I suspect the coaches in general were not ready to go away from Sam to put in Lanning, simply because they did not know if Lanning was ready to play. Lanning did throw a lot of pretty bad passes last night, so it isn't like he is Aaron Rogers back there. The question I had was why it took 3-4 weeks to figure out that Warren was the stud RB?
Lanning did throw some really poor passes last night, most of them into the ground short of the WR. When they first happened my initial thought was.... "ouch, this guy can't throw any better than Sam". But then I thought about it a bit more and came to the realization that maybe he threw those into the ground somewhat on purpose?
I know, it sounds crazy, but I think there is some truth to it. Many of these bad passes were thrown off his back foot while trying to avoid a sack from a rushing DL in his face. I think Joel is a gamer, and for one, he didn't want to take the sack and the loss of yardage, and two, knowing that nobody was really open he didn't want to just float something out there that could be picked off either. So he basically ditched the ball several yards short of the WR into the ground.
The thing with those passes is, yes they look ugly, but then when you pause a minute you realize.... "ok, at least we didn't lose 8 yards on the sack, and we also didn't turn it over either. Learn to live another down.".
IMO, Sam too many times would go into the fetal position when pressured and take the sack, which put us in an almost impossible position to convert a 1st down, OR he would throw it up off his back foot just hoping one of our guys would come down with it and it would get intercepted... and of course that was the worst thing to do.
Lanning at least kept the ball in our possession and was able to move the chains. That is SO important. And the other thing I noticed about Lanning's passes, the ones where he wasn't under a lot of pressure that is, he put the ball right where it needed to be and also on time as well. He would hit guys right on the hands and also right in stride too. With Sam, the ball took longer to get there, but also our WR's would have to reach down to get it or jump up really high to bring it down, or reach back to get it, or have to dive forward to reach it. That is just a killer. Anytime you don't hit those WR's on their hands in stride, the play is nearly dead with the speed of these DB's these days.
With all this being said, I'm still predicting we're going to bet beat pretty soundly this Saturday. OU will probably cover that 24 point spread, and then all the naysayers will be back on here next Sunday saying I told you so. I hope that doesn't happen because that's the last thing we need right now. Texas was a nice break for our defense from having to defend the high octane spread offenses we've been facing and will face in the future. OU is 100% a different animal than Texas. They will likely score quite a bit on us, but that doesn't mean that we aren't headed in the right direction IMO. We should all be able to tell, even if we lose pretty badly, how we looked doing it this Saturday. Did we eliminate turnovers? Were we able to run the ball fairly effectively? Did we make any really stupid play calls that cost us big time?
You can tell a completely dysfunctional team from one that is playing good fundamental efficient football, but is just outclassed talent wise.
