Fiesta Bowl Post Mortem Part III: Texas Defense

i counted a lot more bad minutes, but im sure yer getting to the offense soon…

Great writeup. I’m really worried about our DL next year with no Rak or Miller. Everything else was just as you said. Pryor running was tough to defend from an angle standpoint, not really speed or being in position problem. I’m impressed with his ability to not lose the game for then, his ability to win games will come soon enough.

scipio,

Watching that game reminded me just how good a job Muschamp did with the defense this year and how much better this defense can play once they start taking proper angles, don’t overrun plays, and can someone in the secondary please make a tackle? How can this be the same school that has produced so many great defensive backs?

I would love to see Houston move back outside to defensive end opposite of Sergio next year, but unless Tolly has a couple of miracles up his sleeve Lamarr remains inside.

dick:
 
Agree with all you wrote. No Rak and no Miller is very troubling. I’ve got big hopes for Kheeston Randall and we need Eddie Jones to show us what he’s got.
 
Justaguy:
 
Muschamp did a fantastic job with the D and there’s no reason we won’t see continuous improvement there.
 
Houston is a DT all the way. We can’t spare him.

Actually by missing the tackle on Herron he did us a favor. If he makes the tackle there, OSU runs the clock down and kicks a field goal, leaving us no time. Remember they were down by only 2.

“How can this be the same school that has produced so many great defensive backs?”

Justaguy, remember that we’ve had lean years at DB leading up to outstanding units before. We all recall fondly, for example, the ‘95 unit (led by Westbrook) and the 05/06 units (led by Huff, et al.), but those same units were vilified by Texas fans in their earlier years. People hated Cedric Griffin when he was a Frosh in the same way they hate Beasley as a Junior now. A lot of people were dead certain he wasn’t going to amount to anything. People were similarly concerned about Huff and the other Griffins.

IMO, DB is one of those positions where it a) takes a significant amount of seasoning to become consistently good and b) the place where mistakes are most obviously punished. You miss an assignment as a green DT? People on specialty blogs devoted to your own team notice. You misjudge a route as a green CB? You’re on SportsCenter.

I’d hazard a guess that 3-4 of our guys in the rotation this year will be fearsome DBs in 2-3 years, and one or two may even be so next year.

As far as I’m concerned, the problems with this year’s unit aren’t so much a result of poor coaching as they were poor recruiting. We had a couple of years where we whiffed at the position – either that, or the people we recruited deemed tha thug life to be preferable to playing under Larry MacDuff.

Bow has a very good point there. Egads. Perhaps Tressel erred in not running down the clock more deliberately.

Both Pryor and Baylor’s Griffin gave the Texas defense trouble with their QB running. Bobino and Muck surely aren’t the best bodies we have for their LB spots, are they?

I hate calling out kids directly, but I’m going to be pretty f*ing disappointed if Beasley and Gideon are starters next season. Have to have better play at that corner spot.

Not sure what to expect from Jones. A number of people believe he’s already hit his ceiling. Here’s hoping not.

“I’m going to be pretty f*ing disappointed if Beasley and Gideon are starters next season. Have to have better play at that corner spot.”

Gideon’s a safety.

“Not sure what to expect from Jones. A number of people believe he’s already hit his ceiling. Here’s hoping not.”

I’ve heard no one suggest Eddie Jones has hit his ceiling. Jones has hardly been on the field in his time at the 40, primarily because of shoulder problems. I have no clue what the prognosis is on a complete recovery for him, but I wouldn’t discount him too readily.

Scipio,

Given how thin the horns are at DT, do you think Muschamp may play more with 3 down linemen next season?

The horn LBs this year tended to be big guys who ran around 4.6 in the 40 (Kindle is a bit quicker at 4.55 in the 40). Do you think Muschamp is going to start recruiting LBs who are a little bit smaller but quicker (say 225-230 pounds, 4.5 in the 40)? Maybe moving Gideon to LB might work out. He’s not fast for a safety but he is plenty fast at LB. He would have to get a little bigger and stronger (and retain his speed in the process).

