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The Power Five => Big XII => Topic started by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 10:44:43 AM

Title: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 10:44:43 AM: 6 1/2 hours till kickoff. Counting the minutes.

BOOMER!!!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: FearlessF on January 01, 2018, 10:52:45 AM: good luck!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 11:02:56 AM: Thanks, Fearless.

Good luck to Scott Frost and the Huskers in 2018.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: FearlessF on January 01, 2018, 11:20:15 AM: don't think it will happen, but I'm curious to see where the pollsters would rank UCF if they knocked off the mighty SEC today

top 10 for sure, would they put them in the top 5?
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 02:09:41 PM: I think they'd be about #5.

Right now, UCF is looking like a better, more physical team than Auburn. Leading 10-3.

If Milton and his receivers could get on the same sheet of music, UCF would have an even bigger lead.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 01, 2018, 03:13:53 PM: Quote from: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 10:44:43 AM
6 1/2 hours till kickoff. Counting the minutes.

BOOMER!!!
SOONER!!!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 04:43:17 PM: 27 minutes.

SEC teams went 1-2 earlier today, and have generally disappointed in bowl results. I don't know if that says anything about how well Georgia will play vs. OU.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: Thumper on January 01, 2018, 04:45:50 PM: Kick those puppies!

BOOMER!!!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 01, 2018, 04:50:17 PM: Quote from: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 04:43:17 PM
27 minutes.

SEC teams went 1-2 earlier today, and have generally disappointed in bowl results. I don't know if that says anything about how well Georgia will play vs. OU.
I don’t think it means anything relative to The Game today.

What matters now is simply how UGa and OU match up, and who brings their A game. Remember that game between USC and OU when we brought our C game? I’m just hoping we’re at least B level if not A!

Go Sooners!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 05:54:52 PM: Great first quarter!

The tempo of this game so far works in OU's favor.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: Thumper on January 01, 2018, 06:54:44 PM: Wow. Sooners put up 360 yards in the 1st half against UGA's hyped defense.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 06:55:45 PM: Well, we could have had a 17-point lead, but the squib kick didn't get executed properly and we take a 14-point lead to halftime.

All in all, pretty good.

Our freshman MLB Kenneth Murray is getting abused. Getting faked out of position repeatedly.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 06:57:25 PM: Quote from: Thumper on January 01, 2018, 06:54:44 PM
Wow. Sooners put up 360 yards in the 1st half against UGA's hyped defense.
Just a fluke, Thumper. The real Georgia defense will come out for the 2nd half.
And it might! But so far, I really like way things have gone.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 01, 2018, 06:57:52 PM: And great second quarter (minus the squib KO with 6 seconds left, ugh). Wonderful reverse play and pass to Baker at 3rd and goal. Stunning.

I really like the Georgia HC. He’s way into it, very active, almost like a 12th player on the field. But so far Riley and co have got him/them beat by a step.

Gotta keep the mo going to start the 3rd.

Go OU!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 07:01:08 PM: OU receives to start the 2nd half. If the Sooners can drive to a TD, Georgia will really be in a hole.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 01, 2018, 08:02:24 PM: Ugh, not looking good.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 08:27:44 PM: Like I said, Georgia brought out its real defense in the 2nd half.

We've got the game back to a tie. OU needs a defensive stop now.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 01, 2018, 09:23:05 PM: Tough game. I thought we had regained the momentum there after going up 45-38, but Georgia fought back to tie it with less than a minute left.

I didn't think our play-calling in OT was very good. Riley wanted to go for it on 4th and 1 and probably should have.

Congrats to Georgia fans, wherever they are.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 01, 2018, 09:53:27 PM: Yep agree on all counts. There were a whole lotta shoulda woulda couldas in that game. Sucks to lose, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Congrats to UGa. They fought back admirably and pulled it out. I’ll be cheering for the Dawgs in the NC game for sure.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: Thumper on January 02, 2018, 10:10:23 AM: Congrats to the Bulldogs. They dominated the trenches in the 2nd half and got aggressive as the Sooners started playing not to lose.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: BrownCounty on January 02, 2018, 10:21:54 AM: Hate to get into finger pointing and blame, but I'm just a fan so that's what fans do.

OU's kicker/punter lost this game.

