outside of Walker we have no one that resembles the size and explosiveness of linemen on THE TEAMS - yes, we know who they are. Additionally, we have not had a dominant LB in a long time. And I don't mean a small, 3-4 de facto rush end a la Striker. Instead, guys that can attack through blocks and make plays.
Nor enough line size and speed on either side of the ball or at LB have been successfully recruited.
To be top notch successful "as is", we would need a brigade of Baylor fast receivers and a QB who can throw, has great size and 4.5 speed to run away from other's front 7s.

 

[ETU]

Go to the SUC and become Georgia or Tennessee. It's not for me........

Whoa, K2. If OU became a member of the SEC, I am very confident in Bob's ability to compete with the SEC's best. Even better, in the Big 10. I understand Sooner fans that are loyal to the conference, and don't argue the point. I am of the opinion the Big 12 doesn't provide OU the best opportunity to win a national championship. Playoffs, yes, but competing for the final win, no. I bet Bob wouldn't mind being in the mix for the best players each year, i.e., having a real chance for a top 5-10 recruiting class. That would be sweet. That's all I'm saying. Boomer!

 

[TAVlonghorn]

Those are about as high as a coffin. I know, we looked at them after my step-dad died. Nope.....card board is fine with me......

They rip people off. A really nice urn made from aromatic red cedar should be less than $500, and that is with me making about $400 of that. I can build a coffin for anywhere from $900 to $2500, and will make $500 to $1200 on it.

If you go with mountain cedar it get cheaper...

 

[Dawgs11]

Gotta lay off the wine at noon. Hallucinations galore! I could have sworn that right in the middle of a pretty interesting conversation about size of offensive and defensive players, something came up about freaking coffins and urns.

&%$#ing Ripple!

 

[Forneysooner]

We'll, I must be doing something right.....13 messages and 13 likes.....hehe.....kidding aside, I love my OU football. My fond memories are those 73, 74, 75 teams I remember watching with Nebraska day after thanksgiving at my grandma's in Anadarko. Anyone on the board from Anadarko?

 

[TAVlonghorn]

We'll, I must be doing something right.....13 messages and 13 likes.....hehe.....kidding aside, I love my OU football. My fond memories are those 73, 74, 75 teams I remember watching with Nebraska day after thanksgiving at my grandma's in Anadarko. Anyone on the board from Anadarko?

My dad was born and raised there, and he is now buried there. Still have a lot of family there or in the near vicinity.

And no, he isn't in one of my cedar coffins. He passed away before I was making them...

 

[shanehog]

I always steered clear of the Kiowa and Anadarko. I grew up with the Comanches at Lawton. Today I'm much closer to the Kiowa. Go figure. The old Comanche brothers are long time dead.

 

[Forneysooner]

My mom was born in Wasita, and grew up in Anadarko. Lot of fond memories growing up, going to family reunions at Randlett Park (grandfather work there for the city for over 20 years), fishing in the Washita. Grandparents are buried there. Haven't been back there since 2003 when my grandmother passed. Miss that little town.