Tressel is a good coach and it is no surprise that he did a good job on D against the horns.

On offense, I was much less impressed by Tressel. Anytime you have two monsters in the backfield like Beanie Wells and Terrell Pryor you have a tremendous edge in the running game.

Beanie’s power forces the D to play 3 big LBs (i.e. big and strong enough to consistently tackle Beanie in the middle). Because of this, I was sure before the game that our LBs and DEs would have a tough time containing Pryor (who runs a 4.4 40) outside.

I was really surprised at how inaccurate Pryor was throwing the ball (especially short throws).

If tOSU plays with a couple of TEs who can block LBs, seal DEs/DTs, and catch a short pass and Pryor can throw a 10 yard pass accurately, tOSU would have been very difficult to stop.

I looked at the replay of the game a few times to try to find out where Beanie took a big enough hit to put him out of the game and just did not see it. You may be right in your analysis that he made a preemptive decison.

The final non tackle by Gideon (on which tOSU scored a TD) was actually a big play for the horns which gave them a chance to win the game. My son and I were begging Mack to just let tOSU score so UT would have enough time to reply. Gideon’s attempt at a tackle was so bad that I thought maybe Mack let tOSU score on purpose. Playing in the ABA, I mean Big 12, has made Mack very aware of the need to have the ball last.

Scipio,

Agreed, I was having a discussion at lunch with a friend who is an Okie St. alum about Wilson being named the top asst. coach this year. I told him it should have been Muschamp which was greated with the typical reply about orange tinted glasses and Wilson creating a record setting offense.

My response was simple. Wilson had an elite quarterback, an above average group of backs, and elite tight end, above average talent at wide receiver, and according to the coaches and sportswriters three of the best offensive linemen in the Big 12.

Muschamp started with one proven defensive tackle, a defensive end who we thought could be great, moved his second and third best defensive ends to tackle, moved a big running back who wouldn’t hit anyone to defensive end, was smart enough to unleash Sergio, and had a secondary of a midget who kept falling down, two other corners who think this is a flag football league, two freshmen safeties, and lost his best corner mid-year.

CJD, Agreed and I think Texas got burnt by a combination of some kids bombing out for a variety of reasons (i.e. Harris, Tatum, Henry, and Joseph), one being always injured (Ishie), some corners taken that have me scratching my head (Palmer and Foster), and then questionable technique. The pursuit angles are terrible (did anyone else notice the pursuit angle Holmes took to catch Harvin on the long run in the 3rd quarter?), they can’t find the ball in the air, and why does it seem every corner back falls down when they try to make a tackle?

I truly hope Texas learned from watching Ohio State, Ole Miss, and Florida’s secondaries against the spread offenses. You can not tell me the talent is there in this state to play that very same way.

I thought all the Big 12 teams got exposed at LBer. The conference has become so spread-oriented, pass-first, that basic LB fundamentals are on the verge of extinction when facing traditional power offenses whose OL actually fires off the ball. I think Georgia Tech would average 400 yards a game on the ground in the Big 12.

Poor Ben Alexander. Even when he enters the game in the last minutes of a non-conference blowout the immediate result is a long gain on a running play right through him. I have held out hope that he might be a late bloomer, but the results have been remarkably consistent so far . . .

Thank god, Scip, that you are the only football man alive that doesn’t use the word “contain” as a noun.

Damnit, you did. I just missed it earlier.

Jones was on crutches after the Fiesta Bowl game.

“Ohio State’s last two TDs were directly attributable to Gideon – his weird non-play on Pryor’s fade and his non-tackle against Herron one-on-one in the open field.”

