Tilting at Windmills

It was the unspeakable unmetionable that nobody wanted to say. It was the most obvious “what-if” nightmare scenario and it showed up in a crumpled heap on the floor of Cowboys Stadium right before halftime Saturday night.

Slingin’ Sam Bradford became Sam-in-a-sling when he landed hard on his throwing shoulder just after passing fellow Sooner Heisman winner Jason White for the all-time passing record at Oklahoma. You could feel and hear 90 percent of a 74,000+ crowd gasp a collective “oh shit” as Sam lay writhing on the Jerryworld turf.

Up to that point, Bradford wasn’t looking great, but he sure wasn’t bad: he was efficient and making good reads, but wasn’t able to take enough time to go through all of his progressions and hit the downfield balls he was used to completing to Iglesias and Gresham. The real problem was an offensive line that looked like they had all been moved over from tight end, rather than just Eldridge who was needed more as a backup starting center than as a backup starting tight end.

So, what went right and what went wrong? A little and dear lord, where should we start.

The Good

OU’s defensive line. BYU’s Max Hall might have gone Leach on the OU secondary in the first half, but it wasn’t for lack of line push. He was able to pick apart a soft middle on short drops before anybody could get to him. In the second half when the Sooners needed something big from the defense to help out a struggling offense, Gerald McCoy and Jeremy Beal were huge. McCoy literally took over one series. The coaches must have thought so, too, because McCoy signaled to come out after getting gassed from making just bout every play in the series, but everybody on the sidelines looked like they were texting Sergio Kindle the number of a good DWI attorney instead of looking at the field.

Travis Lewis is playing like a Butkus finalist already. Whenever the defense needed a play, Lewis was there. He finished with 13 tackles and was a force all night.

Ryan Reynolds. You’ll see him mentioned again, but here we’ll cite him for playing very well as long as the play was run or thrown right at him. He was part of a big push up the middle (along with McCoy) that limited BYU to 28 yards on 33 carries. He also made some nice jujitsu moves after his interception, but the fear was that he’d blow a non-existent knee while juking air.

Brandon Caleb. In his first significant action of his career, Caleb was OU’s best receiver on the field, catching 4 balls for 57 yards.

Tress Way. You know it’s a bad night when you cite the punter for a good game, but after a shaky WTF start in the first half, Way was booming kicks after halftime. The bad part was he had to punt seven times.

What went wrong

Again, where to start. The most glaring and obvious place is in the offensive line. With apologies to the Fiesta Bowl fiasco against West Virginia, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a Stoops unit so ill-prepared and undisciplined. The OL had three (3) false starts on the first series of the game with right tackle Cory Brandon logging two of his four on the night. Those are Flozell fucking Adams numbers. Brandon was also flagged twice for holding. The glass half full thought there is well, at least he waited for the fucking snap count on those plays.

Brandon might need some of Schmitty’s motivational techniques.

Brandon’s death knell was his last false start of the game on OU’s final drive, pushing the inexperienced Landry Jones back into a 3rd and 14 from unmakeable field goal range. Which dovetails into …

Coaching. Nevermind that there’s not a single person on the roster trusted to kick a field goal past 45 yards (and even that’s stretching it). The decision to send out Way was almost an act of desperation, as if to say that the chances of him making that were greater than the freshman QB converting a fourth and long. I vehemently disagree and I’m not alone. There’s at least a chance of making that fourth down. With all apologies to whoever the fuck wants an apology, there’s zero chance OU is making that field goal this year.

Ryan Reynolds. In a footrace between a sloth, a chunk of granite and Ryan Reynolds, #4 is taking silver. It took BYU exactly half a series to figure out OU couldn’t cover anybody over the middle. Granted, it’s not Reynolds’ fault: the guy literally has no knees, so expecting him to cover even slow, 26-year-old Mormon missionary-returnees is asking a little much. In fact, the Cougars rarely threw outside the hash marks, knowing that they’d be wide open with YAC downfield between the tackles. Which brings us back to …

Coaching. The upside with Brent Venables is he can coach linebackers like nobody’s business. See: Curtis Lofton, Rufus Alexander, Teddy Lehman, Rocky Calmus, Torrance Marshall, Lance Mitchell and Travis Lewis. The downside is that Venables suckles at the teat of three linebackers on the field no matter the down, the distance, time on the clock or day of the week. Venables was a hot commodity not too long ago with head coaching vacancies around the country and can we honestly say OU is better off with people failing to hire him away? I realize that we at TaW are just some hack bloggers who paid $80-100 to see the game, $30 to park and $8.50 for a fucking hot dog, but it doesn’t take a resume littered with Butkus winners and Big 12 Defensive Players of the Year to see that Ryan Reynolds can … not … cover … anybody … over … the … fucking … middle. Whither Mike Stoops.

Inconclusive

Landry Jones. The worst you can point out about Landry is that horrible growth is above his lip. Landry, do something before you start looking like this:

No, Landry didn’t look great. He looked like a redshirt freshman on national TV who had no clue he was going to be called upon. He did not look like Sam Bradford, which isn’t his fault whatsoever. He also didn’t have time to look through any reads at all unless Brandon was bear-hugging his man. Landry needs to grow up in a hurry, though. He’ll get some good scrimmage time against Idaho State while we learn more about the extent of Sam’s injury.

