Study Up for Oklahoma

[JohnMcA60]

I'll give an opinion on UT.

The over simplified view is a very good offense and a solid really talented defensive line.

Those two things will take you places regardless of other deficiencies and give you a punchers chance of beating anyone.

The offense:
O-line looks good. Especially in run blocking. Big uglies grading the road.
A little slower than B12 offensive lines but they are built for a different kind of ball in the SEC obviously.

I think it's your left tackle I saw getting beat with the speed rush a few times. Striker may eat against him without some help out of the backfield on passing downs. Our front 7 is solid, deep and stingy. I really look forward to that battle as you guys establish the run throughout the game.
Hurd is talented and strong. Especially for a straight up and down runner. The backup is legit too.

You can pass and have good sized athletic receivers but I don't know how you will fare under our blitz packages and fast secondary. (hell we dont know either. They only allowed 6 completions against Akron but are unproven)

Your QB is gonna give us fits. Brace yourselves for the linebackers and big safeties dropping bombs on him if they get a shot to try and keep him from wanting to run.

Defense:
As I said already the defensive line is tits. Those DE's look like they may develop into something special and will be schemed around as best as possible because head to head they would be in our backyard all day.

I think we will key in on your middle linebacker with Perine. If we can get the damned O-line to let him get between the tackles without any significant contact that is...
So lots of flat passes and designed screens to try and take advantage of aggressive defensive ends and keep them honest.

We'll spread the ball and play to your weaknesses and away from your strength in the passing game. Though I expect your good corner to get in some epic battles with Shepherd and Westbrook throughout the night.

This defensive team speed is much faster and athletic than what we just faced. My biggest concern is turnovers if we are forced to abandon the run too early. This new offense is still developing and mistakes should realistically be expected.

And penalties. Youre too good of a team to be giving you gifts.

Predicton is 38-28 OU.
Reasoning is I think we will be able to force you into being one dimensional and predictable by the end of the game.

Thanks for analysis. If we become one dimensional then I hope it's on the ground. We have 3 different guys that can hurt any defense. Other than that I thought it was good stuff. Good luck on Saturday. Are you traveling to the game?

 

[VFL-82-JP]

He needs all the help he can get

I do, I really do! :good!:

 

[ATLVols]

By what you said (OP), OU sounds a lot like us but that throws a lot more.

 

[isooner]

Thanks for analysis. If we become one dimensional then I hope it's on the ground. We have 3 different guys that can hurt any defense. Other than that I thought it was good stuff. Good luck on Saturday. Are you traveling to the game?

No unfortunately. I'm a full time single Dad of three boy's. Youngest two aren't ready for that kinda trip yet and I'm not taking it without them. They want to watch this one with me.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

By what you said (OP), OU sounds a lot like us but that throws a lot more.

They do look kinda like us, but significantly different, too. I probably should've emphasized some of the differences a bit more than I did:

1. Their QB doesn't have the height advantage Josh has. Finding throwing lanes might be more of a problem for him, especially if our DLine and LBs remember to get their hands up when they can.

2. They do throw it a lot more. Certainly a lot more than Oklahoma teams of the past. They're taking this shift to Air Raid seriously. And they like the quick slants and screens, plays that take almost no time to develop. They'll go for the longer throws, but they're very opportunistic with the quick bulllets.

3. Their most common offensive formation is that shotgun wishbone, seemed to me. Which we don't use, of course. Even when we have Hurd & Kamara both in the backfield, we'll normally have #6 out in a flanker start or similar. Their "look" is unique from ours.

4. I said Perine & Mixon are their Hurd & Kamara, but a more accurate analogy would be Travis & Travis: Perine has muscles on his muscles, he's beast like Hurd but not as tall or rangy...so a Travis Henry sort of, while Mixon is leaner, more of a scat back like Travis Stephens. You won't look at them and immediately think Jalen & Alvin.