That squib fail before halftime changed the game. The momentum was given away going into the locker room. Mentally, a 2 TD deficit is different than a 17 point deficit. Georgia had a little more life than they would have had.

And then came the shoddy punts. You punt for a reason - to turn the field around. If you can't do that you may as well go for it.

But if we want to avoid blame and call it a team loss, well - OU lost this game because they had trouble turning the field around, and the end of the 1st half was a sign of things to come.

I thought OU's play calling creativity was amazing the 1st quarter - and I don't mean the trick plays, just the all around assortment of run/pass utilization of both the players and the field.

The 2nd half was different. Snap ball, roll right, throw. OU only utilized half the field. I don't think Baker went back to weak side the entire 2nd half. And OT was more of the same.

As a Longhorn - the following is an expected comment, but I will make it anyway. I'm not sold on Lincoln Riley.

We've all seen too many coaches in CFB get carried by a great QB, only to flop otherwise. Let's see what Riley does next year. This year basically tells us nothing about him.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: longhorn320 on January 02, 2018, 11:14:57 AM: Twp Points

1 It seemed to me that the overtime was played by OU in a ultra conservative fashion
Not sure why the coaches went that direction

2 I think the Rose bowl was in fact the championship game
Both Georgia and OU are better then Alabama
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: BrownCounty on January 02, 2018, 11:25:00 AM: Quote from: longhorn320 on January 02, 2018, 11:14:57 AM
I think the Rose bowl was in fact the championship game

Both Georgia and OU are better then Alabama
Bold statement above. More would argue that Clemson-Bama was the game. We'll see shortly.
But as for Georgia - look out for those guys in the future. That guy is a freshman QB? Are you kidding me. And then you've got a defensive HC. They have both sides covered, and should be a force to be reckoned with for quite some time.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: FearlessF on January 02, 2018, 12:11:49 PM: heckuva game Sooners

valiant effort

very entertaining

two great teams, both teams can't win

corngrats on a very fine season
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: BrownCounty on January 02, 2018, 12:46:03 PM: I will fault Mike Stoops for Georgia's final TD run.

OU had been burned on that play twice already. I figured they would have an answer when I saw Georgia shift into that formation.

But no answer at all.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: FearlessF on January 02, 2018, 12:48:06 PM: game was over at that point, merely needed a chip shot FG for the "W"

I blame the conservative offense
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: BrownCounty on January 02, 2018, 12:55:16 PM: Quote from: FearlessF on January 02, 2018, 12:48:06 PM
game was over at that point, merely needed a chip shot FG for the "W"
Didn't OU miss a chip shot on the series before?
I never count a FG in college ball till it crosses thru the uprights.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 02, 2018, 01:34:13 PM: Quote from: FearlessF on January 02, 2018, 12:11:49 PM
heckuva game Sooners

valiant effort

very entertaining

two great teams, both teams can't win

corngrats on a very fine season
Thanks FF. It was a hard one to lose, but it's always better to have your team in it down to the wire, going down fighting.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: FearlessF on January 02, 2018, 02:02:50 PM: yup, much better than how Clemson finished
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 03, 2018, 09:40:09 PM: If anyone had told Lincoln Riley beforehand that his defense would force a punt and get the ball back with 5 minutes to play and a 7-point lead, he would have jumped for joy.

But when that happened, it was as if he had run out of ideas.

I think that it's situations like the second half of the Rose Bowl when a head coach who is also his own play-caller can get over-saturated with information and responsibilities and just respond with what he knows. And what he knows has led to big leads blown repeatedly this season.

He's a very creative play-caller, but I don't think he can be an incredibly creative play-caller and an incredibly effective head coach at the same time when it's crunch time in the biggest game of his life.

Head coach Lincoln Riley needed to tell the kicker to put it deep and out of bounds on the kickoff with 6 seconds left in the 1st half.

Head coach Lincoln Riley, facing 3rd and 2 and Georgia having settled for a FG in the 1st OT, needed to tell play-caller Lincoln Riley that he was in four-down territory, that he wanted to win it right here rather than playing tit-for-tat with Georgia in OT. Georgia is built for OT. You get a shot to put them away, you've got to give it everything you have rather than settling for a tie, where they will have all the advantages in the next OT. So you give Rodney Anderson two chances to make two yards, or you put it in Mayfield's hands. You don't give it on a trick play to the 4th-string WR who just came into the game for the first time. Who is not a running back and who quickly demonstrated why he is not a running back.

