Dream Wagon: Drivers and Horses

Good thoughts on why they should would or would not start Ash. Mack has won 5 with GG at the helm, and lost 8 times. He knows he can win with GG. Since he is prone to making safe calls and bets gg gets the first snap. Mack knows he has a 40 % chance of winning. GG gets the first snap, regardless. 40 is not a good # but he has won with gg. As for the D, the front 7 will be okay. Its the passing where they will suffer if they dont fix it. I think they have an 80% chance of winning 8 or more if they do fix this. GG in all seriousness needs to get his eyes checked. Really. The fans, cigars, staff, players and results need to keep Mack in check with making the right calls not the safe ones. That is where the key this year for Texas lies in. Mack not going back to a safety zone. Run game well be above average, stable full of hoss juice.

I thought it was the Swagger Wagon.

15 Minutes until Brewer’s Chaparral takes on Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas on Fox Sports AZ available on Direct or Dish satellite providers.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/aug/20/live-blog-arizona-cardinals-stadium-great-venue-go/

“That said, I’m not ready to anoint someone I’ve never seen in a college game or even practice.”

that sounds logical. pretty sure that kind of thing doesn’t go around here, lawdog.

Elusive Shadow’s post was so obscure. It was like someone spun the roulette wheel and he came up to write an article. I don’t care who the QB is, I’m just concerned that they’re stringing two guys out, possibly wrecking both of their confidences.

Good discussion. Some thoughts:

-I agree that Hopkins and Walters at RT and RG might be our best configuration yet. That creates a lot of umph firing out on the Power and opens up the sweep and flex outside zone a little more. I will be interested to see how Espinosa and Snow look on the pulls. If Hopkins and Allen can provide some stability in pass pro, it really helps this offense open up and it gives all of the quarterbacks much more upside this season.

-Scip and I were talking about the possibilities of the Counter 3 with the Hopkins and Walters on the right. Last year, Boise State only pulled the guard and tackle on their counter when they were in 11 personnel (normally their extra 2 are the guard and the h-back). I have to think that with Hopkins and Walters that would change. Still, having a hard hitting counter from 3-wide available to us is definitely nice, particularly since we can use triangle bunch from that formation and put a ton of horizontal pressure on the defense. 11 personnel with pistol would give us a ton of horizontal/motion threats in the ground/screen game and still offer 4 vertical passing threats.

-at fullback I’m frankly a little surprised that we haven’t heard more about Berryhill. It had been all about CJ until the last report. I really liked what I saw from Berryhill in the spring game from a blocking standpoint and I believe we’ll see a healthy amount of him. If we don’t that means that CJ will be playing at a high level. Our offensive line can be all-conference but it’s the play of guys like Grant and CJ that will be the delta in the run game.

-it was comical to hear some of the hand wringing over Randall’s play this offseason. In particular the scout that orangebloods quoted as having Randall projecting as a late round draft pick if he didn’t pick up his game. Randall is going to ridiculous in this front. He is the single most unloseable player on this team. We are a drastically difference defense without him.

-the most exciting thing about the linebacking unit is that we are putting them in a position to play open football. I love that we are asking this unit to make plays rather than never give them up. We’ll see if that translates into turnovers like we are all hoping.

-a playmaker at cornerback would be huge if it materializes this year. Diggs seems like the most likely candidate at this stage but it’s a lot ask of a really young unit.

LHS – I always enjoy reading your detailed posts. This one’s no different. What are you thoughts on Shipley being a difference maker this year. I’ve read that Harsinwhite are efforting to get him clean releases off the line to take advantage of his crisp route running. I also think the 3-headed monster of Fozzy, Brown, Bergeron (Flash, Bash & Bludgeon) are also going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Agreed on all fronts, LS.

Mack himself called out Randall and said that he had a better year playing with Houston than he did as the top dog inside. This is patently absurd and I’m assuming that Mack is just trying to light a fire in the big guy.

The linebackers are really going to have fun this year. As effective as Muschamp’s strategy was it didn’t offer the same kind of opportunities and was rigid in it’s disciplines and alignments. I’m interested to see how it compares in effectiveness.

