Texas-OU 2010 Post Mortem- Defense Special Teams

The sooner OC called a good game (until the 4th qtr), Landry Jones was threading the needle like i’ve never seen him do, and our own penalties extended drives that turned into points. I watched it only once – did Murray turn the corner on E Jones twice because he wasnt lined up in time?

Still proud of the defense effort and intensity, especially when the offense is so miserably inept.

Absolutely right about the defensive issues being correctable and the offensive being systematic.

Thanks for telling it like it is Scipio. It’s tough for me to understand why coach Muschamp attempted to flip-flop personnel against an up-tempo offense that he knew would drop a quick snap on you if you didn’t anchor your edges. Would like your thoughts on exactly what was up with our defensive call around the 5:30 mark of the 2nd quarter—-especially Keenan Robinson aligning 13 yards deep at safety with Gideon at LB depth and stunting B gap. I must say Keenan drilled the slant route better than most but I never would have thought about making that particular adjustment—-coach probably knew the slant was coming and adjusted accordingly.

Thankee….

That sooner oc has a fucking plan and everyone on that offense knows what they are expected to do. They set up plays and the fake run to Murray where they passed it to him in the flat was set up all game long. That is a fucking play we should run with Monroe but we need to set it up by giving him a hand full of carries out of the I which lead me to ask, can we get a full back please. It pains me to see Millard as he loves contact and will be there 3 more years.

On the first drive when Murray scored, Ernest was already asking for out of the game and I think it was because he was already gassed. Take a look at that tape.

Gideon is frustrating right now, hell be a GA in a few years.

Thanks for this. It’s a somewhat positive outlook on the otherwise crap the bed feeling malaise everyone currently sports. Sometimes the ball bounces your way, sometimes the refs strip it from you. Besides the quick 14-0 hole (a no-no given our brand of incompetence on offense), the defense acquitted itself fairly well.

Couple questions:

1. What’s the “solve” button for Gideon? Even if Muschamp were willing to replace Blake (not likely), it doesn’t sound like a Scott/Vaccaro combo is going to cut it mentally. And, it’s not like Scott’s been the world-beater we thought he would be. Nolan Brewster is out, and is likely Gideon-lite anyway. Are we just penciling in Gideon for the next 1.5 years? Can we expect anything out of Phillips next year?

2. Where do we stand on Randall & Williams to the League? It sounds like Longhorn fans think more highly of both than the pundits. Maybe it’s just because of our shit for brains record, but there’s not much pub surrounding these guys just yet. Can we hold our breath for a return? I’m probably getting ahead of myself here, but it would be nice to think we could still field a 2011 D that features one or both of these guys. It would surely help at our positions of weakest strengths going into next year.

I can’t believe you re-watch these games.

While I feel the defense is our strength, they get a fail from me for the game. The mantra this year was that our defense would keep us in every game and of the three tough games we have played they haven’t come through in two of them. I get that they have been dealt a raw deal by the offense (against UCLA) and the refs (against OU), but unless you were delusional coming into the year this game was exactly the sort of game that our defense was supposed to win for us. It sad when you think the abortion-that-is-our-offense almost bailed out the D.

Obviously the D is the only reason to have hope the rest of the year and if they can pull it together they will be great, but at this point they barely get a passing mark from me.

Merhorn – I was wondering about the conditioning as well. I heard most of the first quarter from the car radio and Moreland was talking about how the defense looked tired. That sounded unbelievable to me.

The fact that Gideon will be a four year starter and not even get his panties sniffed by pro scouts is an inescapable indictment on the rest of the defensive unit (scheme, depth or otherwise). Couple that with the misalignments and stupid mistakes we see on defense anyway and I really don’t see ANY value that Gideon provides. And he is a fucking traffic cone for even average rb’s.

Even though I know he is not the reason for 99% of our team’s issues, it still irritates the shit out of me to watch his utter uselessness on play after play after play and wonder what the fuck he is doing on this team.

You are only as strong as your weakest link and we have a paper clip holding together an anchor chain.

Well stated and good comments too. This remains the only part of this year’s team to feel at all good about. It would be a shame to lose Randall and AW to the NFL after their excellent efforts are being largely wasted this season.

Benny, the only explanation is that Blake hits a soft spot with the staff including Will who was a very similar player. Mack loves the kid but he would not play if WIll did not want him to.

This may have been covered in one of the other threads but is OU not required to get set before snapping the ball anymore? On both of Murray’s TD runs they had at least two guys moving at the snap (on the first one they had the whole left side of their line and the TE moving.) What the hell is going on with Big 12 refereeing?

