Well I am not a season ticket holder ( I dont live close enough to make a 6 hour drive each weekend ) but have been a fan since the late 60s. We have seen the good and bad ( 90s sucked) but the play this year has been less than what we all believed it would be.
In many ways even at 9-1 it feels like OU is a 6-4 type team because the play has been that bad. Right or wrong we all have expectations and this year Riley and company has failed on that part. Remember this was suppose to be Rileys best team yet. Far from it actually.
OU still has a shot at the B12 title and we all know that but to get there they are going to have to put together 3 straight great games and so far they haven’t shown they can do that. Plaino can you honestly say you haven’t had any bad things to say about this team this year?
My view is more about players. It's always about players, though most fans always blame coaches. I share your pessimism about what looms ahead. I think our team as a group of players is more than a little overrated, and I think we've had some bad luck with injuries and other factors.
I haven't liked the whole concept for Speed D from the beginning and said so. I think it might be a terrific strategy for tier B schools. But if you seek to be elite, I think it's really really hard to recruit elite defensive linemen with that philosophy. It's much the same as when Kittle was coaching the offensive line. The best linemen on both sides are big big guys. They still have to be able to run, but I loved Bill Parcells philosophy. Football is for big men at every position. OUr defensive philosophy, of making every defender chase the ball til the whistle blows, isn''t a basis for recruiting the best big men. The reason that UGa has the best defense in the country, is because the have enormous big guys who can run.
Guys like their NT, don't go to schools that want their linemen to run marathons. They go to schools that teach them to bench press your sofa. Under this, we don't get those guys. And OUr OL is a soft comparison to the days when my favorite OL at OU ever, Orlando Brown, was huge. Couldn't run close to six flat in the 40. But he could block anybody, and still does in the NFL. Creed could do that. But nobody in OUr OL looks the part of a stud.
Nobody on OUr DL, requires a double team. Maybe Bonitto some. But he's a speed guy, undersized for the position. And he's recently whined online about other places that let their pass rushers rush the passer. This whole NIL thing can defeat every thing that football has stood for, for a century. It's about the team. OUr guys don't seem to get that. And coaches can really create that. Player leadership has to create that.
OUr player leadership seems more interested in BLM, than creating a great team. They really even got whipped by KU. We just had a couple of fortunate plays at the end and pulled it out, against a severely inferior team. I'm still hopeful. But I'll be amazed if we win three straight.
