Thoughts on the Texas Longhorn Defense vs. Texas Tech

I agree with you HJ, it seems as if in the second half muschamp had the DB’s back off and concentrate on keeping the recievers in front of them. Which i can’t understand after only allowing 3 points in the first half with tight man coverage and a blitzing scheme. I am encouraged with the D’s progress and i think they might be developing into something special. Now Mr. Davis lets get that offense on track or should i be addressing Mr. McCoy? Just kidding, i have all the confidence in the world on colt and greg. Hook-em!!!

HJ – All I could come up with was fatigue.

I know Coach Boom is in charge of the defense but that two minute drive that Tech put together against what literally looked like umbrella prevent, had the Mack Brown feel to it. I just wonder if Brown went to Muschamp and encouraged us to not give up the big play. That’s the only thing I can come up with.

HJ, great analysis per usual. I thought Chykie got simply toasted last night, no other way around it. He and Curtis were miss SOOO many tackles also, too much trying to strip the ball.

Aaron Williams is an absolute god. They did whatever they could to avoid having to throw against him. Notice, whenever we wanted to shut down the slot we’d throw AJ on him and that guy’s just erased. I wasn’t sure if that rub route was his fault or not (whether he’s supposed to switch or stay), but I figured since it was AJ and Curtis it’s probably Brown’s fault…

I don’t get why we played so far off in coverage when blitzing. All it does is make the hot reads so easy for the QB when he knows he’s only got 2-3 seconds to make the throw. This was pointed out repeatedly by Herbstreit on conversion scenarios—especially when we were blitzing. The soft corners KILLED us. Have to jam Tech and prevent them from dip and dunking us.

Agree pretty much across the board. Obvious pick play on Tech’s third TD. Muschamp really gave the officials an earful after that and it seemed to work. They flagged Tech on another pick in the 4th quarter that wiped out a completion for a first down.

Also a bit baffled by the soft coverage in the second half after stifling them with blitzes and pressing the corners in the first. Protecting the lead? Fatigue on a steamy night?

Overall, I thought we defended Tech’s attack as well or better than anyone they are likely to play this season. The wisdom of signing and keeping Muschamp sticks out again.

Tech did the same thing last year spending most of their time attacking Curtis Brown and Beasley who were not effective most of the game and were continually burned.

Curtis Brown has been much improved this season and at least is in the area code when the ball is thrown his way, Williams has been solid which has been repeated here many times.

Before the season started I would have predicted that Chykie Brown would have been our shutdown corner but he has been anything but that he needs to right the ship quickly. He will continue to be picked on by our opponents the way he has performed the first three games.

The reason that we did not bring more than five most of the time was the fact that Tech was prereading and running a bunch of three step drop if under center or catch and throw in shotgun. Meaning of course that you have to get to the QB in less than 2.5 seconds before the ball is away. You can’t get to the QB in that situation even if you bring eleven so the smart thing to do is to bring less, have them NOT get upfield but rather get there arms up to deny passing lanes and use the sixth man in pass coverage. Sort of a nickle plus one if you will. When we thought they were going to go downfield we brought the sixth man and had some good pressure as a result.

On Techs’s last TD we played way off the ball in the secondary to the tune of 10-12 yards and they unsurprisingly ripped us for eight to ten yards a pop and a touchdown in less than ninety seconds.

Every play that Tech starts with is a pass play and they only check to a running play if the defense is keeping the sixth man out of the box. Having sat in on a couple of Leach lectures at clinics you can watch the defensive alignment and predict where the ball is going the majority of the time. If they are in bunch and it looks like you are playing man they will thow a rub route to one of the bunch recievers.

I thought that the defense did a fair job of diguising coverage and played well.

HJ, Did you think punt in first half may have been touched by Tech player? That happened in our end of the field near our section, we were surprised that did not appear to be reviewed by officiating crew.

On Tech’s last scoring drive we didn’t have Muckelroy on the field for a single snap if I’m not mistaken. WTF was that?

what happened to eye’s good-bad-ugly?

If Kindle and Jones can run around the OU tackles like the Mormons can, then Landry Jones won’t look near as good as Potts.

“what happened to eye’s good-bad-ugly?”

His daughter got married over the weekend. Look for it after he’s had time to watch the tape.

First thing I got when I came into the office today from my TT coworkers was that Sergio’s hit on Potts should have been flagged for helmet to helmet contact. I didn’t see it that way. What do y’all think?

Very rarely do you win a football game when you get outplayed at the QB position. I think that’s a testament to how well Muschamp’s unit performed. They were right where they needed to be on a lot of those plays and the Tech receiving corps hasn’t made those plays in past years, which results in short drives and blowouts. With Bradford out, Texas probably won’t face another QB this season that can make some of those throws.

My Post-Mortem is here. Ain’t Skared

Counting on forcing five fumbles to win a game is akin to parking your 401(k) in junk bonds. You might look brilliant one week, but the next week….

I think you are seeing some Colt McCoy regression to the mean occurring, but the team is so solid that you can weather it.

If Texas was able to sustain more offensive drives in the 1st half I think the D would have been to sustain the pressure in the 2nd half….those guys were visibly gassed by the end of the third quarter.

Its frustrating to watch Colt struggle, those consistent over throws on both long and short passes are limiting the offensive output.