OU's defense was bad. It's been bad all season against all kinds of offenses, and there was no reason to think that it would change much for the Rose Bowl. Therefore, it was foolish of Riley to place the burden of victory or defeat in OT on the defense. He had the advantage in the 1st OT, and the defense, incredibly, even held Georgia to a FG. That was the critical point. He had to go for the kill right there. Instead he settled for another OT.

Great game, and Georgia is a great team. But OU's offense--which needed to be almost perfect--failed in the crunch. It was a moral failure as much as a physical one, and Riley's play-calling was a big part of that.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 04, 2018, 01:22:07 AM: Well said Cdub

The only thing I would add (besides a critique of the kicking game, where I don’t understand why we don’t have a dedicated place kicker and a dedicated punter - clearly Seibert wore diwn and lost focus as the game went on), is that we came out of the locker room in the 3rd quarter unbelievably flat. All the creativity of the first half got shoved aside for a conservative play not to lose approach. We were no longer putting their defense back on their heels, and the game nearly slipped away and out of reach of even OT by early in the 4th. That was a big squander of a huge lead.

But yeah then everything you said about the OT failures I totally agree with. If we didn’t go for it on 4th and 2 in the first OT, we had to go for on 4th down in the second OT, since we went first in that OT. Even if the FG hadn’t been blocked, it didn’t matter as they scored a TD and the handwriting was in the wall since our D couldn’t stop them when they needed to, up 7 with 3:30 left to go in the 4th. There’s no reason to think that our defense would have stopped them in two straight OT, and so the bigger gamble was NOT to go for it on 4th down in the second OT.

Well he’s a young guy for a HC and after performing so well all year, I can forgive him these errors. He’ll learn. A game like this is a good lesson for the future. Hard to take now but down the road it might pay off if he learns to avoid such mistakes.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: BrownCounty on January 04, 2018, 09:41:36 AM: If I'm allowed, I also appreciated Cdub's take on what happened. As I mentioned before, OU's play calling blew me away in the 1st quarter - just a creative, solid mix of plays all met with success. It's almost like Riley had it scripted.

Cdub suggests that Riley went into overload as Georgia started coming back. Makes sense. Also could be that his script played out.

You have to hang some of the loss on coaching for sure. I doubt the squib kick was Siebert's idea, although the execution was his. The punts were all Siebert.

As a 1st year coach, couldn't ask more out of Riley so he's hard to critique.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: MikeDeTiger on January 04, 2018, 12:44:38 PM: Most entertaining game I've seen in a good while.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 04, 2018, 09:11:38 PM: Here's another thing to consider.

A common thought going in was that if the OU defense could get 3-4 holds, and hold UGa to FGs rather than TDs a couple of times, we'd probably win.

By that standard, low as it is, the defense more than did its job.

FIRST HALF

Got a stop on UGa's 1st possession.

Held UGa to a missed FG attempt on its 3rd possession.

Got a stop on UGa's 5th possession.

Got a stop on UGa's 6th possession.

"Held" UGa to a 55-yard FG at the end of the 1st half.

2ND HALF

Got a stop on UGa's 2nd possession.

Got a stop on UGa's 5th possession.

Returned a fumble for TD on UGa's 6th possession.

Got a stop on UGa's 7th possession.

1ST OT

Held UGa to a FG.

2ND OT

Gave up a TD.

Here's the real problem.

2ND HALF, OKLAHOMA OFFENSE

1st possession: 3-and-out, 48-yard punt returned 21 yards.

2nd possession: 3-and-out, 57-yard punt, no return.

3rd possession: 8 plays, 22 yards, 47-yard punt, no return.

4th possession: 2 plays, 0 yards, 3rd play, interception returned to the OU 4. 2 plays later, UGa scores, so our defense "gave up" a TD.

5th possession: 3-and-out, 28-yard punt, no return.

7th possession: With a 7-point lead and 5:00 left in the game, 3-and-out, 29-yard punt to the UGa 41.

8th possession: With a tie game and 0:55 left in regulation, 4 plays, 20 yards, 30-yard punt.