While the above statement is true, had Gideon made the play on Herron, OSU likely wins this game. The play was a 2nd and 2 from the 15 yard line. If Gideon makes the one-on-one tackle, OSU either makes the first down here or goes to 3rd and 1. If they convert, they simply run out the clock, kick a FG with 30 seconds, and win 18-17.

This is that unique situation where a “stud safety” makes a big hit and it costs you the game.

Unless of course that “stud safety” knocks the horse piss out of the back resulting in a fumble and recovery by the defense.

We can speculate all we want about what might have happened if Blake had made that play, but in the end that is no different that speculating how Texas would have done against Florida had he caught that interception against Tech.

In the end neither happened and the failure to do one’s job should never be excused by a result that seems to be a more a product of a lucky break in the eyes of some instead of a player doing his job.

Justaguy gets it. I’m writing about Gideon’s ability. Not game strategy and the gift of unanswered prayers.

Kafka:
 
Given our personnel next year, 3 down linemen makes a lot of sense to me when we play pass happy teams, but a 3-4 completely falls apart if you don’t have a dominant NT against an offense with a running threat. Lamarr Houston is a 3 gap guy – not a nose. I’d give one of CloseToJumping’s nuts for another year out of Roy Miller.
 
I don’t think Gideon can play LB – at least not against a real team. He weighs just north of 185 right now (his program weight is a lie) and he can’t put 30-35 pounds of good weight on that frame without the aid of BALCO.
 
Nero:
 
Sorry, man. But I do get points for not writing about Pryor’s “escapability.”
 
ded:
 
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve long held that there’s a big contrarian play for one of the weak sisters in this league to run a Georgia Tech offense.

I seem to recall Nebraska running a version of the option and winning a few games with it.

Thanks for the writeup. Always enjoy them. Even the comments are worth the read provided the sooner and red raider numbnuts don’t show up (ded excepted).

I am going to respectfully defer to Mus on personnel decisions for now. But I am definately watching the safety position with a skeptical eye. Also, if Aaron Williams isn’t on the field for 90% of the meaningful snaps next year then something is seriously wrong with the talent evaluation in regards to our secondary. That is a no brainer that even average fans can see. Hopefully Scott will just have a chance to prove that Kansas was not a fluke. He deserves as much. Unless there is some off the field issue that I am not aware of.

Also, I would not write off Eddie Jones just yet. I believe he has a motor comparable to Houston and if he can just stay healthy, he will be a very big contributor for us.

Since 3 LBs seem to be a thing of the past in the Big 12, I wonder if Robinson could take all of Bobino’s snaps from this year at Mike. Get him and Muck on the field together some even in nickle. Although in todays game, I admittedly don’t know what it is you are looking for in your Mike. I assume they are not just gap pluggers and Robinson’s athletism/nasty streak might work there. Thoughts, Scip?

Keenan Robinson has been very good in special teams so far, and he clearly has a solid mean streak. I think he will start to find a role in the defense soon.

Matt,

Agreed on Keenan. I love the idea of Sergio down in a three point stance and Keenan being on that same side. It should be very interesting to see the defense develop over time now that the merry-go-round of co-ordinators is done with and players don’t have to learn 2-3 systems during their careers.

“He was a stabilizing gift to the secondary and I loved his contributions as such, but after 13 games he has forced exactly one turnover. There are five or six plays in every contest where a baller at the safety position can change the game: a big hit, a strip, a break on a poorly thrown ball.”

Also remember that when he got knocked out of the game against Kansas, his replacement only took a couple plays to smack someone hard enough to make them fumble.

I think that’s been the most disappointing thing about our defense this year. Muschamp seemed to risk a whole lot in terms of blitzing heavily in order to force QBs to make mistakes, but we in large part failed to capitalize on any of them.

Still, a remarkable effort for a true freshman.

Scipio, compare RGIII and Pryor for me. I can’t help but think RGIII has more upside, but it may never look that way because Baylor will never have Ohio State’s talent.

EastSideHorn: actually we rarely blitzed this year. Didn’t have to.

