Finding Identity
by RolloTamasi on Sep 22, 2010 5:07 AM CDT
in Texas Longhorns and Other Football
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PrintThesis:
Last year's Alabama team did not have an offense that struck fear into the hearts of Texas fans. Apart from the OSU games the previous season there were few examples on tape of a team pounding the ball against Muschamp's crew with any meaningful success.
In the actual title game, with a few important exceptions, the Alabama offense did not do much to dispel the faith Austin had developed in Muschamp. What they did do in that game and throughout the season was protect the ball, run clock, and be a group that was hard to shutout. While a few teams were able to limit their success, no one was shutting them out.
Watch Ohio St. in 08 or Bama in 09 and you'll see squads that are built on a particular identity with players all over the field who represent that mentality. They like balance in the sense that they prefer to be able to punish teams that present an 8 man front and attack the line of scrimmage with the pass or throw when they need to, but playing run-first offense is a priority reflected in every position on the 2-deep.
After reading Trips Right's post on physicality and effort, listening to Brock's wisdom, reading from Scipio's post-mortems, or my own review of the tape what really stands out as a general theme is the lack of cohesive identity from the Longhorns offense in play-calling, scheme, and most of all personnel.
This OL is very much a work in progress. You could see on tape the last 2 seasons the emphasis on protection over the development of numerous or effective running schemes. As it stands now I'm surprised, like a moron, by the fairly strong pass-protection paired with the lack of domination in the running game.
While there are no standouts on the line worth scheming around they are a very strong group overall. With play-action it's very rare for Gilbert to face pressure and they also can protect for the quick and intermediate game, assuming some basic fine-tuning like cutting ends on screen passes.
They definitely have the ability to be a run-blocking group should they get any support from the rest of the offense. Malcolm Williams blocks well, and essentially represents everything Texas wants to do in "downhill running" and play-action passing as a blocker and deep threat but the rest of the group doesn't really look the part and they don't seem to grasp the value of the blocking role in the "new" offense.
Texas needs to choose what to feature on offense and they really have the talent to go in several directions. The protection has been strong enough to continue to emphasize the spread and option routes of 2008-09 while the running and play-action have shown a little that could have tremendous worth with a few tweaks.
Either way everyone needs to buy in. We all recall the Quan Cosby block on one of Shipley's TD receptions in 2008, that kind of physicality has been totally lacking on offense and will be the difference in whatever Greg Davis chooses moving ahead.
Teams will employ coverages and strategies that will allow their back 7 to attack Texas' runs or short game and spreading the field won't prevent that if the receivers don't hold the backers away from the central action. Against a Cover-2 or Cover-4 defense if the receivers are providing the kind of blocking effort they have of late they are only removing potentially good blockers in a Power-I formation with a few yards of empty space.
None of that matters now though because DJ Monroe is going to play tailback as the coaches have successfully found someone new to plug into an equation that will always equal 3rd and long until the real problems are fixed. In all seriousness I'm glad that Davis has some kind of plan to utilize the weapons on the roster but what has been put on the field to this point is already more than enough if they were executing anything at a high level.
If you haven't read Scipio's defensive and offensive post-mortems I'm not sure why you frequent this site, Peter Bean has some thought up at BurntOrangenation as well. I agree with PB's frustration with the consistently vanilla goal-line package as well as many of the wrinkles that were introduced only to be easily blown up by Tech's defense. Maybe this was already the case but I'm convinced that OU's early defensive dominance of Davis this decade taught him to avoid using constraint plays, double moves and such things before Red River week in order to "catch" old Stoops off-guard when unveiled against his defense.
The trouble with this of course is that A). It's hard to surprise a team with very basic constraint plays more than once and B). Those plays are often thwarted by very basic execution errors, such as not cutting the 6'5" end on the screen or throwing a pre-halftime shovel pass to rock-hands McGee against a defense loaded with opportunistic All-Americans.
We can only pray that something between last saturday and the next sparks something in the offense to safely avoid another debacle such as this one.
To betray my young age, I was a 6th grader and new to Austin and Texas fandom when that occurred and didn't even see the game. What I did see was a sacked Rome, a city in disbelief, a psyche that was broken. It was, on a much smaller and less important scale, the sort of disbelief and new-found vulnerability the US experienced as a nation on 9/11/01. My science teacher was about ready to cancel class to march down to Bellmont herself and demand an explanation.