5. Their defense absolutely does resemble our defense, with one striking difference (in Week 1, at least): their front 7 showed great discipline sticking to their assignments. Seemed like they were practically always in the right place, where they were supposed to be. Hopefully our D will execute like that next week.

Go Vols!

 

[white65]

OU fan here, your notes look very accurate. I was not surprised but very alarmed about the OL play in the first quarter. They are very young and the coaches will have to scheme around their youth in order to win vs Tennessee. I expect Tennessee to try to get to Baker Mayfield but I expect Oklahoma to use a lot of short, quick "passes" (essentially runs) to Mixon to equalize things. Mixon looks a lot like a young DeMarco Murray.

If Mayfield gets hurt (a possibility given this OL), we aren't exactly confident in Knight ("and day") who is throwing pix sixes when he isn't beating Bama. Of course, Mayfield is relatively inexperienced and his ability to protect the football in a hostile environment is mostly unknown. He is not your average walk on QB. He chose to walk on at Texas Tech, turning down numerous scholarships to instead play in a real league (who am I kidding, the Big XII is a joke). He won the starting job at Tech as a true freshman--he is obviously talented, however lacking in traditional quarterback size and stature. I don't expect many designed runs for Mayfield as we are running as far away as possible from this type of offense. He actually looked best vs Akron when he stepped into the pocket.. not while rolling out or scrambling.

The OU defense was proven to be a sieve last year. A lot of us still bicker about this development--many think that the team didn't trust the coaches and therefore gave up on the philosophy. Others think they got sick of watching the offense squander opportunities. One thing is sure, the defense looked good and played well through the first half of the season and even handled teams like TCU. This is the biggest question of the game, in my opinion. I am not sure how much the Tennessee offense has progressed and I am not sure how good the OU defense is (or was last year when they played).

Traditional thinking would suggest that OU is in trouble with their new QB going into a hostile environment. I am not sure how much weight this argument holds considering that Mayfield started 5 games at Tech and got to spend all of last year licking his chops. He also beat out a guy with multiple big game starts (Knight) based on talent alone.

I would compare him more to Ray Rice.

 

[JohnMcA60]

No unfortunately. I'm a full time single Dad of three boy's. Youngest two aren't ready for that kinda trip yet and I'm not taking it without them. They want to watch this one with me.

Well hope you get to come to a game some other time. Hope you enjoy watching it with your boys

 

[7danderson]

Not saying saying OU isn't a great team or the Vols defense secondary isn't a liability right now, but... That was an Akron team that was no where near as seasoned or coached as well Bowling Green on offense. I still like UT's chances in this one!

 

[meover]

Having watched the whole game a couple of things stand out to me.

Firstly if UT has started out as shaky on offense as OK did this whole forum would have been burned to the ground. I was surprised to see so many unforced errors (false starts, holding, block in the back on punt returns etc.) coming from OK, which was a huge reason that Akron kept it close in the first half. Coming out of the second half I think it began to show how over-matched Akron was from a physicality standpoint (which is to be expected in this kind of match up).

I think the general thought process is that, if you're going to have issues, these are the most correctable ones to have. false starts= correctable. wiffing on a block because it was something that hadn't been seen on film= probably correctable. getting beat on a block because the guy across from you was better= not correctable.

I think the issues with the OL was about half and half. We will have to fix the correctable mistakes AND scheme around the non-correctable mistakes in order to beat Tennessee. It's probably doable but OU will get a taste of what their new OC is made of.

I honestly think the OL struggling against Akron (as many have stated, they're not Tennessee-good but they are pretty respectable) was a semi-good thing. We know where one of our weaknesses lies and now we know we cannot rely on giving Baker Mayfield all day to drop back and throw. It's pretty much a given at this point that Tennessee will be after Baker Mayfield and Perine all game. I fully expect to see early runs wrapped up in the backfield.

