A little look back...

[BIG DAWG]

As the new season quickly approaches, I looked back to our last 3 season openers. 2002 v. #9 Texas (27-0 L), 2003 v. #3 OU (37-3 L), and 2004 v #8 Texas (65-0 L).

You ask, "Why the hell are you drudging up these deamons?" Well because I like many, are chalking up our season opener as a loss versus #5 LSU, but I believe that if our score resembles the score of our season opener in 2002 or 2003, it is almost a victory for us. I remeber being in Austin with my UT friend in 2002, and them only beating us 27-0, not scoring any points against us in the second half, killed the Texas fans. It ruined their season opener in a way. THAT MADE ME FEEL GOOD EVEN IN DEFEAT!

I am sure people kind of felt the same way in Sooner Nation in 2003. Hell, they even let us score.

Then I looked back to what went wrong in 2004. Here is what I noticed in the stat book that I feel F-ed us in Austin last year.

2002 2003 2004

Time of Possesion 28:40 to 31:20 28:54 to 31:06 23:47 to 36:13

TOP Diff -2.30 min -2.10 min -12.30 min

Rushing yds 38 - 90 yds 35 - 75 yds 20 - 23 yds

Are you telling me that with the the back to back rushing champions, that we can't keep the TOP close? TOP is directly related to rushing the ball, that doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out.

My point in all of this is, this game doesn't look to be a "flood gates route".

Also remeber in 2004, Cobbs is playing with a cast, and only carries the ball 9 times, J-Mo might be red shirted, and only carries the ball 2 times.

Remeber to, they are playing with a new QB to.

Not talking victory, but I feel we may have something to hang our hat on after it is said and done.

GO MEAN GREEN!

[BIG DAWG]

Well my post didn't format like I intended it to.

If you are interested in what it has to say, I hope you can follow it.

JIST: we should play better than in our season opener last year

[eeally]

I agree, we have been here before. Our D will be stretched to no end but we will have the heart to go toe to toe with LSU. Covering the spread will be of no consequence we will cover. I think our boys are ready for the season opener and no way LSU will spoil this season. Good Thread, Beat LSU!

[Guest Aquila_Viridis]

Maybe there will be a whole whole lot of rain but too bad I think the hurricane will have wrung that out already.

I saw OU kick the crap out of Virginia one year in a bowl over in Jacksonville, with a deadly, dinky, relentless, little short passing game. I have been amazed why I don't see more of that sort of thing. If we could include some of that in the mix, it will make a huge difference.

[FirefightnRick]

The ONLY reason that tU game in '02 was 27-0 was because we had a top 10 defense that year. It would have been less had we not spotted them the ball inside our 20 on two straight kickoff blunders. Offensively, we couldn't move the ball at all because of the usual........that is, because of the usual of us running straight into the line over and over and over and our lack of ability to stretch their D with the pass.

A couple of weeks later after the tU game we faced a very poor 1-AA Nichols State team who never crossed the 50 yard line that I remember. Andrew was only allowed to pass around 14 times if I remember correctly. That night was the perfect chance to TEST our passing mettle and try to build on it for conference. But we didn't. We looked up going into the 4th quarter with only a 10 point lead. I couldn't believe it. Nichols State was playing 10 and sometimes all 11 defensive players in the box and stuffed us all night because they new we wouldn't pass. It was very frustrating to watch. I remember the coaches letting Andrew's arm loose in one game that season, against MTSU in which he showed how damn good of an arm he had. I never understood why they wouldn't let him go like that in any of the other games?

Last year in '04 we opened the very first series on offense against Texas with three straight hand-offs to Cobbs(who was wearing a cast on one hand) straight ahead into a top 3 ranked defense that had 9 or more in the box. Right there I knew we were done because our defense couldn't respond.

With the lack of experience at QB we can expect much of the same this year. Question is, do we have any kind of a defense with so many holes to fill that can respond and keep us in games?

Script it now, carve it in stone: Offensively this will be the 2002 season all over again.

Rick

[Travis]

this game is going to get ugly quick i think.

comparable to last years game (but hopefully not as bad).

running game probably wont get too far simply because we have absolutely no balance. Our current qb's can't throw the deep ball and they make too many mistakes in the passing game. On top of which most passes are bad ones. And for some reason in the scrimmage we keep distributing out to our Tight Ends. Specifically Harmon who has butter fingers. If we are going to pass. Then lets put our freshman Charlie in there. He is our best shot if we are going that route.

[BIG DAWG]

Travis, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't see Charlie in there Saturday.