TX-OU. The Red River Shootout. The best rivalry game in all of football.

[CousinFreddie]

Needed to be done, but Lincoln played that card WAY too soon.  One less lamb for him to slaughter when his own kitchen heats up.

Actually rather than that cynical pov, my take is that he inherited Mike from Bob, and it wouldn't have been good to fire his brother without cause.  So, he was waiting for a time where he could remake the defensive side of the team in terms of leadership, and the bad defensive play the past three games, capped by the inability to stop a mediocre offense that KSU had just limited to less than 20.

We'll see what the new leadership on Defense can bring us, but I think it'll be better than what we've seen so far. 

[TexasFan]

Best hire would be to get Ruffin McNeil.     Ruffin should have been given the TT job six years ago or so imo.  

[BrownCounty]

Actually rather than that cynical pov, my take is that he inherited Mike from Bob, and it wouldn't have been good to fire his brother without cause.

Bobby was carrying Mikey, and everyone knew it.  I was actually surprised that Mikey stayed when LR took over.

At any rate, Bob set the plate for LR, all he had to do was step in and screw it up.  He's working on that.  This is OU, after all.  However, LR is a kid.  A Kliff Kingsbury kid.  If I'm right, he should've waited till end of season to can Mikey.

[CousinFreddie]

Pshaw - it has nothing to do with Kingsbury or any of the other reasons you mentioned.  I'm just glad you're not OU's HC.  I don't want someone in there who's just keeping their assistant coaches around so that they can blame them at the right moment for failure.

If the defense isn't working, and if it's demonstrated so clearly as it was Saturday, then it's the right moment to make the change and try to save the season on that front.  OU still does have talent on defense, and a good coach with a new set of strategies might make some improvements.  And, it's the right time from another point of view too as OU has a bye week and so two weeks to implement a new approach.

Another team I follow, the St Louis Cardinals, dumped their manager after the all-star break, rather than wait until the end of the year, and they had a much better second half, narrowly missing the playoffs thanks to that move.  That puts the Cards about 1/2 a season ahead of where they would have been, thankfully.  Same goes here.  Oklahoma already has a great offense, and now just needs the defense to come up a few notches.  Definitely doable.  The Sooners after all are 5-1, and can still have a great season, can still win the conference, and the playoffs are still in reach too (if they win out, which is a long shot, but it's still in the realm of possibilities as long as it's just a 1-loss Sooner team, particularly if it's a single 3 point loss to a ranked team).

Your 3 point win where the Sooners held their own and outgained the Horns is proof of that. Without the -2 TO differential (actually -3 TO, but the first two were the ones that led to 10 points of easy Texas scores, and that in fact was the difference in the game) we would have won Saturday.  But there's no way Texas should have scored 38 much less 48, if we had a more strategic defense that was plugging the gaps and was adjusting to match the strengths of the offense.  Texas can be beaten, and so can anyone in the conference, by a Sooner team with an improved defensive approach.

[Cincydawg]

Georgia had a pretty good defense last year, and they gave up 31 to OU in the first half as I recall.

It may not be that easy to have a good defense in t he Big 12 as defined by points allowed.

[FearlessF]

I've been saying this for a few seasons

even teams with great defensive coaches and players can get rolled from time to time

the rules changes over the years that continue to favor offenses have had an affect

[FearlessF]

Bob Diaco, the highest-ever paid assistant in Nebraska’s football program, has a significantly smaller paycheck with his new job as Oklahoma’s outside linebackers coach.

The former Nebraska defensive coordinator, who was let go after one season in Lincoln on Mike Riley’s staff, has an annual base salary of $48,000 in his new position with the Sooners, according to information obtained by HuskerOnline through an open records request from the University of Oklahoma. He was promoted to the coaching job on Monday after serving as a defensive consultant since March.

Diaco earned a base salary of $825,000 at Nebraska, and was scheduled for a raise to $875,000 in 2018.

Diaco was promoted following the firing of defensive coordinator Mike Stoops and a shake-up in the defensive staff.

Now, Diaco will be working at least through the end of this season with Ruffin McNeill, who was promoted to defensive coordinator to replace Stoops.

“Bob has a lot of experience in very good programs and has a list of accomplishments that will help him step in and make an immediate impact,” head coach Lincoln Riley said in a statement Monday.

Stoops was the highest paid assistant on the Sooners’ staff, earning about $920,000 in 2017, according to USA Today’s latest available salary data of college assistant football coaches. McNeill earned $560,000 last year, according to USA Today.

After Diaco joined Oklahoma’s staff as a defensive consultant, the Sooners’ Riley said he planned to use Diaco “for more big-picture ideas.”

“Out here (on the field), he can’t do as much,” Riley said at the time. “But in our staff room, he’ll be like another full-time coach in there.”

At Nebraska, Diaco oversaw one of the worst defenses in school history, 

[FearlessF]

good luck with Bob

[CousinFreddie]

good luck with Bob

Heh, sounds like we’ll need it.  Thanks for the info though FF

[FearlessF]

Diaco was fine at Notre Dame as coordinator

horrible at UNL

He obviously knows a few things about defense, but his philosophy is bend and play soft

I always hated that 

[BrownCounty]

Your 3 point win where the Sooners held their own and outgained the Horns is proof of that. Without the -2 TO differential (actually -3 TO, but the first two were the ones that led to 10 points of easy Texas scores, and that in fact was the difference in the game) we would have won Saturday.  But there's no way Texas should have scored 38 much less 48, if we had a more strategic defense that was plugging the gaps and was adjusting to match the strengths of the offense.  Texas can be beaten, and so can anyone in the conference, by a Sooner team with an improved defensive approach.

Since we're now being gracious and all, Texas was clearly the better team last Saturday, notwithstanding mailing it in with 12:00 left in the 4th.  If Texas had kept the hammer down, we would have continued to drive the length of the field - like we did when we had to.

Herman did not expect to win.  Herman was giddy and overly-cautious once he realized Texas could actually win this thing.  He started icing the game way too early.  He learned his lesson.

Texas would throttle OU in a rematch.  I, for one, hope to see it.

[Mr Tulip]

Tom Herman is learning his craft like everyone else.

Like he said at the PC, "The football bible tells you to slow down and take the air out of the ball". However, the Sooners didn't give up (why should they) and started rolling the dice against everything. It turns out, they're really that good! When Texas started playing cautious defense, the Sooners ran right by them. Now, even in similar circumstances, those beats aren't likely to happen again, but it only had to happen once.

If the Texas offense had run wide open and got the ball picked (by a Sooner defense risking it all), Herman would have been condemned for that. There's a finer line between full open and full closed that he'll need to learn.

This lesson did not cost an "L" to learn.

[CharleyHorse46]

IF....

If OU had not turned the ball over, they might could’ve won.

If Texas has not committed costly holding calls, it might not’ve even been close.

And there are another dozen or more lynchpin ifs.  Maybe a thousand.

But that’s why we play the games cause if ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a beautiful Christmas.

[utee94]

I don't think "going conservative" was anywhere near as costly as the holding penalties.  You extend just one of those drives that were killed, and Texas is a lot closer to killing the clock with little or no time left for a Sooner comeback.

But yeah, OU is pretty good.  I don't think Texas was legitimately 21 points better than the Sooners at that point, but the Horns were playing loose and well and flat-out dominated the first 3 quarters, other than the Sooners' opening drive.