This Week in Muschamp:
Where we examine the happier notes of the Muschamp-era Longhorns. The brilliance of this unit is beginning to come to light nationally even if the announcers were completely oblivious during the game to the complete shellacking of a once feared unit.
I wanted to cover here exactly what Muschamp did to ruin the AirRaid schematically and administer a beatdown that has left Lubbock with little to say in answer. (Dedfischer is right on in claiming Whitlock as the true hero for Tech as he was moved around and abused literally every player on the Texas line save for David Snow at some point or another)
Schematically Muschamp didn't do anything crazy in the big picture, they stayed in a 4-2-5 nickel and mostly kept both safeties back and dared Tech to complete 5 yard WR screens all the way down the field. Aaron Williams took a turn with every gimp in the Red Raider skill arsenal while Muschamp rotated guys around on the line mainly going with Jeffcoat and Wilson on the edge with Sam Acho and Randall inside.
Each of these players is something special. Jeffcoat and Jones are both elite edge-rushers while Sam Acho is Muschamp's answer for interior pass-rush and gifted Jones a sack when he split a double team and flushed Potts right into him.
Randall is the Ngata of the conference as he can twist and stunt like a good 3-tech or handle a double team as a nose-tackle. Between him and All-Conference Keenan Robinson there isn't a lot available in the running game on a down-to-down basis.
I see a future for all of these linemen in the NFL. Besides their individual pass-rushing skills and functional strength, their lateral movement and stunting abilities made some very basic schemes by Muschamp into unfathomable horrors. Many of his zone-blitzes or more complicated stunts are surely still in his back pocket for Martinez and Landry Jones in coming weeks, although he probably won't need them then either.
Tech attacked everyone in coverage not named Aaron Williams, Chykie Brown or Curtis Brown, which you should notice doesn't leave a lot of names. Scott hasn't made a lot of noise yet but his physical play and sure-tackling has been very steady, Gideon offers the same thing with a little less speed and a little more awareness.
Acho and Keenan are unfairly quick in coverage and their play paired with the strong tackling by the safeties makes long passing drives against this group nearly impossible.
Peeking ahead:
Nebraska put together a highlight reel for ESPN to play whenever Mel Kiper or Todd McShay get to their segments on Jake Locker's weaknesses before the 2011 draft.
Their tackles aren't really battle tested and I'm not sure they hold up to a power running game with Ingram/Richardson, but no one in this league possesses anything like that combo or that kind of power-running OL. Obviously Texas isn't close and the game is 4 weeks away.
Their safeties, corners and S/LB Peso dude are all monsters in coverage and they are reading patterns like a drunken Jeff Goldblum. What's worse, they took heed of my preseason advice and selected Martinez and the spread-option for their offensive identity. Much like last year's championship Alabama team we just covered, this offense is the kind that can protect the ball and be too difficult to completely shut down, particularly if they are gifted field position or points by the defense.
If you aren't terrified of this looming showdown in Lincoln I'm not sure what Texas team you are watching. They are perfectly designed to take advantage of our every flaw.
Stoops, who would likely be furious at even me positing Nebraska as the bigger game, saw his coordinators lay an egg against an Air Force squad that demonstrated what discipline and identity can do on offense and even did it against OU's defense in Norman.
Without Adrian Taylor healthy, OU's defensive tackles look even more suspect than Nebraska's against the run. They made the interesting choice to employ a 2-4-5 nickel against Air Force's flexbone option with Beal and Alexaner? as stand-up ends in order to make them easier targets for AFA's cut blocks.
Meanwhile Wilson chose to have Landry Jones fling the ball all over the field to their multitude of mediocre targets instead of pounding Air Force's tiny tackles with what is, I'm afraid to say, a pretty decent-looking offensive line.
Like NateHeupel, I can watch this team and quickly identify what their identity on offense should be, their normal allotment of trap and zone plays to Murray and his backups with intermittent screens and play-action to Broyles and maybe another guy from time to time.
Another gameplan by OU of getting stuffed in the running game and scoring 10-14 points with my prescribed strategy is a far better choice than throwing the ball 40 times with Landry Jones and assuring Texas of 10-14 points from defensive touchdowns or easy field position after turnovers.
If the offense progresses at all I think a victory over Oklahoma is likely not necessarily because Texas is a far better team but simply because the matchups aren't there for the Sooners. And because Texas is a far better team, this defense could hearken back to the Sooner 2000 squad that laid waste to college football.