OU had 8 possessions in the 2nd half, in which the offense scored a grand total of 7 points. That is a total collapse.

Meanwhile, the defense in the second half got 3 stops and scored a TD (matching the offense's production).

So, over the course of the game, including both OTs, the OU defense got 6 stops, 3 possessions held to a FG attempt (if you count the one at the end of the 2nd quarter), and a defensive TD.

Did anyone think going in that the defense would do better than that? I sure didn't.

Our defense--bad as it was--performed about as well as was expected. Better in terms of getting stops, worse in terms of allowing huge plays. But the offense and special teams performed worse than expected.

You hear, "The offense scored 38 points--that ought to be enough to win." Well, in a game in which each team got 14 possessions, and each team has a powerful offense, 38 points is not a guarantee of a win. You can't let up just because you have a 17-point lead in the 2nd quarter. There's still way too much football to be played.

I said it after the 2008 OU-Texas game. OU led by 2 scores at one point, but the game turned into a shootout, and the Sooner offense stopped scoring. That was not all on the defense. That 2008 offense was record-setting in terms of points per game. The defense wasn't particularly good, especially after losing the starting MLB against Texas. When you've got a team like that, like we did this year, the offense can't rest on its laurels just because it's built a nice lead. It has to keep scoring, because the other team is probably not going to quit.

OU's defense stinks. And I believe that the buck stops with Mike Stoops. But that was no surprise going into the Rose Bowl. The surprise was that the offense at the Rose Bowl didn't come out ready to compete with a tough, interactive opponent after halftime.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 04, 2018, 10:55:35 PM: I agree somewhat CW, but I wouldn't go too far in blaming the offense, as a championship team shouldn't give up 45 points to ANYONE, I don't care how good their offense is.

But you're right in that sometimes OU doesn't seem to have a game plan to score consistently in all four quarters. In the games we lost, Iowa St and UGa, we were blanked in the 3rd quarter, and lost the 2nd half decisively each time. In both those games we had >10 pt leads at halftime.

It's not always true - for example against OhSU, OkSU, and KSU, the Sooners won the 2nd half. So, it's not a general case of OU getting always caught or run down in the 2nd half.

Still yet, it would be worth the coaches looking at their 3rd quarter approach and keeping some proven plays up their sleeve that they don't show until the 2nd half.

Also, I haven't reviewed game tape to make sure my perception is right on this, but it seemed to me anyway that OU gave up the N-S game (not just rushing but also passes over the middle, like slants to Andrews etc) toward the end of the 4th quarter and in the OT periods and relied too much on E-W type plays. It seemed to me that the Georgia defensive backs sniffed that out and were ready for passes out on the flat and end around running type plays, and stopped us cold on those.

Instead OU should have kept pounding it up the middle more and wearing out the line and LBs. I thought they were surprisingly successful at that during the first half, and I'm not sure why they gave it up, whether UGa made some good adjustments at halftime to stop those, or whether OU kind of backed off. Either way, sometimes you have can some really productive 3 and outs (or single first down drives) if you still get some wear on the defense as you do. The third quarter should be all about wearing the defense out.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: EastAthens on January 04, 2018, 11:41:00 PM: I don't know if you guys are even remotely interested in this, but here is an article about the UGA halftime adjustments.

https://www.dawgnation.com/football/team-news/film-room-defensive-tweak-shaped-historic-rose-bowl-win
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CousinFreddie on January 05, 2018, 12:07:16 AM: Very interesting EA. Thanks for sharing that!
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: CWSooner on January 05, 2018, 07:11:37 PM: Quote
The Dawgs had to get after him in the second half. They did.
Part of that was a borderline-late hit that included a knee to Baker's ribcage.

I'm not complaining--it's football, and stuff like that happens whether intentional or not. But it was part of what took Baker out of his game.

All in all, a very interesting and informative article. I hope somebody sends it to Lincoln Riley.
Title: Re: Rose Bowl
Post by: Cincydawg on April 13, 2018, 08:13:02 AM: UGA ended up losing to Alabama in a game somewhat similar to this one (with lower scoring), get up early and then sort of freeze on offense (or the other side adjusts or starts playing better).

Roquan Smith is going to be a beast in the NFL. I hate to lose him from the D obviously but best of luck for a big paycheck.