Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/mike-gundy-has-an-ou-problem-but-osu-has-a-mike-gundy-problem/
What now?
I donāt want Quadruple reverses every play. But how about attacking the middle? We ran 2 pass plays between the hash marks: 1) was an inside slant (we ran a number of outside the hash slants) which should have been PI but it wasnāt called. The other was a C.D. Lamb like full-field crossing route which resulted in our longest play from scrimmage. No TE seam routes, no deep in cuts, nothing that attacks the safeties who spent the whole day either shading in the box or shading over Stoner. Thatās poor offensive coaching imo.
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I remember attending OSU in the Pat Jones era. We thought that was the height of OSU football. At one point, OSU, OU and Nebraska were the top 3 teams in the country. Pat had Thurman Thomas, Barry Sanders, Hart Lee Dykes, and Mike Gundy. Leslie OāNeal led a defense that was very good. But Pat never beat OU, never beat Nebraska, never won a Big 8 championship. That was followed by sanctions (thanks Jimmy Johnson!) and a period of poor play. I think too many Cowboys fans are now spoiled by the recent success. Gundyās been coaching OSU for 13 years; 13 straight bowl games. NO other OSU coach in the programās history has been so successful. The program has survived intense scrutiny at times and been found to be clean. Sure, weād like to be more competitive with the Sooners, and yes, the coaching staff can recruit better. Last night, the defense got out-coached and the offense just couldnāt hang the points on OU like OU was hanging on us. But the future looks pretty bright - the defense is improving and a reminder - the defensive coordinator is in only his second year and the offensive coordinator was in his first. I for one am glad to still have Mike at the helm. You did say it quite correctly, the danger of replacing him for a bright new toy is you might get a Travis Ford. Ask Texas how Larry Strong and now Tom Hermann worked out as head coaches. Texas aināt back, despite supposed āgreatā recruiting classes year after year after freaking year. FYI checkout the Texas wikipedia page for a laugh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorns_football donāt know who did that but it is hysterical.
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Kyle, this was SPOT ON.
To win last night, we needed OU to make mistakes and turn the ball over multiple times, along with the Pokes playing a perfect game and getting some lucky breaks.
For OU to win, they simply needed to keep from crapping the bed. Thatās the difference when you recruit at an elite level versus recruiting at an average level.
Weāre in big trouble here.
Dude, everyone in the stadium knew the Sooners were going to run their power game in the 2nd half, including Gundy and Knowles. And we still couldnāt stop it.
Thatās not being out-coached in the field. Thatās being out-coached on the recruiting trail.
Iād love to know what we couldāve done to stop 700lbs of GT-pull, 225lbs of RB speed and power, and 240lbs of former Alabama QB who has LBs literally bounce off him.
I would insert Dennis Green emoji if I wasnāt over 50. OU lost to a four loss KSU team that isnāt top 50 in scoring but put up 48. All with a first year head coach who is undefeated against. That will help KSU recruiting. Needed the largest comeback in program history to beat Baylor. Same Bears that finished the 2017 season 1ā11 in Ruhleās first year. They let an injured, depleted, and worn down oSu offense, run by the back up, hang around despite wining the turn over battle. OU is sitting on the outside of the CFP today. This loss was about what oSu isnāt and not about OU. The reality is OU will be much better in the coming seasons based upon their improved recruiting. Three years from oSu would love to play this OU team IMO.
Agreed. You do what KSU, ISU, and others did against them. You get aggressive and attack them on offense, which we failed to do. OU wasnāt losing to a team that doesnāt score 30. Look, given the injuries we had, Iām not sure I expected us to beat OU. They were no doubt the better team. But I think its fair to say that we left that field with bullets left in our ammo belts, and that is highly disappointing.
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Everyone acts like OSU is second every year. Theyāre not. 4th is it, 4th is all it will ever be from this point forward.
