Well, we know Bob didn't enjoy what his offense did to little brother Mark but it's more than fair to say OU fans feel the exact opposite. After playing very poorly in the season opener, OU fans needed to see significant improvement against Florida State and did they ever. It is also important to acknowledge that as well as the guys on offense played, Kevin Wilson called a just as equally outstanding game. Wilson, deservedly or not, has plenty of critics and much like Landry silenced his with an impressive performance Wilson did just the same (at least for now).
Check out a more in-depth breakdown after the jump.
For those of you who weren't fortunate enough to be inside Memorial Stadium for the FSU beat down, you may or may not be aware that Bob has a brother who coaches for FSU. I say that because you sure wouldn't have known before ESPiN felt it necessary to show him on the sideline every third play. Good lord ESPiN producers, we get it already. Okay sorry, just needed to get that off my chest.
When breaking down the OU offense against FSU, I'm not sure how you could start with anyone other than Landry Jones. As poorly as he played against Utah State, he couldn't have played much better against Florida State. I'm sure everyone has seen the stat by now that he had the 2nd most passing yards in a half in OU history (he's only behind some guy named Bradford). Landry looked like the QB OU fans were hoping to see, a guy who was in command of the offense from the moment they kicked off. He was calm, confident, poised and made good decisions with the ball all day long.
One of the reasons Landry played so well was due to the time he received in the pocket and that can be directly attributed to the performance of his offensive line. The OU offensive line pass protected incredibly well on Saturday, only giving up one sack and routinely giving Landry all kinds of time to find open OU receivers. Some may point to the fact OU didn't really run all that well against FSU, but those would be people who either didn't watch the game or clearly didn't pay attention if they did watch. OU didn't need to run the ball, they were allowed to throw at will so they simply took what the FSU defense game them.
As for that rushing game, DeMarco Murray had two short touchdown plunges while collecting a combined 104 total yards. It was good to see Murray get involved more in the passing game and also positive that it wasn't necessary for him to carry the rock 35 times again on Saturday. Mossis Madu returned after his one game suspension and played pretty well in spelling Murray throughout the game. Jermie Calhoun even got in late and ran hard, but most importantly held on to the ball which will hopefully help him get more carries in the future. It's been mentioned in several other stories on The Machine, but certainly worth addressing again RB Brennan Clay was taking off the field after a scary hit late in the game. All reports are he is fine and was only taken to the hospital as a precaution.
The performance from the receivers against FSU was dramatically improved from the week before. There are few words remaining to try and describe just how good Ryan Broyles is on a weekly basis. He absolutely abused the FSU secondary, even causing fan favorite Greg Reid to have a mini meltdown late in the game. Another notable performance from Saturday was that of one Cam Kenney. Kenney played like the guy OU fans had heard about coming into last year and appears to be gaining confidence by the minute. He made a nice catch and run on his TD reception and is quickly becoming that 2nd threat at WR this offense desperately needs. Dejuan Miller had a nice long catch and run, but still needs to be a more consistent threat for this offense. Freshman WR Kenny Stills still hasn't become the factor in the OU offense we thought he would be, but he is still a true freshman so certainly no cause for alarm. That said, I still think there have been plenty of missed opportunities to get him involved in the offense early and I am sincerely hoping that is something that changes in the future.
******ALERT****** You can call off the search for the OU TE position! In an absolute stunner, OU had two (that's right two) TEs catch touchdown passes on Saturday! Both TD receptions were equally impressive in their own right. Trent Ratterree displayed outstanding effort on his TD catch, hauling in the ball two yards short of the end zone and driving through two FSU defenders into pay dirt. James Hanna came out of nowhere to haul in a 46 yard TD while making a couple nice open field moves to work his way over the goal line. While the two TDs was certainly exciting, they were also the only two catches on the day for the TE position so there is still room for improvement on their involvement in the offense (I know, I know, I just can't help but rain on the parade somehow).
Overall, an outstanding and impressive from the OU offense as a whole. The haters have already begun to discredit the performance due to the FSU defense, but we all knew that would happen and that those people will always find something to complain about no matter the result. However, with the non-con schedule OU has this year there is no time to sit back and admire their performance from Saturday. Air Force coming to town next week presents a very difficult to game plan against and one that could potentially dominate time of possession. So this OU offense will need to be efficient next week and capitalize on all the chances they get next Saturday. For now though, congrats to all the players and coaches for a very impressive win over Florida State!