I hope this is the primary line most take away from your post. The WR example is the most prominent in my eyes. Are we in a bad spot at WR? Sure. Is it a reason for our entire offense to go into a punchless shell? That's a **** of thing. We were 100% suffocated. Like a mouse with a snake wrapped around it.
Not even asking for winning football or a shootout. Although, only as one-off examples, you see Leach and Kiffin with similar talent gaps between their players and opponents get into some shootouts. But, a punchless shell? Clobbered our IZ run as many expected; little to no counter. Man'd up our WRs and focused on Jordan as everyone expected; little to no counter. Blitz'd us with no conscious? Little to no counter.
That was pretty close to the rough performance
@CANE1775 talked about seeing from Malzahn at times.