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While Iām the first to question some play calling, this article nails it!!! Heās not perfect, and misses in some places, but there is no one better for this program than him. He does much better when he has a rotating door at the OC position, and hands over the reins to Holgerson and Monken types. Besides that, Coach Gundy is exactly what we need (good, bad or indifferent).
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Those teams didnāt beat OU or NU. No dishonor about that when the competition is top 10 talent and has decades of financial advantage. One thing that often gets forgotten is those teams didnāt lose to anyone else. 1984, 1987, 1988 teams had 10 win teams with only 2 losses including the bowl game.
Best two season win percentage in program history are 2010 (.846) & 2011 (.943).
I agree here. There are much worse problems to have then being so consistently good on offense that you replace your OC every two years. Think of your current job. Can you imagine your CEO saying: āI donāt want to hire him (or her) for CFO because in two years heāll want to be a CEO somewhereā. The board of directors would oust that CEO in a minute. Yet, we accept that exact same perspective from our head coach.
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I love our guys. My jaw was on the floor during the Senior Day intros. Every single one had either multiple bachelorās, a grad degree, degrees with majors/minors. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. As an alum, I couldnāt be more proud that these guys took every advantage available to them as scholarship athletes and exceeded expectations in the classroom. Truly inspiring stuff.
And every one of them will need their degrees because they wonāt be getting paid to play football.
That sentence might incite some people. Iām NOT saying these kids should be studying Cover-2 instead of marketing.
Iām saying the signing class of 2016 had one player get drafted to the NFL. And we couldnāt get his 5āļø brother to follow him the 70 miles from Tulsa to OSU.
My point is, we were attacking. At least, as much as we can with a backup QB, no Tylan, and a warn down Chuba. Those teams you mentioned benefitted from OU turning the ball over, and we didnāt. Instead, we turned it over multiple times, missed some tackles, dropped some passes, etc.
When OU plays as clean as they did, talent wins out. And they have considerably more talent. We HAVE to narrow that gap.
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Sorry, we have a one-slant-per-game rule! Thereās only been one game where we ran two. We simply do not attack the middle, thereās some rule against it. Our coaches did little to help out our young QB. Letās just run outs and go routes 75% of the time and in the red zone, fades, something that takes a lot of time and touch to get right. Thereās little imagination to our offense, itās only cause our skills position players are so good that weāve won 8 games this season. Our O-line is playing okay, better than average but still not as good as Wickline had them. But thatās not even the problem. See how āBASEā our blocking schemes were last night? A lot different from what zerOU did.
Gundy just simply isnāt going to do much different in Bedlam as what we did all season long, which wasnāt great to begin with. Thereās very little trickeration and we do try something itās high risk, very little return fake kicks. The throwback play to Sanders was the best trick play we ran all season.
Whenās the last time we ran a Utah pass (aka shuttle), a hook and lateral, shoot, crossing routes with a TE trailing those guys? How many TE look-ins have we ran?
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Honest question: Do you think the coaches left it all out there last night? We were hyper conservative. 3 Red zone trips in the first half and not 1 single throw to the end zone. Inside draw on 3rd and goal from the nine is a give up play. 4th and 3 and we call a roll-out to a 3rd string TE as the only receiver and he doesnāt even get to the marker so even if he did catch it (he didnāt) it wouldnāt have netted a first down. We hit on a big crossing pattern and call it again when? Oh thatās right, we never bothered. I wish OU would quit calling the plays that worked. Iām not upset that we lost. We lose to OU all the time (unfortunately) and they are the better team, period. Iām upset because the coaches coached like they wanted OU to win so OSU could get the Alamo Bowl invite.
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Iām glad you think so. I donāt think the future is bright at all, esp if Gumby is going to overrule the O-coordinator on what to call and strategy. Not at all optimistic that the defense will ever be one of the best in the Big 12, we donāt take enough chances there, just keep it base and blitz 3, 4 times per game, thatās it. Tackling skills are still SUBPAR. DBs donāt bump receivers like Knowles promised, rarely if ever and maybe thatās your dude, Gundyās decision. I bet it is if I had to bet.
