Tilting at Windmills

Brody Eldridge broke his hand.

No, I’m not shitting and, after back and forth about how it’s rumor and conjecture, this one looks to be true.

A rumored Jameel Owens transfer may be just that – a rumor. Stay tuned.

Stoops must have pissed off some gypsy witch in the off season.

Reports say that five-tool guy Brody Eldridge will be working more at tight end as Habern continues to progress well enough that he’ll start against Idaho State this weekend.

A few takeaways here:

1. Coaches feel comfortable enough with Habern that they think giving Eldridge more reps at tight end won’t hurt the center position too much.
2. There’s a serious deficiency at tight end and OU needs Eldridge there in a bad way. James Trent Ratteree was serviceable, but Wilson was still trying to use him like Gresham, without adjusting any of the gameplan to fit the talent. Ratteree may turn out to be a nice end, but he’s definitely not Gresham.
3. Gresham’s injury is worse than was originally thought.
4. Habern is just better than Eldridge at the center position.

It’s the last item should give Sooner fans some pause after the BYU debacle. Some have said that a majority of the false start penalties (H/T, Cory Brandon) could have been because Eldridge wasn’t snapping the ball in the same kind of rhythm that the rest of the OL is accustomed. Obviously, we know about Eldridge’s blocking skills, but being able to timely snap the ball (and properly pick up blitzes) is definitely something that must be coached.

Thoughts?

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.

The entire season is in that sling.

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:

Jackie Treehorn still hasn't paid him his royalties.

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.

Time to get excited for game week.

Most interesting is that Brody Eldridge has been tabbed as the starting center. Habern’s back must really be bothering him, but Eldridge has long been thought of as the best blocker on the team. I think it’s a great move and very creative of this staff to try and get the best players available on what is thought as the weak spot (offensive line) on the team.

Chris Brown is listed ahead of Murray, telling me that DM still isn’t 100%. Somehow I think the Sooners will be fine here.

Sam will have Pooh Tennell and Brandon Caleb at the wideouts with Ryan Broyles possibly playing the Mark Clayton YAC role in the slot. I’m excited to see how Madu is going to to backing up Broyles there.

Any thoughts?