“This may have been covered in one of the other threads but is OU not required to get set before snapping the ball anymore?”

They only make that call in the second half these days. Even so, there is no excuse for the lack of preparation for OU’s no-huddle offense (unless you are a college football broadcast engineer, who always seem to be running replays when OU or UT go to the no-huddle).

The NFL will not play games next year. I like our chances of keeping all of our juniors.

What I’m wondering is this: why did the D never stop the clock and (try to) get settled? They were so badly out of synch through the first two 0u possessions, repeatedly not even close to set when the ball was snapped, hurrying to make up ground and getting penalized… does Boom (or our Great White QB-on-the-field) not have authority to call a TO, or what?

I like Blake Gideon. He is smart and small like me. He will be a good coach someday soon and a credit to The University of By-Gawd Texas.

Scip, I have to pick nits with part of your statment that we held OU to 2.4 ypc, and that when combined with how well we defended the pass it is amazing they got to 28.

We didn’t hold their RBs to 2.4 ypc; they got 3.9 ypc. The 2.4 ypc stat is padded in our favor because of sacks and a terrible fake punt call. Murray got a very nice 4.6 ypc on 25 runs. We can be vulnerable to the run. We knew that. They got 4.5 ypc and 6.2 ypc on their first 2 scoring drives. We settled down and did better the rest of the game, except on the 2 plays we lost our heads – personal foul to turn 4th down in to first followed 2 plays later by a 20 yard TD run.

Our special teams are terrible. As great as Ship and Cosby were when they ran it back, I think a lot of people over looked how valuable they were with their ability to not let the ball hit the ground. I don’t know how many times you saw one of them sprinting up the field into a cluster of defenders and either fair catching the ball or catching it and getting tackled. Now we let that drop and lose 10-20 yards of field position. Is it too much to ask for someone who can just catch the ball? I don’t care if it is a 300 lb white guy who runs a 6.2 40, just get someone who will help us win the field postion (and stupid turn over) battle.

? for Scip or any other knowledgeable Barkers…on the final kickoff which was brilliant and almost worked, why did the ref blow the whistle immediately? If I were the special teams coach I would train my headhunters to knock the piss out of the return man unless he kneels. Murray picked the ball up and the ref immediately blew the whistle with horns 3 yards away. Had one of our players laid him out I’m sure the ref would have thrown a personal foul flag. The refs would have then huddled and 1 would have said it’s a safety since he didn’t kneel. 28-22 OU’s kicking to us. TD seals it.

I’m not sure of the rules, but why does the return man have to kneel it? Murray didn’t.

Blake Gideon was in the game but not present. He is credited with 3 tackles in 91 snaps (he probably played 80+ of them) and I’m still looking to find two of them. He took terrible angles all game (see second Murray TD run, just brutal) and he much prefers jumping on a pile to causing one. Same thing we saw against UCLA. And Alabama. And…name your opponent that runs the ball. When your safety doesn’t fill the alley with abandon and you’re undersized up front, you’re losing the battle of concentration of force. That’s bad in warfare and football. We tried to use him on blitzes in the 1st half and he ran straight into blockers for a good chicken fight. For all of his "coach on the field" value, why can’t we get lined up right Q3/Q4 against UCLA and Q1 against OU?

I’m just here to pat myself on the back and say that this was my position all along. There were a few stragglers on recognizing his lack of talent, but now it seems everyone is on board with that. The real issue was everyone saying, “yeah, but it helps to have another coach out there.” My response is: where the hell did we come up with that? how do we know he is a coach on the field? Are we demonstratably more confused when it is Vaccaro or Scott out there and not him? I’ve never seen any of this coach on the field benefit.

I was hoping for Goodwin to get a chance to field some punts. They have to do something different. How about Mike Davis when he’s healthy?

Tex Long, we definitely should have burned a timeout to give our D a break, especially with our inability to even properly line up.

That game was the epitome of Murphy’s Law.

didn’t Darius White rip off punt return for a TD in the underarmour game?

Magnus – I don’t believe that Muschamp has any earned time outs. Kind of like accrued vacation. Greg Davis has tenure and is capped.

Needless to say I was living room livid when our coaches did not recognize what was happening with the up tempo scripted plays the first two OU series. It is senseless that all of us unpaid coordinators know what to do in these situations. Why come the paid ones do not?

WWGDD thanks for bringing that up. I was wondering the same thing and had forgotten about it. I don’t think it is ruled as a safety if he had been tackled. It would have been a touch back. However, if someone had knocked the shit out of him and forced a fumble, we could have recovered for a TD.