Having a 3-4 defense at Texas strikes me as being a misallocation of current and future resources. Right now we barely have 4 linebackers who should see the field regularly whereas we have lots of talent on D-line. Secondly, as Scipio said, we don’t have the necessary 2-gap tackle to anchor a 3-4 (the missing piece to all our D-line talent), or if we do have one we don’t know it yet.
Finally, Texas produces a lot of d-line prospects and we have cleaned them up really well. We haven’t done nearly so well at linebacker.
I think, in our league, the Giants pose a great example to follow of having a line full of pass rushers and at least one really solid run-stuffer. That way you can avoid blitzing, play 2 deep, and so on.
This year’s class of incoming linebackers includes one really small and fast guy and then a big solid inside linbacker. I imagine Muschamp would like to build the defense with speed at linebacker and 1 great run-stopper at Mike.

Paul Johnson would be a nightmare for the current Big XII.

Thank you Nebraska for passing on him.

Mizzou has been employing Blake Gideons for the better part of two decades. Fundamentally sound safeties we claim run a 4.5, actually run a 4.65 and have no ball skills. WEll, until William Moore circa 2007. Somehow we turned him into a Blake Gideon this year, though. Don’t bet against us!

Gene Claude:
 
Just saw your request. I’ve known about RG since he was a junior in high school and I thought we were insane not to promise him a shot at QB. I was also pretty sure he’d be Baylor’s starter as a true freshman. I think he could make it the NFL as a QB, WR, S or CB. He’s that athletic.
 
As in Olympic level athlete (won the Big 12 400 meter hurdles as a freshman) who throws a great deep ball and possesses natural leadership characteristics. He’s a really bright guy and good citizen as well. Teammates rally around him and he’s the kind of kid that Baylor needs to bleach the loser mentality infection out of the team and the fans. He’s also tough, because he takes a beating every week.
 
His weakness is his lack of touch in the intermediate passing game, but it stands to reason that will improve over time. He throws balls in the dirt a lot.
 
I think his upside is huge and I wouldn’t be shocked to see a 3,000/1,000 pass/run season out of him at some point.

Terrelle Pryor is huge and fast, an elite level basketball recruit, and struggles with the intermediate passing game as well. I don’t think he has RG’s field awareness and I don’t know if he’s a good guy or a serial killer. They offer very similar skill sets, but get it done in different ways. Pryor is great at keeping a drive alive and getting yardage in 10 yard chunks; RG is a guy who can for 75 if you miss a tackle.
 
Neither commits a lot of turnovers.
 
Both of their upsides rest solely on their ability to develop in the passing game and with young guys it’s difficult to conjecture what that rate of development looks like.

Thanks Scipio for the RGIII/Pryor comparison. I recalled your challenge to Briles to start RG as a true freshman, so figured you had a base of knowledge about him.

If Baylor had a weak enough non conf schedule, I could see RGIII putting up numbers like Briles’ UH QBs put up. I may be mistaken by viewing Briles’ offense the same way I view Leach’s, mainly bc he coached under Leach for a while but even at Stephenville he ran a “big numbers” type offense.

They are getting good OL and they don’t have a system that puts a lot of pressure on OL anyways so they don’t have to be that good. Wright and Gettis are definitely not the talent that will be holding RG back from greatness, those are good WRs that have potential to put up big #s as well. Baylor just needs to have at least a Tech like run game.

If we weren’t kicking so much ass in recruiting right now, Waco in 2011 could look scary. I won’t be surprised to see them finish top 3 in the Big 12 one of these years with RGIII there. Yeah their defense sucks and will always suck but whose doesn’t besides OU and Texas?

I went to Waco to watch the A&M/Baylor game and got to sit really close to the action (as all 150 fans that day did). I thought that Griffin looked tiny. Really tiny. I don’t know what they have him listed as but it looked like TJ Ford was playing QB. That has to be a big limiting factor on his ceiling.