Let’s all be honest though. Was McCoy a bit off in his reads and passes? Yes, absolutely and no one is denying that. BUT, what I keep failing to see in comments is that both Chiles and Williams were doing their best volleyball setting impressions on BOTH of those interceptions. If you take out the two interceptions, I’ll take that performance all day long.

i don’t think we counted on 5 forced fumbles (only two recovered) to win the game. We were +1 in turnover and won the game semi comfortably.

I’d be pretty excited about Potts if I were Tech, he’s not a pussy like their last QB and has 10x the arm. I was very impressed with some of the throws he made. He just needs to get more comfortable in the system and pray that Leach can find him a Crabtree. Tech’s overall team talent has reached the point where we can’t expect to blow them out by 30 anymore, regardless of location.

I think it could have been considered helmet to helmet, but I’m not going to cry about it. Kindle’s helmet was low enough that it hit pot’s ear-hole. There have been let obvious helmet-to-helmets that have been called, however.

Chiles had no business even getting to that ball. It was a TERRIBLE throw. The fact that he even got two hands on it was miraculous. Colt deserves full culpability for that throw. The Malcolm pass was awful too, but Williams was tall enough to catch that one and certainly should have at least corralled it. Yet another instance of his lack of focus…

“Chiles had no business even getting to that ball. It was a TERRIBLE throw. The fact that he even got two hands on it was miraculous. Colt deserves full culpability for that throw. The Malcolm pass was awful too, but Williams was tall enough to catch that one and certainly should have at least corralled it. Yet another instance of his lack of focus…”

Well, if you’re getting free books you can make that catch. Any pass you can put two hands on, you have the capability of catching. Now, I’m not saying it could have been a better throw.

There is nothing more beautiful in CFB than a bad-intentioned Sergio Kindle turning the corner to meet an unsuspecting QB. That was awesome and the single loudest moment of the game. That was a form tackle. You’re taught to put the screws on them.

Potts displayed toughness Sat. night and he’s definitely going to be draft worthy, but I think his arm isn’t as strong as some would suggest. Good player though.

My point on the fumbles is that forced and recovered fumbles are almost all happenstance. You guys know the game better than I do, perhaps recovering the two fumbles was not a big part of the win.

“My point on the fumbles is that forced and recovered fumbles are almost all happenstance. You guys know the game better than I do, perhaps recovering the two fumbles was not a big part of the win.”

Some forced fumbles are happenstance, some aren’t. Almost all 5 of the ones from Saturday were forced by Texas defenders making plays. I think Taylor Potts would agree that his fumble on Kindle’s sack was not happenstance. Recovering fumbles can be a little bit lucky.

The two fumbles weren’t a bigger part of the win more than the two INTs by Colt were what kept us from blowing them out by 24. The two INTs were lucky bounces off our WR’s hands and Tech happened to have DBs there to catch it.

There’s no point in trying to force a fumble unless Sam Acho is in the vicinity.

One thing that stood out is Potts made some throws into perfect coverage that Tech’s WRs made great plays on. The timing patterns were impressive. When Potts had time, he almost always made the completion.

The Chiles INT is on Colt. The Malcolm Williams INT is on Malcolm. The shitty OL play is on HenryJames.

Chiles got way up but barely grazed the pass. The only possible way he could have caught is if he goes up with one hand (because you can reach higher with one hand), knocks it down and catch the deflection (or just catches it with one hand if he is really awesome). Let’s remember that Chiles just switched to WR 5 months ago after playing QB for the 3 previous seasons.

I’m thinking Colt may have a bit more adrenalin in his game throws and the ball is coming out hotter than in practice (i.e. the pass is flat instead of dropping a bit).

Malcolm seemed like he was fooled (very awkward attempt at a catch). BTW, Malcolm is now second team at WR now that Chiles is an undisputed starter.

“Also a bit baffled by the soft coverage in the second half after stifling them with blitzes and pressing the corners in the first. Protecting the lead? Fatigue on a steamy night?”

I thought “protecting the lead” – though how effectively is another question, since playing soft to make them use up time on a drive ended up costing us 7 while running only about 2:15 or so off the clock.

Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance said at a scholarship dinner last night that the Big 12 called and apologized to him for the helmet-to-helmet hit on Taylor Potts that wasn’t called. He said the Big 12 told him it was an obvious missed called and should have been called, and they are sorry, but they are taking no current action on Sergio Kindle.

Mike Leach and Kent Hance both made calls to the league office about the hit, and Mike Leach sent tapes to the Big 12 office on multiple missed calls.

Should be interesting in Lubbock next year.

Well, wooo wooooooo!!!

Tim said:
Should be interesting in Lubbock next year.
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It’s never interesting in lubbock, lil’ timmy.

Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance said at a scholarship dinner last night that Conference USA called and apologized to him for [insert penalty] on [insert player] that wasn’t called. He said Conference USA told him it was an obvious missed called and should have been called, and they are sorry, but they are taking no current action on [random Houston player].

Mike Leach and Kent Hance both made calls to the league office about Tim’s heavy flow, and Mike Leach sent tapes to the Conference USA office on multiple stupid play calls.

Should be interesting in Lubbock next year when Tech again fails to win the Big 12.