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"We all recall the Quan Cosby block on one of Shipley’s TD receptions in 2008"
Actually, my favorite Quan block is this savage one he threw against Ohio St. in the Fiesta Bowl to allow Colt to spin into the end zone. He absolutely levels two defenders with a single block that sounds like a rifle shot going off.
LINK
by TKO on Sep 22, 2010 7:59 AM CDT reply actions
Fuck, link didn’t work. Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsk9BwQGUQc
by TKO on Sep 22, 2010 8:01 AM CDT reply actions
Saw most of the ou – air force game and was totally chubbed by the execution, effort, technique, game planning, and focus on strengths the air force offense exhibited. The Anti – GD in its glory. 180 lb running backs putting people on the ground downfield.
by derryl on Sep 22, 2010 8:02 AM CDT reply actions
“Their safeties, corners and S/LB Peso dude are all monsters in coverage and they are reading patterns like a drunken Jeff Goldblum.”
That is the funniest thing I have read on this site in weeks.
by EarlCampbellsSausage on Sep 22, 2010 8:53 AM CDT reply actions
Of course Davis was scarred by those early OU contests where Stoops seemingly knew what plays we were calling. That’s because he did. It’s not exactly a state secret that Stoops was sending assistant coaches to our open practices in the early days before Mack started tightening access.
by BatesHorn on Sep 22, 2010 10:06 AM CDT reply actions
"They definitely have the ability to be a run-blocking group should they get any support from the rest of the offense."
Really? At this point in the season you think they can block out 4 years of passive blocking technique with the zone-read blocking scheme and suddenly get an aggressive blocking technique? I don’t see huge changes in blocking scheme at this point which tells me that somebody (McWhorter, Major, GreggDavis, or Mack) isn’t really "committed" to the running game and wants the ability to fall back on the pass-first offense that they have been successful with since 2005. IMO, this is a half-hearted attempt to address what is an obvious shortcoming on the offensive side while protecting their downside (pass-first blocking). I expect to see more of the same through the 0U game, then they will migrate back to their comfort zone in the pass first offense, while bringing out the old canard "we scheme around the players we have."
When Muschamp took over at DC, there was an almost immediate upgrade in attitude and scheme with the same players which made onlookers excited for the future on the defensive side. I am still waiting for that on the offensive side of the ball.
by SoldierHorn on Sep 22, 2010 10:13 AM CDT reply actions
“They made the interesting choice to employ a 2-4-5 nickel against Air Force’s flexbone option”
I appreciate the kindness shown here, but “interesting” is the wrong word. I think “ill-advised” is more like it. We intentionally took two of our best three DL off the field for most of the game to avoid cut block injuries, and we made up for this by keeping our best run-stuffing LB on the sideline.
“Landry Jones fling the ball all over the field to their multitude of mediocre targets”
It appears you’ve confused the OU wide receivers with the UT receiving corps.
“Without Adrian Taylor healthy, OU’s defensive tackles look even more suspect than Nebraska’s against the run.”
Agreed, but I would be wary of taking anything from the AFA game about the personnel. Taylor and Frank Alexander both stayed off the field for better than 75% of the defensive snaps, and Venables did them no favors with his choice of scheme.
“If the offense progresses at all…”
This made me LOL.
Frankly, I think the UT-Nebraska game is the bigger matchup for precisely the reasons you stated. The entire team and fanbase circled this one on the calendar last December, UT goes to Lincoln, and it’s a perfect matchup for Nebraska.
by NateHeupel on Sep 22, 2010 11:02 AM CDT reply actions
The running game woes are assignable to the following causes and proportions:
Lack of stud RB (recruiting failure): 40%
O-line talent not great (recruiting failure): 20%
Coaching: 20%
New QB: 10%
WRs not blocking (unknown cause): 10%
Another way to say it is if we had a stud RB, we would be almost half way to solving the problem. And changing coaches will only overcome a small part of the personnel problems. We could have the Air Force or Boise coaches but they could not turn this bunch into 250 ypg rushers.
On the bright side, if you believe the above, then we will get an instant spike in production next year. As for what to do right now, really the only hope is that the existing players get marginally better at the existing scheme as they get more experience. It will not be possible to make it much better, only marginally better. Say 20% better.
