The straight scoop from
Colonel Mustard
Aug. 27, 2001
A mixed bag for the opener. We were better on defense than I thought we would be. And were just pitiful on offense for most of the game. Even special teams had great and poor moments.
TCU wouldn't have scored at all except for a fluke. The D-line got pressure but couldn't finish off the sacks. Our line gets knocked off the ball at times because they don't have enough ballast, as the pros say. When you only have two linemen, they have to be disruptive or tie up blockers. Our guys are smaller and sometimes disruptive. The backers played a good game. Vedral is improved, and Shanle made a couple of plays. Ruud is the real deal. He can run and is a big hitter. Hollowell needs to move back outside because we need the depth and he won't play with Burrow and Ruud there. Ricketts was impressive, he was manned up on Dunbar at times and did a good job. Overall the defense was good against an offense that is not great but OK.
Special teams were mixed. Larson will be a weapon. Field position will mean a lot this year. Davis is a very good kickoff returner, and the coverage teams were much improved. Punt returns were sloppy, and as my friend Darren says, if Cornelson is our best punt returner, that isn't good. Davis would seem to be an option here.
Frank is our guy, so what follows is only what he needs to improve or it will cost us games again this year. As was the case at Oklahoma last year, Frank had the best gameplan to start the game. And again after early success we failed to adjust to TCU's defensive adjustments. Whether it is Frank or the staff, we don't adjust. They blitzed constantly and we continued to leave the fullback out of the game and run misdirections and slow-developing plays. No. 7 needed to get us out of bad plays and into good ones. And Frank needed to adjust. No. 7 either threw great passes or terrible. The pass to Thomas that was called back was perfect. The interception at the end of the first half was awful. Collins gave us what we expected, a speed guy but not much power. They had him lined up on the wing in the double-wing formation. Look for more of that. Grixby was a disappointment -- no power. The line was OK, except Rutherford looked confused a lot. Wistrom almost caught a ball with one hand falling out of bounds -- he might have the best hands we've ever had. No. 7 had 24 carries, that is a lot . If he keeps getting that many, he won't be around when we need him the most in October and November.
It was a tough to start out against a good defense and a team with athletes that won 10 games last year. This
game gives us a lot to learn from and will make us better later. The best news
was the defense, and the worst was our continued inability to adjust on
offense.
-- The Colonel