Unfortunately, I’m convinced that these Longhorns are just as stupid as they are talented. Part of me wants the team to keep losing because I think the number of coaches heads that roll is directly proportional to the number of games we lose.

The other part of me fondly remembers the come back Colt orchestrated the last time we went to the Alamo Bowl…

Scipio saw Gideon for what he really was his freshman year. The kid provides no real positives on the field. At best he won’t be a liability or negative. I think his freshman year he accounted for one turnover and couldn’t even come up with them when one literally fell in his lap. I remember when he got punked by Pryor in the Fiesta Bowl.

In the Rose Bowl he got trucked by Richardson and Ingram repeatedly. He pretty much was me in high school. I was a terrible slow white safety who jumped on piles to look like he was involved. The only reason he started was he took advsntage of a talent vacuum at the safety position. The job fell into his lap.

The only reason he is called a “coach on the field” is his Dad is a coach, he is white, he knows where to line up, doesn’t make any tangible plays.

Gideon is so dumb for a “coach on the field.” I remember in the Rose Bowl when he made his “great play” off the fake punt. People were patting him on the back. It was a fucking dumb play. He should have bat it down, ’cause it was fourth down. We lost like 15-20 yards of field position due to that play. If he made the correct play GD might not run that ill-fated sprint option. Then again he probably runs a QB sneak down on the goal line.

Get him out of there. I’ll take Vaccarro and his personal fouls any day of the weak.

WWDGD:

The applicable rule is from Rule 6, Section 1.

Touching Ground On or Behind Goal Line
ARTICLE 7. When a free kick untouched by Team B (that would be the receiving team) touches the ground on or behind Team B’s goal line, the ball becomes dead and belongs to Team B.

But that’s my point exactly…why do they have to kneel then? You don’t see return men catch a kickoff in the end zone and just walk the ball to the ref.

Sort of to my point in college when my coach told me to shut up (obviously he didn’t have a valid answer) after asking him why the holder on special teams isn’t ruled down when receiving the snap? Knee is down. How can he then get up on a fake FG?

Thanks Jackie. We still should have Vaccaroed him.

They have to kneel if the ball has not touched the ground.

Scipio hits the major points (and hits them well, as always); here is a minor one. Blocking kicks—have we tried to do so even once this season? If so, I can’t recall us getting close. Has that been impacted by moving Aaron Williams to PR? I think he’s blocked 4 kicks in his career already. Hard to block a punt when you’re 55 yards from the LOS. Put him back up front and let someone with stickum fair catch ’em; at least it will limit the negative plays.

Defense gets a failing grade for the first two drives, Texas could just not afford to get down like that in ANY game this year with our offense. We came out unprepared and got thrashed on those first two drives.

OU has been running an up-tempo hurry up FOR YEARS now and this was nothing new.

On blocking punts, the 3 blockers lined up 5-8 yds deep make it much more difficult to block a punt. It’s a second level to clean up any mess that escapes the first level.
On the downside, it probably hurts your coverage a bit and I think limits what you can do if you wanted to run a fake.

On the kick-off that WWGDD brought up.. That was 1-2 yards from being a spectacular play. Totally boneheaded of the Sooners to not have someone deep. It’s not like we were lined up for an on-side attempt.

“Blocking kicks–have we tried to do so even once this season?”

We have come extremely close 3 times – like so close you don’t understand how it wasn’t blocked – and had a roughing the kicker penalty one other time.

I think Muschamp occasionally out thinks himself and gets a little too “multiple” if that’s a phrase. That’s when he get’s into trouble with hurry up teams. He seems to adjust, but this isn’t the first time teams up tempo have given him problems.

I was surprised he didn’t take a timeout and strip down the play call package to adjust to the rapid pace.

Good write-up, but I think Muschamp deserves more heat for the dumb penalties. It has been an ongoing issue since week 1, and seems to only be getting worse. He was asked about them after 2 different games and responded with a very Mack-like one liner “I’d rather have to tell them whoa than giddyup”. Funny until it costs you the most important game of the year. If we don’t extend OU’s drives or cost ourselves the sack fumble, OU’s tempo never becomes an issue.

Couple of other quips

-Giving E. Acho credit for "stripping’ the ball from Jones at the end of the game is extremely generous. Ball was out before he made any contact. You could make an argument that he should have kept Jones further from the ball to keep him from recovering it or knocking it out of bounds.

-The TD pass to Stills should have been knocked down or even picked. Another case of a defender not turning to the ball. Curtis Brown has an easy pick on another throw if he turns.

-Kickoff coverage overall might have been solid, but after the DJ Monroe score, the long return by OU gave them back the momentum.

-It would be interesting to see the correlation to OU wins in this game compared to called OU holding penalties since 2000.

“The bottom line is that this is the only unit on our team for which we have any expectations at all. That’s the harsh truth of it. "

And thank the gods for at least one unit that we can watch without scratching out our own eyeballs.

I still worship the ground Muschamp walks on even though I know he is human and sometimes makes mistakes.

Unlike Davis, who is clearly Beelzebubba.

“Defense gets a failing grade for the first two drives, Texas could just not afford to get down like that in ANY game this year with our offense. We came out unprepared and got thrashed on those first two drives.”

The defense stopped them twice on the first drive, only to have the play extended by stupid/questionable penalties. We can’t put that drive on the defense as a whole.

OU should have realistically scored 17-24 points against us, which should be good enough for us to win. Sometimes, shit happens to our defense, but nearly everytime, shit happens to our offense.

GM Platter -
 
I’m not sure. I re-watched late last night. I thought that was the culprit on the 1st run. The 2nd run was a comedy of errors, not the least of which was Blake Gideon’s weird half jog to the sideline at a 90 degree angle.
 
TexasFootball -
 
Always good to hear from you. I saw the play. All of the DL standing with Gideon as a “blitzer” – I say that in quotes because blitzers even when blocked should snap back someone’s head – and Keenan playing hybrid safety. I dunno man. It was a look, I guess. Maybe we thought it would mindfuck Jones but he calmly threw a slant in the vacated middle for the 1st.
 
Did you understand our odd front on the two 3rd and shorts with Randall at nose and the next closest DL in 5 techniques? Millard ran for two easy firsts against that and I didn’t understand what we were trying to do.
 
jc25 -
 
1. No solve. Will Muschamp won a MNC with a LSU defense with a player exactly like Gideon at safety so he thinks it’s something he can scheme around. I have a sneaking suspicion that Adrian Phillips is going to be really good. Not sure when.
 
2. I don’t think there will be a NFL draft, personally. Williams and Randall are both big time. I don’t give a shit about what the opinions of fans or Mel Kiper are. They’re all derivative, anyway. He had Jevan Snead as a #1 pick a year before this last draft. And Ulatoski as a sure-fire 1st rounder.
 
I watch the game with my own eyes and I know a shit load more about the Texas Longhorns personnel than all NFL draft analysts combined.
 
nordberg -
 
I’m not sure why I do. Honestly, I hate it. It’s funny, but there’s a perception by a few that I’m some kind of hater and must secretly enjoy seeing our failures and nothing could be further from the truth. I want nothing more than Greg Davis to drop 600 yards and 55 points on Nebraska and flip me off as he walks off of the field.

On blocking punts, the 3 blockers lined up 5-8 yds deep make it much more difficult to block a punt. It’s a second level to clean up any mess that escapes the first level.
On the downside, it probably hurts your coverage a bit and I think limits what you can do if you wanted to run a fake.

Didn’t we use to crush this type of blocking a few years ago? We used to send Lokey or Miller running into 2nd set of blockers at full speed with people behind them to step over the bodies and block the kick.

Ricky -
 
Football is a team sport, but it’s also a battle of units. Offense vs. D and special teams against each other. Coming in, OU had a good O and a horrendous D. Our defense had a challenge, our offense had none. I’m not sure the offense bailed out anyone. We underperformed Air Force, Cincinnati and Utah State. A reasonable Texas offense should have scored 30+ with no problems.
 
As for the D, penalties can be overcome. I see easy fixes and teachable moments. I don’t see that on the O.
 
hodad -
 
I won’t debate you for a moment about OU’s motion or some of the mystery penalties, but ultimately officials unconsciously reward the aggressor in a football game. OU was the aggressor. And I’m just not a pin it on the officials guy, generally speaking.
 
TexLong -
 
Time outs are generally reserved for offense. I’m sure Muschamp can get a time out if he needs it, but we also kept getting OU in 3rd downs – I’m sure he thought we’d be off the field soon enough. But yellow laundry said otherwise.
 
ut06 -
 
Demarco’s rushing boiled down to 2 20 yard runs that scored, allowed by dumb penalties that extended drives. We were holding up fine after the initial tempo adjustment. We had double digit tackles for loss. 3.9 ypc is a statistic that can win for us. In fact, if that’s what our backs had in a game, we’d be highly critical.
 
texasengr -
 
Even if I agree with you in principle, I have to pull for Texas, no matter how bleak things are.
 
Horncasting -
 
Fans love to say “look back for the ball” to our DBs in all cases (sometimes rightly) but in that instance there is no opportunity to do so. Vaccaro’s coverage was perfect and OU made a great play. Every coach on the planet grades Vaccaro well on that play.
 
Penalties between the whistles are fine and part of football. A questionable targeting call is completely different from a post-play personal foul. You can’t just generalize penalties into a neat basket. Some are mental errors, some are from aggression, some are to compensate for getting whipped (holding calls), some are purposeful to prevent a long pass TD, some are irretrievably stupid.
 
A quality defense will commit a certain number of personal fouls. A smart quality defense doesn’t get them for ticky-tack bullshit.
 
E Acho’s pressure on Jones caused a fumble. I didn’t bother to assess the particulars, honestly.
 
Yes, OU had one long return and several short of the 20. On average, that’s fine. This is a game played by humans.

bob -
 
Yes, we did.

Sometime next Spring the new Head Coach of the Georgia Bulldogs will run into his old Boss at a convention and will greet him warmly.

There will be no Dr. Pepper offered nor taken but Will might say…"the fishing is very good back home Mack. Tell me, is Greg catching any? Mack will stare blankly into space and say “no more and no less than usual, Will”, for that is how Greg has always been addressed by Mack and that is how it shall always be between them. Then, Mack’s former coach-in waiting will shake his old mentor’s hand and walk slowly, perhaps nostalgically away, leaving Mack to play over and over in his head the words from a 1995 song by Duane Propes and Little Texas:

“Try not to think about what might have been,
‘Cause that was then and we have taken different roads,
We can’t go back again, there’s no use givin’ in,
And there’s no way to know,
What night have been.”

Fade to Darkness…..

"Texas Defense Vs. Sooner Offense: I’m comfortable with our match-ups here. I’m talking Juicy sweats lounging on a mink divan comfortable. With Vietnamese women rubbing my shoulders and feeding me pheasant and whatnot." – ScipioTex

Update on the whatnot: Turned out Mai Tranh was really ‘Alelandry’, nee Jimbo Dingfelder, fresh from an all-nighter at OKC’s venerable Cabana Inn (by way of Vinita), delectable in a beautifully embroidered silk chemise and Betty Page wig. The massage started off a bit brusque but went sublime after Alelandry slipped her large yet manicured finger tips down from the shoulder blades along the erector spinae and then went Okie noodling up ol’ Scip’s cloaca maxima. Word is Scip took it like a legionnaire, albeit his Clockwork Orange eyes bulged at the televised debacle as he bit into the crimson ball gag. He did NOT whimper, although one must relay that he did emit as what can only be described as a half-blasted with buckshot – but still-living – game bird exhaling its last in the clinched jaws of a trusty Labrador (‘musschump…’).

Yes, Phaeded. Your offense was the picture of total dominance. Our self-inflicted gunshot wounds are testament to your marksmanship.

We had another TD called back by an illegal shift (I guess payment to the the refs wasn’t so handsome) and our own version of the tortoise sat on an insignifcant 2 score lead (in light of our folding D), just as he has in 4 other games this year. The bottom line is there is shite instead of body lube on your mink divan because Landry Jones is much better than given credit for here.

Here’s something I find funny when speaking to the point about expectations between the two units, offense and defense. Many are criticizing the defense for not being the ‘85 Bears and while they do have some warts that you have pointed out what those critical of the defense’s perceived lack of success forget is that the ’85 Bears defense had the ’85 Bears offense.

Like most great defenses they had a great or at least serviceable defense that could flip field position and give opposing offenses extended fields to play on. Ours doesn’t do that and continually puts our offense in bad situations along with the special teams.

I do believe this defense has the chance to be great but for that to happen the offense must improve to the realm of moderately shitty. If that doesn’t happen then the defense will be burdened all year with an unachievable proposition of having to win every game by themselves.

Scipio made some joke a year ago about balls just falling out of QBs hands when the Achos get close. He wasn’t kidding, which is why he awarded the non-FF FF to E-Acho.

Go and watch Texas’s first kickoff return. Malcolm Williams runs right past 3 Okies. He wanted to be the drum major in case Monroe ran it all the way.

“I want nothing more than Greg Davis to drop 600 yards and 55 points on Nebraska and flip me off as he walks off of the field.”

Every day I come by your house and I pick you up. And we go out. We have a few drinks, and a few laughs, and it’s great. But you know what the best part of my day is? For about ten seconds, from when I pull up to the curb and when I get to your door, ‘cause I think, maybe I’ll get up there and I’ll knock on the door and you won’t be there. No goodbye. No see you later. No nothing. You just left. I don’t know much, but I know that.

Homesick -
 
You have earned my Good Will.

Good read , I am going to spend more time learning about this subject