As far as the corners, as I wrote in my Longhorn Kickoff piece, if they can play with good leverage over the top in Cover-3 and wrap-up against the passing game and running game I’ll be really happy. We may not lock down anyone but we still have some excellent athletes out there that can make things difficult for receivers and bring their bodies when they tackle.

Curtis brown as a sophomore gave Crabtree much more trouble than he was used to, even if it didn’t stop him from lighting us up. We are just blessed with athletes.

BTW, Elusive Shadow puts up great content at BON and normally I’m on his side in the GIlbert issue, I may look silly for slacking a little in my Gilbert apologetics if he gets some confidence and grabs the reigns.
Feel free to rip me, Shadow, if Gilbert’s struggles evaporate with the infusion of some confidence.

For me the biggest factors with the wide receivers in this offense are that they need to be fast to pressure vertically, be aggressive downfield blockers, take pride in route running, at have reliable hands (easy, right?). I am hoping Shipley excels across the board there, but it’s a lot to expect for a true freshman. I hope over time he develops something resembling Jordan’s understanding of coverage… Jordan was making up routes by the time he left school and that made him uncover able and made him a huge asset in the slot where he could toy with underneath defenders and sneak into deep territory when he caught the defense in the wrong coverage. Jaxon is important in the passing game but probably not essential this year. Where we really need him to contribute is special teams, imo.

Nickel Rover,

Your point about tackling from the secondary is dead on. That’s probably my biggest question mark. If we tackle well from CB and Safety then the defense will be very good this year… if not then it will be quite a struggle.

You make great points about who the focus of the offense needs to be, Nickel. Couldn’t agree more. We’re taking at least some of the burden off whoever ends up at QB.

That said, I think a quarterback gets too much credit when his team wins and too much blame when it doesn’t — and we clearly didn’t win much last year. Certainly, Gilbert didn’t put his teammates on his back and carry them, but I’m darn sure he wasn’t as bad as he looked. From all that’s been said and written in the last nine months, it’s pretty clear two of the coaches who “lost” their players were the receivers coach and the offensive line coach. Hard for any QB to prosper in that environment, especially with Greg Davis hating the running game.

I don’t have any clue of what to expect from this offense. Can we teach receivers and fullbacks and tight ends to block in one spring and one month this summer? A lot of these guys weren’t recruited with that in mind, and they clearly haven’t been taught how to do it in the GD offense. We’ll probably start a freshman and two sophs at WR, a freshman and two sophs in the line, a never-used junior at TE (or a senior who’s been out for three years), and we could have a freshman as our top ballcarrier.

More talent, and better-used talent, no question. But awfully young and learning a new system. I’m not sure a fifth-year Colt McCoy could excel at this point.

Another great one, NR, but seems to me the tea leaves from just earlier today are indicating that Gilbert is responding to the extended tongue lashing he received from Harsin and Brown and was sharp in yesterday’s practice. When you’re dealing with 19/20-year-old afoletes, things can pop into or out of place suddenly.

Here’s what I see as the outline of the season. The one unit that looks to deliver consistent high-level play game-to-game is the linebackers. Every other unit (and I’m hoping we can soon add QB to that) is capable of high-level play but I expect every one of those units to deliver a bad game or three. Our season, seems to me, hangs on whether we can pull it together for key games and whether we can compensate when a unit or two is having an off game.

With a running game and some enhanced scoring punch and with anything like our usual defensive prowess, we should be able to pull some games we’re trying to give away back to the W column. I’m starting to count on being really happy at the end of this season, so Hook ’Em!

Great posts here. It’s a little late I guess for a ton of comments, but this is the best post and set of replies I have seen in the last several days. All yall keep it up. I think the season depends on a lot of important and sometimes little-sounding factors:
Allen’s health
Grant’s and Irby’s health
Handling the QB situation appropriately
Scheming with plays and personel just right to stop power alley running attacks
Randall’s health of course
WRs catching the ball when they’ve blocked well for 4 plays in a row
DBs making sure takles or not
Special teams execution
Heck, everybody but our linebackers execution in the new schemes.

If too many of these areas become problems, we could suck. However, if just 2 or 3 of them prove difficult, we will OK. So QB is not my biggest fear right now. The exception to what I just said is Randall’s health and the DBs tackling. If either one of those goes south, we could go south.

