Originally published at: Oklahoma State Secondary Takes Heat After Entire Defense Struggles in Loss Houston
“You gotta look inwards first."
Defense is sus. I thought the strength was going to be the secondary, but outside of Mo Horn, I think it’s the biggest weakness. And it would also help if they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot with bone-headed penalties that give the other team first downs
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I love having a staff and team that tells the truth
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Imagine watching the offense put up a measly 3 defense-assisted points in the entire first half, and then blaming defense for the loss. Jesus.
The defense didn’t look like world beaters, but the offense was ABSENT for an entire half. The defense actually did enough if the offense would have done ANYTHING for the first half. How are people not seeing that?
And I’ve made this point on other posts, but offense is why we bought the UNT squad. Where is it? We’ve been conditioned by the sheer ineptitude of OSU offense the last few years into thinking this year’s is all-world and perfect. It ain’t.
Score in the first half. It’s not complicated.
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It doesn’t matter how many points you have in the first half, it’s how many points you have at the end of the game. And 32 points should be enough if the defense was even slightly above average. Just ONE more stop in the fourth quarter - we aren’t asking for a lot here. It’s not rocket science my man.
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How about ANYTHING AT ALL from the offense for an entire half? Is that too much?
This first-half no show, 2-turnover per game offense. How about THEY get going? Too much to ask? Damn.
You’re on a sinking ship with this silly take, dude. The offense showed up when it mattered most. The defense did not. At all. They did the opposite of show up. They made zero big plays and gave up every single third and fourth down when we needed a stop. They made this QB look like a Heisman candidate.
Period.
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The first half matters! FFS why are we letting the offense off the hook?? What are you on?
Maybe the defense doesn’t have to make “just one more stop” if the offense plays BOTH HALVES. Jesus H. What did we bring Coach Morris and Mestemaker up to Stillwater for? Come on.
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Let it go Randall - this article is ans should be about our horrific play in the secondary! I have a question to Coach Morris - why in the hell are we playing alll these North Texas guys - go down the list of the worst offenders #3 Terrence Lewis #1 Jackson #7 Hammonds #8 Kollin Lewis and 14 Kobi Forman most steered and not played a lot and they all are from North Texas. a couple of them don’t look like D-1 Athletes. They were absolutely horrible - Horn and Fields were OK and Bodnar a little better than the the NT guys but bad. Play Cameron Epps 6’2 6’3 210 or Trudell 6‘1 or Cook 6’2 205 or out in Braden Pressley it can’t get any worse. Don’t play that damn favoritism Card Cassidy…your defenses has a long history porous play and playing your favorites - let some of these other guys that are on the team they are bigger and have played D-1 football.
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I think it’s fair to put some blame for the loss on the offense in the first half, but I think that rests on the coaching decisions more than the players’ performance, when clearly we have a strategic problem punching it in from the red zone.
But for me the defense has been the clear specter all year. They were getting torched by WVU, let UCF have their way, and let Oregon back in the game to take the lead in the second half. Yes, they’ve gotten stops at times, but a few more and we’d have won decisively last night.
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I can agree, the offense was pretty inept in the first half. I’m not arguing that a stronger start wouldn’t have been helpful. But the defense was bad for the entire game outside of a fluke interception where their QB hit his teammate in the head with a pass.
Even though Houston didn’t have a lot points on the board yet, the defense was constantly and literally getting run over by them and we couldn’t tackle. It’s a big reason why they dominated time of possession 22 minutes to our 8 in the first half. And in the second half, the secondary was basically target practice. When it mattered most (i.e. when we really, really needed it in the second half), the defense laid an egg and the offense more than made up for their slow start.
Whatever the reasoning (effort, conditioning, discipline, skill level), it’s concerning to stay the least.
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This is just armchair coaching, but IMO they have been told to “play fast play fast play fast.” Welp, there’s another component to success that seems to have taken a back seat - being in the right positions. Yeah our players are fast alright - fast trying to catch up to the ball carrier from behind because they weren’t in the right spot or didn’t take the right pursuit angle to begin with.
Completely agree re. the defense. I was seriously questioning it after both the WVU and UCF games. I predicted for us to win this game, but only in a shootout and only by a few. And that was assuming the coaches would figure it out at least a bit. Big assumption. Too big it turns out.
And I agree that the the defense doesn’t really get any credit for the first half either. Houston scoring only 14 was due in large part to their ball control offense and the helmet deflection INT.
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The secondary was awful.
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My dude. I will give the offense 10% of the blame, but that is it. How do you see this question being answered?
Chad Weiberg: Coach, thanks for coming! We’d like to hire you to lead our football club. Do you think you can bring Mestemaker and that offense up to Stillwater?
Eric Morris: Oh, I can do better than that. I’ll bring Caleb Hawkins and Wyatt Young, but do I have to be able to coach defense?
Chad Weiberg: Defense? (Snorts his chocolate milk out of his nose laughing) No, defense is for nerds. Just bring Cassity and whatever transients you have laying around campus.
Eric Morris: So glad to hear you say that. I do not understand defense. I tried watching a YouTube video on it one time and it was all “angles of pursuit” and “form tackle” and blah blah (fakes snoring). Oh, can I bring Wesloski, though? He’s a full-grown man.
Chad Weiberg: Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. As long as he can’t do it all by himself, I like a little excitement in my games. I mean, can you move him to tight end?
Eric Morris: Well, I could, but I don’t throw it to those guys. Sometimes I draw up plays and forget to even put them on there.
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So was the offense. Why is the defense getting all the blame?
Would anybody on this thread believe that we held Houston to below their average PPG? Because we did. Not by much but we did. 39.3 ppg and they scored 35.
Our offense averages 37.1 and scored 32.
Which side of the ball actually underperformed?
The absolute no-show from our offense in the first half lost the game. Y’all wanna blame the D exclusively and I can’t convince you. I’ll drop it, but I’m right.
That was actually pretty funny.
You likely know what they say about statistics (lies, damn lies…). When you say we held them below their season PPG average, that is true. But if you take out the 77 points they scored against Southern (southern what? United States?) their average ppg was 32.6. So we held them to their average.
I dunno. I’ve been reading and hearing a LOT about how great Cassity and his defense have played. I’m not seeing it. The accolades they got from the Oregon game were a tad inflated.