Good luck, weāre gonna need it. I hope Arkansas comes and offers Gundy 10 mill and heās gone to Fayetteville.
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Load the box and force the pass would be the first thing you try.
I donāt think our defense gets better. We were running two legit NFL-roster quality corners out there with 37 starts apiece. If we canāt be aggressive with that on the back-end, then next year, when our starters are Tanner McCallister and someone who may not even be on the team yet, thereās no way Knowles is putting them on islands. That means less (not more) pressure. That said, our defense is better when there is pressure on the opposing offense to be successful in order to keep up with our offense. Something that wasnāt a factor last night.
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Kyle the one problem I have with the article is context on those past great recruits. Dez Bryant came to OSU because every other major school backed off of him because he was not supposed to qualify. Then somehow he miraculously did (some rumors he got help doing so). Richetti Jones had teams back off of him after he had a horrible injury to his hip late in high school. Some thought he might never play again and frankly it did keep him from being a top level guy. Pettigrew came here because most schools were moving away from a tight end and we featured them. So to use those guys as examples of recruiting prowess is a mistake. Frankly none of them are as big a recruiting win as Wallace or Sanders or not even Chuba when you look at the offer sheets instead of the recruiting rank. So I would argue that Gundy can and does still recruit well at times and certainly still can. Heck Illingsworth may be the best QB we have ever recruited. But I know that goes against the Gundy canāt recruit vibe that flows through here so doubt anyone pays attention.
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While I donāt disagree that there is a talent disparity, 95% of the teams in the country have a talent disparity against OU. Iām not completely annoyed at our recruiting. We get 3 to 5 high level prospects per year, which is on par with the rest of the non-blue bloods. The issue I have is that if thatās who we are, then why are we calling plays and coaching like we have a roster full of NFL guys? The bigger the talent difference, the more creative you have to call a game. I donāt mean reverse passes on every play, but we didnāt run a single jet sweep. We ran 1 crossing pattern. No deep ins. It was all zone block run, and outside the hash mark passing. If you arenāt creative, talent will win and thatās what happened.
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Absolutely, the coaches left it all out there. So did the players. They do it every game. To think otherwise is ridiculous and juvenile. Gundy and his staff are going to sandbag Bedlam? GTFO.
As for red zone playcalling? I have no idea. Iāve never played or coached football on any level. Maybe they ran the draw on 3rd down from the 9 thinking itād catch them off guard and Chuba could break one. Or at least get close enough to go for it on 4th. I do know Gundy said they canāt beat teams kicking field goals, so why would he purposely play for field goals?
I loved the play to Johnson over the middle on the first drive. And hereās a shocker. We have crossing routes on almost every pass play. Go rewatch the game and follow the secondary as much as the camera will let you. Youāll see slants and crosses on a lot of plays. And our guys seem open. Maybe Brown canāt see them. Maybe Brown locks in on other receivers.
Look, I get it. Itās extremely frustrating to watch OU call plays where receivers are crazy open. Keep in mind, Lincolnās QBs at OU have been Heisman/#1 pick, Heisman/#1 pick, and Jalen Hurts, a guy who led Bama to a NC as a true freshman. Heās had backs like Anderson, Mixon 
, Perine, Sermon, Kennedy. Receivers named Dede, CeeDee, Hollywood. TIght ends like Andrews, Calc, and Morris. Every single one of these guys were drafted or will be drafted. And Iām not mentioning the 8-10 OL theyāve had drafted in the last four years. Seriously, go look it up.
All things being equal, talent will win out a huge majority of the time. Last night wasnāt equal with turnovers, drops, etc. But to question whether our coaches sandbagged and didnāt do what they thought was best for OSU to win? Why even follow OSU if you question that? Seriously.
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