I say, start Fozzy, bring CJ in late if you are ahead, and hope GG and his receivers get synced up. There’s really no point hoping for anything else.
by Guh on Sep 22, 2010 11:08 AM CDT reply actions
so we are blaming this on recruiting now?? really? All of those 4 and 5 star offensive linemen coming out of high school are recruiting failures? They have three seniors and a junior with 11 letters between them, all of which were highly regarded recruits at the time and would have been taken by just about any other team, and recruiting is the problem? after 4 years, we cant continue to blame the OL woes on the 2006 recruiting OL class. Does this staff HAVE to recruit 5 star talent at each position to be successful? If so, what does that really say?
by SoldierHorn on Sep 22, 2010 11:55 AM CDT reply actions
Nice thesis. Can someone please provide an antithesis, the we can synthezise this bitch Hegelian style and go on our merry way.
by Arriviste on Sep 22, 2010 11:55 AM CDT reply actions
Nate: Is the WR comment meant to mean you think your receivers are more than mediocre or less than mediocre? I assume you meant the former, but after Broyles UT certainly has the edge in the WR department. Which isn’t particularly impressive—just means we don’t have a true number 1. And I think Nickel was disregarding him with that comment; everybody knows he’s legit.
by Blake B on Sep 22, 2010 12:12 PM CDT reply actions
BatesHorn,
Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, don’t they? When you stop to consider the fact that Greg Davis has about 12 plays he runs out of different formations, it isn’t particularly difficult to guess when a 5-yard hitch is coming. OU knew what we were running because they sent assitants to our practices? Give me a f-ing break. They were better than us, stfu.
by ObjectiveOne on Sep 22, 2010 1:24 PM CDT reply actions
The star system in recruiting is a joke. If you believe it you are pretty gullible.
There are guys who jump off the film and make you say holy crap, there are guys who clearly suck, and then there’s everyone else. The vast majority of kids are “everyone else”. You go on body size/type, measurables (when you can get them), HS coach evaluations, and in person scouting. But the stars are a joke.
by Guh on Sep 22, 2010 1:38 PM CDT reply actions
SoldierHorn: there really isn’t anything wrong with the scheme anymore. The way they were running inside-zone out of the shotgun without the QB backside threat was criminally stupid but from under center they cut the backside end and it has become much stronger schematically.
Alabama uses zone plays, the Broncos with Elway made the scheme famous, the power-running oklahoma st. teams used zone. It can be a very aggressive scheme for the reasons Brock listed in his (first?) podcast. You get double teams on the playside linemen and most all college linemen get steamrolled by double teams.
The current group of zone, counter, draw and power is a great collection of running plays. The problems are in execution and play-call timing. When Cody comes in you know they’re running power. When it’s Fozzy you know counters are coming.
I’m betting you see zone, counter and draw as the main plays going forward with Fozzy with power making an appearance when Cody comes in to run clock.
by Nickel Rover on Sep 22, 2010 2:39 PM CDT reply actions
guh… way to deflect in order to not address the main point. These players had the measurables, they were highly regarded coming out of high school, and virtually any other school would have taken them at the time. Besides Walters, they have been in the system for 3-5 years and 11 letters between them, which means they have playing time. 4 of the 5 starters came from the 2006 and 2007 classes. Which one of these players don’t have the measureables? Are YOU saying that this staff HAS to get the best players at each position to be successful? As I stated before… If so, what does that really say?
by SoldierHorn on Sep 22, 2010 2:51 PM CDT reply actions
As always, an interesting and provocative read, Nickel. I appreciate the time and thought you obviously put into these posts.
Given our ability on defense and special teams, I have had similar thoughts about a conservative, turnover avoiding, clock-chewing, run-and-play-action-pass offense like ’Bama’s. Win a lot of games 31-10 taking as few chances as possible offensively.
Problem there is Greg Davis. When has he ever run a coherent offense at Texas? or one that committed to running the ball? Exception there was ‘04-’05 but VY’s improvisational skills enabled that.
I fear that we will continue to see Davis’ usual hodge-podge of unrelated plays called in a semi-random manner, totally lacking in misdirection or appropriateness to opponents’ defensive emphasis. We will continue to bumble along on offense and somewhere (likely Lincoln as you point out) it will get us beat.
