Gameweek is Finally Here - Three Things to Watch

“other than the rumored new introduction/player entrance video”

I’m more excited about this than I should be.

It should be awesome, too bad I’ll be at a mother fucking wedding in Dallas that just happens to begin at, you guessed it, 6:00 pm.

They better have the ppv on at the reception.

Hook ’em!

Are you the groom?

Not the groom, not in the wedding, wife is not in the wedding, we are just attending.

The bride is one of my wife’s sorority sisters, and the bride and groom are both Texas Exes, so fuck them. I figured missing the UL-Monroe game wasn’t the end of the world, and my wife’s parents have four season tickets, of which we get access to buy two of them for all of the games.

I figure Fox Southwest will have a replay at some point during the week, hopefully it will be the full game and not the damn edited version.

I then have to upgrade my Dish package to get versus for next week.

However, we will be there for the Tech demolishing (game) in three weeks.

Hook ’em!

“the bride and groom are both Texas Exes”

Then they should expect an empty church behind them as they are saying their vows.

“If any withnesses here today objecto to this union stand now and speak or forever hold your peace. Not so fast, uthookem.”

I’ll never forget a wedding I went to in December of 94, during the Sun Bowl. I was home during break and begrudgeingly agreed to go with my mom. The groom protested violently about how was he supposed to know that Texas would end up playing on a December wedding?

I spent the whole game in the parking lot listening to radio broadcast and going back into the reception hall during commercials to give updates to all the husbands (and a few wives) who felt compelled to not bail early.

Whatever happened to that douche who coached the Tarheels?

I’ll play a little devil’s advocate here. The common “must” defense improvement most Longhorn fans are in agreement on is that we must create more turnovers. Especially against the pass via interceptions. Will Muschamp has basically said that too, but hey, it’s Monday and I feel like arguing.

My question is what is the trade off to create more turnovers/INT’s? Do we gamble un-neccesarily on Defense to try to force the issue? Do we stack the box, bring the house, and press the corners? Are the DB’s going to be coached to gamble more often, attempt to jump the route when the receiver makes his first cut and go for the pick?

My point is this. The focus should be for our Defense to prevent our opponent from scoring.

Most people point to turnovers as if they are all created equal. Here’s my list of essentially worthless turnovers.

1) Getting turnovers against opponents you’re going to mudhole anyways. Logically it makes sense that if you can’t create turnovers against ULM you’re not going to be able to against the better programs. I just think some read way to much into it in general.
2) Getting turnovers against a quality opponent after the games outcome had already been determined. I’m not going to get all giddy if we pick off Tech twice in the 4th quarter if we’re beating them 49-14.
3) INT’s on third down that are basically desperation heaves that end up being just as good as a punt. Yes, it’s good defense, but let’s not act like those INT’s are any better than pass break ups in those sitiuations.
4) INT’s that are thrown late in the first half were the opponent basically has nothing to lose by chunking it up deep.

Look at it this way, we were one pass break up and/or tackle away from reaching the MNC game last year and we had a total of 6 INT’s last year.

As for ULM and our Defense, I’m just looking for them to look cohesive, well coached, and swarm to the ball.

My point is this. The focus should be for our Defense to prevent our opponent from scoring.

In a vacuum, yes. But in reality a defense’s ability to turn the ball over improves field position for the offense and therefore is much more than simply not allowing a score. Texas allowed an adjusted net punting average of 36.05 yards last year, so even picking off a pass 20 yards downfield would immediately improve field position by 16 yards over a forced punt. And that’s assuming the interception comes with no return yardage.

As for the how, our DBs should be in a position to improve the INT numbers simply because of experience. Being veterans will allow more instinctive play and should enable them to look for the ball that all-important split-second sooner. Then again, years of watching this team tells me that CBs in a trailing position are coached not to look for the ball and simply to play the receiver’s eyes. But that’s a whole ’nother topic.

Good points.

I’ll be looking for turnovers caused & given up, and rushing yards made & allowed per attempt. I’m with you on YPC versus our defense, but I’m also concerned about our own ability to make respectable yards on the ground.

I agree Nordberg. Absolutely ridiculous. Maybe a portable radio
and ear buds are in order.

I left my sister’s wedding reception after less than 30 minutes for a Texas game. The ubiquitous film guy asked me if I had a message for my sister on this joyous occasion and I said “Hook ’em”. In my sister’s defense, she went to SFA.

Was it worth it?

1 – my family knows me well enough that I have never received any grief over my decision
2 – Bubba Jacques picked up the fumble and returned it for the winning score, so fuck yeah it was worth it.

Huck,

I’m still just playing Devil’s advocate and trust me, I’m not saying getting turnovers is a bad thing. I fully realize turnovers can completely change the momentum and are sometimes the defining moments of the game.

Anyways, my only quibble is the significance of the field position. Yes I think it’s important yet equally as over rated as the turnover. That is to say I think field position was much more important for a ball control team like Alabama last year than it was for OU. IMO, getting a turnover somewhere between the 20 yard markers on both sides of the field is great, but not necessarily game changing.

A turnover that happens in the red zone (I know the red zone is technically inside the 20’s) means one of two things. (1) You just took 3 to 7 points away from your opponent. A recent example involving Texas is when Jamaal Charles fumbled at the goaline against OU in 07’. (2) The turnover the defense created puts your offense in the red zone and likely results in 3 to 7 points.