Final analysis

It didn’t just look ugly: it was ugly. It wasn’t even butterface ugly where the chick might be marginal above the neck, but displays such a nice rack that you can kind of overlook it. The Sooner defense, for all of its pass coverage flaws, was opportunistic and able to hold BYU to 14 points. Anytime you do that to a MWC team, you should win. Obviously, the Sooners desperately need Bradford to summon the regenerative healing powers of Wolverine, pop his shoulder back in like Detective Murtock Riggs and be ready for Miami. Jermaine Gresham returning immediately, if not sooner, will also help Landry immensely.

Right now, all we can do is wait and hope. If Sam’s injury is as they say (A/C joint sprain – I don’t even know what the hell that means) and it’s 1-3 weeks, it could give the OL time to gel and give Brandon enough soap-in-a-sock treatments that the Sooners could turn this around. If Bradford’s injury is more severe and he’s out for an extended period of time, start making your plans for San Antonio and be thankful.

A new year, a new set of challenges across the Big 12 landscape.

Who will be the preseason glamour boy who falters early, causing us to question why we ever put him on that pedestal in the first place (whither Chase Daniel)? Who is Mike Leach going to have throw the ball eleventy-million times a game, making us go “gosh, where’d he find THIS guy?” Who’s going to feel like they got “screwed” at the end of the season, paying no attention to their own foibles that got them in their mess to begin with?

Ladies and gentlemen, and TaW readers, without further adieu, we present to you … the 2009 Big 12.

As we alluded to over the weekend, this begins a six-week series breaking down each team’s chances this fall. Obviously, some (OU, Texas, Nebraska) will have better chances than others (Iowa State, Colorado, Aggy). We’ll start breaking down the Big 12 North later this week, but for now, let’s take a look at who we think has the best shot at surviving the standing 8 at the end of the year.

Big 12 champion

If you think you’re going to get anybody but Oklahoma in this slot on an OU blog, you’re delusional. You also haven’t paid attention to OU’s six Big 12 titles (seven appearances in the Big 12 CCG) in the past nine years. The Sooners’ main weapon in winning the last three straight titles is the fact that nobody can touch them in Norman, meaning you can pretty much chalk up four conference wins right there (Baylor, Kansas State, A&M, OSU). Stoops is an astonishing 60-2 at Owen Field and the Sooners have the nation’s longest home winning streak at 24 straight. That’s not to say OU doesn’t have any potential minefields, though. They’ll have one of the toughest schedules in the country, which includes a trip to Miami (I don’t care what their record says, Miami at Miami speaks for itself), a game in Lubbock where OU has lost two straight and … oh yeah: October 17 in Dallas.

Big 12 runner-up

The North sacrificial lamb representative has usually been a process of elimination with the past couple of years, Missouri showing up by virtue of having actual talent on the field (sorry, Kansas). This year, it’s Nebraska. Although Bo Pelini’s v2.1 Cornhusker squad will be replacing quarterback Joe Ganz (presumably his brother Cherry won’t come looking for him) and running back Marlon Lucky, we think quarterback Zac Lee (what we’ve seen of him) can at least manage to turn around and hand the ball to RB Roy Helu, who ran for 803 yards last year. Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh (whose name in the Cameroon Ngema tribe means “House of Spears” – no, we’re not making that up) is being compared to a jumbo-sized Rich Glover.

Bowl teams

This is where the Big 12 should make a good showing with as many as 8 teams playing postseason games.

BCS teams

No surprise here. OU and Texas are both good enough and both team’s schedules line up (although for opposite reasons) well enough to get them both into marquee bowls. Who goes to the Rose Bowl playing for all the marbles and who is in the Fiesta against a Big 10 patsy will be determined in October.

Cotton Bowl

Nebraska gets a break on the Big 12 South rotation (they get Oklahoma and Tech at home, then have to play Baylor in Waco) and should look good enough come December that even a loss in the Big 12 CCG should send them back to Dallas for this one.

Holiday Bowl

Look for the winner of the November 14 game in Stillwater to get an invitation to San Diego. The outlook from here says it will be OSU over Texas Tech, which should dovetail into the …

Alamo Bowl

Although technically the Gator Bowl could take a Big 12 team before the guys in San Antonio get a chance, you know the San Antonio city officials would just love to have the Sand Aggies at the Alamodome and their fans stumbling around the Riverwalk for a weekend.

Gator Bowl

Should the Alamo pick first, that means we’re likely to see somebody like Kansas in Jacksonville. The Jayhawks have a BCS win on their resume and would be a very attractive pick. However, if they’re able to ambush Nebraska in Lawrence on November 14, all bets are off here.

Sun Bowl

Their fans might be disappointed after going to the Big 12 championship the past two years, but at least Missouri wouldn’t have to deal with an Oklahoma woodshedding in El Paso. Mizzou faces big tests on the road at Stillwater (yeah, I said it) and neutral site games with Kansas and Illinois. They get Texas and Nebraska in Columbia, which should at least give them better odds in those games.

Insight, Independence or Texas Bowl

This is where the WAGging starts. You know what? Screw it. Baylor’s going bowling, folks. Put em in the Texas or Independence Bowl and they’ll travel, too. If the Baptists (and Robert Griffin, they probably don’t even care if worships the devil at this point) are playing past November, they won’t mind where.