Exploring the Historic Red River Rivalry Between Texas & Oklahoma

SportsGrid

Watch Exploring the Historic Red River Rivalry Between Texas & Oklahoma - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Red River Rivalry Raid here on Sports Grid College Football today.

00:03Week 7 action.

00:04Donnie Wright sat along with Joe Lisi.

00:07Now, understand this.

00:08This is a rivalry.

00:09Played at a neutral straight every year, which I kind of dig, though, the Cotton Bowl.

00:12Half of that burnt orange, half of the red there for Oklahoma.

00:15It adds to the pageantry going back 20, 30 years.

00:17Like, I remember just, you know, sitting there in my early days of the 2000s,

00:20Adrian Peterson running wild.

00:21Like, they had some superstar players and superstar games in this series, Joe.

00:25I'm going to show my age.

00:26I remember Gerald Moore.

00:27Remember him with the Rams back in the day?

00:30I mean, you know, I could go back to the days of Butch Hadnacht and Peter Gardere in 1990.

00:36Oh, Gardere.

00:38Eric Metcalf.

00:39That's how old I am, right?

00:41But the fact that it's played on a neutral site,

00:44and I'm glad that we didn't move it to Arlington and Jerry's house,

00:48or like some of these other rivalries, A&M and Arkansas.

00:52The fact that they kept it at the Cotton Bowl, they kept it true, they kept it legit.

00:55We didn't move it tonight as well, 3.30 kick, got to be great.

00:59He used to be at 12 noon, but, hey, as long as it's in the afternoon, there's nothing better.

01:04We'll see if John Metier plays in this game.

01:07Again, he's going to give it a go, but, Donnie, it's his thumb on his throwing hand.

01:11That's a major factor whether he even makes it through this game or not.

01:15Yeah, we had Coach Balbo on yesterday to talk about that because, you know,

01:18he's been a coach a long time in college football.

01:20He understands the game that you play with other coaching staff.

01:22So let's start here with John Metier, the fact that you're just giving the notion to Texas

01:27that he might play, that interrupts your defensive structure.

01:30That gets you ready for a different sort of play call here.

01:32So I want to ask you this question.

01:35Non-throwing hand, different story.

01:37Throwing hand, broken bone a couple weeks ago.

01:39Is this too soon to put him out of it?

01:41Because you know, Joe, if we were in that spot, any athlete worth his salt.

01:44It's like, you know what, Coach, I want to play in this game.

01:47It's a monster game.

01:48Is he going to be ready, though, to be honest?

01:50Here's the thing.

01:51I don't think he'll be ready, and that's why I did see him in practice throwing

01:55after the surgery, right?

01:57He looked good.

01:57It was one throw, and he looked sharp.

02:00But the problem is, Donnie, big picture, if you risk him to go out there today

02:04and let's say he plays a quarter or two and let's say he's not 100%

02:08and he re-injures himself or let's say he has discomfort and he gets a setback,

02:14right, suffers a minor setback, now he's done potentially for the rest of the season.

02:18If you don't start him today, let's just say, and you go with Michael Hawkins,

02:23who, by the way, played in this game last year, so he's experienced.

02:26They got blown out, but he's at least experienced.

02:29You can make the argument if they are an at-large team, well,

02:32Matier didn't play in the loss to Texas.

02:34So from that argument, this is a team that's undefeated, right?

02:37So, again, you want to try and win all your games.

02:40You want to make it to an SEC championship.

02:42But more importantly, you want to make it to the college football playoff.

02:44Giving this team the best shot to make the college football playoff would be to rest

02:50John Matier and make sure that he's ready from, let's say, weeks 9 through 14

02:55because they're in the mix right now to potentially be one of those teams.

03:00And Joe brings up a good point, too.

03:01You want to go back 15 years.

03:03Hey, we're going to rest him.

03:04Well, we lost.

03:05Well, our season's done.

03:06You can afford a loss now in college football, and maybe that's what happens.

03:09And I'm not saying that they're even going to lose the game just because he doesn't play.

03:12But understand this, Joe, Oklahoma and Texas, a 44.5 total in this game.

03:17You take a look at Texas, opened up as the favorite, minus 3.5.

03:19Now, you see the buybacks because we don't know who the starting quarterback here is going to be for OU.

03:23The minute that it gets announced, you're going to see even more line movement

03:26that we probably have baked into the number already at minus 1.5.

03:29But we focus a lot on what we're getting out of Oklahoma.

03:33What am I getting out of Texas, Joe?

03:34This is a disaster that looks like it's ready to completely go off of the rail.

03:38They have no offensive identity right now.

03:41I mean, Arch Manning made some plays last week in garbage time after they trailed by double digits,

03:47but they're not running the football effectively, certainly not the way they were last year,

03:51where when they won games, Texas, go back to the Clemson in the semifinal playoff game,

03:57they were able to rush for over 200 yards.

03:59They were able to stay in manageable third-down situations.

04:02That opened up the play-action passing attack with Quinn Ewers.

04:06Now they can't run the football.

04:07They're completely one-dimensional.

04:09And, oh, by the way, I do not believe Livingstone, Livingston, Wingo,

04:14and those players are like Isaiah Bond, Gunnar Helm, and certainly Matt Golden last year.

04:20They're at a disadvantage in this matchup.

04:22And, again, they're going up against one of the best defenses in all of the country.

04:26Oklahoma holding opposing offenses to seven points per game, but one of the best third-down defenses in the nation at 17% conversion rate.

04:36They're holding opposing offenses less than three-and-a-half yards per carry.

04:40This is going to be a tall order.

04:41That's why you're seeing 43-and-a-halves, 44s creeping to the market right now,

04:46because even if Oklahoma and John Mateer doesn't start, they're going to look to run the football

04:51and win this just the way they did against Bryce Underwood and Michigan.

04:55I give the edge to Oklahoma right now.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended