chen@gitpyr.UUCP (Ray Chen) (01/14/86)
Note: my apologies about the fact that this article focuses on Penn State more than OU. I think OU had the better team and won fair and square, but I see Penn State taking a lot of shit that I think is undeserved. So... An opinion from a non-partisan observer. Anybody who says the Orange bowl was a boring blow-out has no head for defensive football. What you saw in the Orange Bowl was one of the best defensive games I've seen in a long time. Penn State came out of that game under-rated. They did a beautiful job of shutting down the wishbone. They screwed up OU's fancy stuff so badly that OU had to to turn their multiple-option wishbone attack into a fullback-up-the-middle attack. Penn State had a good team. People don't seem to understand that Penn State being primarily a defensive team, when they win, they don't win by that many points. They just win. In my opion, the pivital point was the turn-over in the third quarter that resulted in Penn State's defense being on the field for almost the entire quarter. The wishbone finally started to work late in the 4th quarter simply because the Penn State defense had been on the field for most the half and was getting *very* tired. (I have to give credit to Switzer/OU for picking up on this and figuring out the right time to try the fancy stuff again.) Also, if Penn State had had a competent (not good, just competent) quarterback, they could have picked the OU defense apart using short passes to help the running game out. However, the starting Penn State qb (whose name I forget) consistently mis-read the coverage, tried to force passes, didn't check all his recievers, and gave away where he was going to throw the ball. Hell, I almost had a heart attack after his first completion. He threw smack into tight double coverage. Maybe things would have turned out differently had Paterno put the #2 qb in earlier. But he didn't and part of being a good team is having a good quarterback. What can I say about OU? The OU defense did a nice job of shutting down Penn State's running attack and did a better job of taking advantage of Penn State's quarterback. They didn't get demoralized when their wishbone got shut down and they didn't make any mistakes. Penn State was very, very good. OU was better. I think those 2 teams ended where they should have been. (especially since I seem to remember that the rest of the contenders for #1 choked in a big way...) Ray Chen gitpyr!chen