 

[meover]

Sounds like you've never been to Neyland. I have been to a lot of stadiums (not surprisingly, FC Bayern in Munich @ 66K was one of the craziest) and when ours is rockin', like it will be Saturday, it is one of the loudest, wildest things you've ever experienced.

The field shakes under your feet, your ears hurt. Players have described it as feeling like "the fans were literally right over my shoulder, screaming in my ear...".

103k ppl makes a difference

You're probably right. It will be a very tough place to walk away with a win. If they do it will speak volumes to their talents, as we are not exactly loaded with experience on the offensive side of the ball. This is why I think the key matchup will be the one where the crowd is quiet: OU D (DL, specifically) vs Tennessee O (OL, specifically).

 

[meover]

1. Their QB doesn't have the height advantage Josh has. Finding throwing lanes might be more of a problem for him, especially if our DLine and LBs remember to get their hands up when they can.

VERY true, Baker Mayfield is VERY undersized and IIRC, had problems with this at Texas Tech. Again, we will have to scheme around this. He does, however, seem to have a natural feel for the field and where open receivers should be. I hope this isn't the kind of natural feel that perpetuates his "gun slinger" attitude that he had at Texas Tech. So far, so good. QB size and lack of strength on the OL is why quick routes to the RB (Mixon) will be utilized.

2. They do throw it a lot more. Certainly a lot more than Oklahoma teams of the past. They're taking this shift to Air Raid seriously. And they like the quick slants and screens, plays that take almost no time to develop. They'll go for the longer throws, but they're very opportunistic with the quick bulllets.

We came out trying to run it against Akron even though they were daring us to pass. Not a good strategy to beat Tennessee no matter how important establishing the run game is. I believe on the road, establishing the run is very important but not at cost of multiple 3 and outs. Multiple three and outs early in the game vs Tennessee would all but seal our fate. We will have to recognize Tennessee's game plan earlier than we did Akron's.

 

[meover]

I would compare him more to Ray Rice.

I honestly don't know if Mixon is a thug or if he was just a kid in a bad situation. What I do know is that he served his time both in regards to the state (misdemeanor- community service) in regards to the school and football program's punishments (1 year off the team, could not participate in football activities including workouts and practices).

If you wanna knock the school president and Bob Stoops for not kicking him off the team, go right ahead. They probably should have severed all ties. But you can't blame the kid for staying and can't continue to punish him for an incident in which he has already served hefty punishment.

 

[dcm3w]

Oklahoma will test us deep and in short field close to the goal, they will run.

 

[dhb92]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVifd9BZRV8

Interesting that OU didn't score until 5 min left in the 2nd. Reflects how their score was more indicative of them wearing down Akron. Akron also got themselves into some fairly good scoring positions in but were unable to capitalize on (something we may not experience with Dobbs/Kamara/Hurd/Wolf/North). We really need our Dline to get some push, Mayfield was able to throw it all over the place but he was getting a lot of time to throw, something we can hopefully counter. I feel really good about this game and think it will be a fun one to watch all 4 quarters.

 

[ourichie]

Two biggest reasons it took us so long to score is that we were trying to force the run game when Akron was doing everything short of completely selling out to stop the run. Once Riley decided to finally turn on the Air Raid, the game shifted and even though we didnt really run the ball as much as we did in the first 1.5 quarters, we pretty much were able to run when we wanted to. That being said, our O-Line needs to do a lot better job of run blocking but once Baker and the WR's got into sync, Akron had absolutely no chance.

It's going to be a good game and I have been waiting for it all summer. I cant wait to see how the UT secondary does against Shephard/Westbrook/Neal/Baxter/Mixon/Andrews...etc. It's almost like a Pick Your Poison.

I was at the game and it looked like the Akron defense was keying in on the run game and Sterling Shephard, this opened up the other WR's and Mixon out of the backfield.

Oklahoma 38
UT 28

 

[CDCman]

I saw OK make several breakdowns in pass coverage and zone read should be big for UT.