The only game I can think of where we actually played a field position battle the entire game was the 01’ OU game. 16 yards of field position adversity shouldn’t determine the game one way or the other IMO. Maybe my memory sucks, but I just don’t remember games where field position was essentially the sole determining factor if we won or lost a game.

Don’t you have some weird statistic from last year that showed that the Big 12’s Offensive TD percentage was actually higher the worse the starting position was?

The anomaly was that more points were scored per drive starting inside a team’s own 10-yard line than were scored until the starting field position moved outside the 40. It was in this post. By 10-yard segment:

0-92.9764
10-191.95147
20-292.43397
30-392.68227
40-493.30132
50-593.7761
60-694.6540
70-794.6831
80-895.3113
90-997.006

You’re being way too harsh on our ‘08 rushing defense. I guess anyone can pick and choose which statistics to use to buttress their arguments, but “total rushing defense on a per carry basis” is a specious stat which doesn’t look at the totality of our schedule.

Nearly everyone we played in ‘08 was trailing by halftime, so they were all in come-back mode, usually against our 2nd/3rd-team D. Add to that the fact UT faced mostly passing teams. So when a team like Missouri is trailing by 30, and they gain 15 yards on a draw on 3rd-&-20, that looks like a good play, but they’re still punting.

A more accurate game to look at would be our rushing D vs. OU: 46 yards on 26 carries, for a 1.8 ypc average.

Wow. A more accurate way to measure our rushing defense is one game. I hope you weren’t serious with that. Since we’re apparently picking and choosing single games now, I choose Ohio State. We gave up 229 yards rushing on 36 carries (sack numbers removed, of course) for a 6.4 ypc average. You know, since you don’t want to look at any numbers from blowouts, I’ll throw another one in there. Oklahoma State. 228 yards on 32 carries for a 7.1 ypc average. Finally, the last close game of the season: Texas Tech. 130 yards on 26 carries for a 5.0 ypc average. Add all those up (including the OU game after removing sacks) so we only look at close games to make you happy and we gave up 655 yards on 117 carries for a 5.6 ypc average in our closest games of the year.

And you are chastising me for picking and choosing statistics? Nice.

Can you tell me how many times we gave up 15 yard runs that didn’t convert first downs in blowouts last season?

Thanks for finding that for me. Those are pretty damning statistics especially when backed up with the net punting average. Between the 40’s would make a little more sense, but then we’re talking about a pretty rare occurence with only 20 yards of field to work with and a 3rd down INT with no return. It makes me wonder how skewed those stats get when good teams play inferior competition. Hard to define inferior competition, but let’s just say I don’t expect ULM to win any part of the game Saturday except total kick return yardage and total punts. I think it would be interesting to see if there’s any notable differences between when only ranked teams played each other.

Huck, why do you have to use facts, logic, and statistics to prove your points. Just throw out mindless drivel like the rest of us and act like it’s true.

It would be a more interesting way to judge your rush defense to figure out a way to define a “good run” given down and distance vs. a “bad run”, and then figure out how often you held the other team to an acceptable rush.

A 15-yard draw on 3rd and 20 is an okay outcome for the defense (although a 14-yard draw is a clearer win). A 3 yard gain on 4th and 2 is a bad outcome, however understandable. Those are reasonably clear. What is a win on 1st and 10? 3? Is 3 yards also a win on 2nd and 4?

I guess the point is that statistics are interesting in the aggregate but somewhat pointless in the specific. Especially, in this age of specialization, if I change my defensive personnel based on down and distance. Now I really want to be able to indicate, for example, if my 1st and 10 personnel and my 3rd and 5+ personnel are getting the job done, but my third and less than 5 personnel are sucking. Aggregate stats don’t really give me a feel for that, especially if I’m a media punk who doesn’t follow the team religiously but just looks at stats in preparation for broadcast or for article writing.

For example, if team A averaged 4 ypc against, that’s pretty good. Unless the volatility was low. If I gave up 4 yards (and only 4 yards) on every rush, I’d lose by a lot. All 4 yards are not created equally.

Seems to me that football could benefit from an OPS-style stat that takes scoring defense, 3rd down efficiency against, yards per snap, and maybe turnovers or something to give us a shorthand for whether a defense is really achieving the goal.

Now I’m all over the map. Anyone buy this?

“Wow. A more accurate way to measure our rushing defense is one game. I hope you weren’t serious with that. "

Gosh no, now that you mention it, you are far too superior and brilliant with your arcane statistics for the likes of some casual UT football fan like me. So carry on, and keep crunching those numbers on your Apple IIe in your mother’s basement, with empty pizza boxes strewn about the room and Star Wars action figures on the shelf.

“Gosh no, now that you mention it, you are far too superior and brilliant with your arcane statistics for the likes of some casual UT football fan like me.”
Nothing arcane about them… you are the intellectual fossil in this exchange.

Gosh no, now that you mention it, you are far too superior and brilliant with your arcane statistics for the likes of some casual UT football fan like me. So carry on, and keep crunching those numbers on your Apple IIe in your mother’s basement, with empty pizza boxes strewn about the room and Star Wars action figures on the shelf.

You should have just typed “I give up.” It would have been a more concise and accurate post.

The imagery wasn’t too bad, though. It’s almost like you have experience as a computer geek. What the fuck is an Apple IIe?