All of this is depressingly predictable. I am hoping that I will be able to focus on enjoying watching our defense and special teams, savoring their competence and passion. CrazyJoeDavola spoke of maintaining a stance of simultaneous optimism and cynicism with our offense that strikes me as about right. Don’t expect much while remaining willing to be pleasantly surprised.
by hopefulhorn on Sep 22, 2010 3:05 PM CDT reply actions
Nick… we’ll see. we may be splitting hairs but I have no problem with zone blocking if it is aggressive. Gregg Davis’ zone-blocking scheme was passive in nature and that is what they have been trained in since 2006. Coaching is huge… and if they are "committed to the run" but haven’t changed to an aggressive attitude with blocking scheme to leverage angles to support the run, then I don’t think it will happen during the season and that was my main point. I guess we will just have to wait until Mack finally runs out of excuses and gets angry again.
by SoldierHorn on Sep 22, 2010 3:09 PM CDT reply actions
hopefulhorn: Don’t expect much while remaining willing to be pleasantly surprised.
Shit. That’s my whole philosophy of life.
by LurkerintheDark on Sep 22, 2010 3:35 PM CDT reply actions
How long is Adrian Taylor expected to be out?
by Horncasting on Sep 22, 2010 3:49 PM CDT reply actions
Horncasting: Taylor is playing some now, he’s just not Adrian Taylor yet. NateHeupel is projecting midseason of the conference season before he is full strength. They don’t have any high caliber tackles right now. Of course, backed by Travis Lewis and Ronnel Lewis that probably won’t matter in stuffing our running plays.
SoldierHorn: I’ve seen some good aggressiveness from the run-blocking this season. Most of the line has pancaked some guys and carried linemen deep into their own territory.
But when you see unblocked safeties and corners swarming to the ball it causes congestion and plugs holes opened up by the line. Then you see the running back loitering in the backfield and getting tackled for a small gain by a linemen or linebacker who finally gets off a block.
The OL isn’t blowing guys off the ball like the 05 bunch but they are showing more aggression and mauling then last year’s group or the previous year.
by Ian Boyd on Sep 22, 2010 4:53 PM CDT reply actions
This block against OU by Cosby was always my favorite…
by Jmac on Sep 22, 2010 5:40 PM CDT reply actions
Jmac,
Pretty sure that’s the one Nickel was referring to in his post (though, of course, it was ruled just short of a touchdown). That decleater against Lendy Holmes is certainly the most notorious of Quan’s downfield blocks at UT. I still like the one in the Fiesta Bowl because he sent two players airborne with one block.
Whichever you prefer, the guy was responsible for a lot of yards by teammates in his time here, and he’s the template of what the guys on Brockermeyer’s podcasts are talking about: receivers gotta block to be great at this level.
Highlight reels of Quan blocks should be required viewing for all incoming receivers. In fact, it should be a verb: “That dude got Quanned, man!”
by TKO on Sep 22, 2010 6:33 PM CDT reply actions
All incoming receivers should watch Quan’s all-time receptions highlight reel as well. He was A Playmaker.
by CurrentLonghornStudent on Sep 23, 2010 1:30 AM CDT reply actions
The defense is great and only going to get better. But that was not a one year change. Transforming from our previous offensive mindset is going to take some time. I’ve read a lot about the year by year progression Muschamp has made with the defense, starting with basic schemes in year one and progressing with complexity each year as personel, understanding, and muscle memory kick in. So if we look at where we want the offense to be in 3 years, what all needs to happen to get us there?
We need the right athletes (We got plenty of guys that can do this) and the time to train them and let the mentality and execution become second nature. But it all starts with having a coaching staff that understands and is experienced at running the type of offense we want. In the same way we don’t play Monroe at wide out (he can’t catch), we don’t ask a spread offense coach or passive person to coach a power running team. You are putting everyone (coaching staff and players) in a position to fail.
I don’t know what kind of experience any of our current offensive coaches have in running good power or scheme running packages. Anyone can pick up the play books and draw them up and teach them, but if they don’t understand the plan and how to use one set of plays to set up the board for later moves and strategies, where will we be? If they don’t instill the right aggressive mentality like our defense now has, it won’t be as good. Do we have anyone on the staff that has run an offense like we want and create the right identity? Is Major the type of coach that can run that type of offense? Are any of the offensive position coaches? Do we need to recruit a more experienced offensive coordinator that can implement and start executing the multi year transformation? Do we need to clone Big Willy? Should WM be allowed to start recruiting his future coordinators? That would be my vote.
by DWH on Sep 24, 2010 5:38 AM CDT reply actions
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