Or maybe we just dominate in an awesome display of offensive-motion madness!!!

I have no problem with the criticism, Nickel Rover; sounds fair to me. I like to think that I have fairly good memory, but I don’t have access to all the games last year, unfortunately. People are free to disagree.

I hope my post didn’t come across as someone who thought Gilbert played well last year. Gilbert was really bad, obviously. My point was to argue that the reason that he was horrible was because he was set up to fail in a garbage offense, an offense even Colt McCoy would have struggled mightily in, and now he might be broken as a quarterback. Saying that he’s now broken is different than saying that he was a complete miss on the recruiting trail.

It was a roundabout way of saying: I have a small amount of hope for GG and I really want to see him in a coherent offense. He may prove unfixable, but I’m optimistic for the kid.

I’ve written here recently that he is broken. I hope I’m wrong.

He seems like a nice enough kid and I would love for him to turn his personal nightmare around, but when you see him toss a WTF interception and run off the field dragging down on his facemask with both hands, you’ve got to wonder at his state of mind. His body language certainly doesn’t exude much confidence.

And while it’s undoubtedly true that he suffered in a horrific situation last year that few could have functioned in, much less thrived, he’s also thrown his share of jaw-dropping interceptions this spring and fall. Tough to blame those on scheme or the team quitting out there.

Anyway, I hope those of you who are bullish on him are correct. I’m just happy if the W’s start racking up.

Elusive Shadow: I tend to agree overall, my only caveat is that based on his HS days and the glimpses of brilliance he displayed in the MNC game I thought he was a good enough player to lead us in his sophomore year with a broken system and a weak supporting cast. Up to the OU game and even a little beyond I kept waiting for something to click, like it seemed to in the 2nd half of the Rose Bowl, and it never did.
If it just happened in practice and we’re good to go that’s great.

This isn’t a point of disagreement though if we simply had different expectations for Gilbert. If you had the more realistic view that he would need time and help to be great than nothing that has happened would indicate that he’s been a miss.

If you thought he was an elite-level talent who could carry a team sooner rather than later than I think it’s most reasonable to feel you misevaluated how his career would turn out.

Ballistic motivation; thanks a million. I didn’t get this up when I actually intended so I’m glad it has maintained some relevance after JS’ crack-cocaine practice reports.
You are right on about health, since we have so many young guys that could be fantastic contributors this season so long as they can rely on guys like Randall, Snow, or whomever else as both resources on technique/scheme, and guys who can do the difficult things that will free them from responsibility and pressure.

OldTimeHorn: I’m curious as well about whether we’ll have enough in the tank to overcome the mistakes or off days that different units/players are certain to have. Definitely not against A&M or OU. Hopefully our running game and linebackers end up being enormous difference makers that cover a multitude of sins in coverage or pass protection.

Nickel —

Good to have you back on the football beat, consistently good writing.

I am very curious how many big special teams plays Texas makes this year. There are games on the slate where field position will be everything. I fear we completely wasted John Gold’s career to a certain extent by our constant tinkering with the punt game over the last few seasons, but what do I know.

Do we have the freshman Nathan Vasher on this year’s team (or the freshman Dre Bly, also a Mack recruit)? From LHScott:

" -a playmaker at cornerback would be huge if it materializes this year. Diggs seems like the most likely candidate at this stage but it’s a lot ask of a really young unit."

A freshman playmaker anywhere in the secondary (or on special teams) would make a difference. But we just won’t know until the plays start being made, will we?

Gah! Texas fans have gotten so used to the QB being the savior, because the OC was a Judas, that we are placing an undue emphasis on the position. Harsin’s approach to offense will have us talking about a lot of other stuff after the first few games.

It will be interesting to do a word cloud of these posts and threads, comparing the period of July/August with the period of September/October.

Jonestopten: If any one of us writers made it our specialty to cover special teams…ugh, no pun intended there, we would probably have a lot to offer because they’ve made huge differences in each of the last 2 seasons. I can’t say I know a ton about the different fundamentals or strategies of special teams other than to say that trick plays are fun but the one we attempted against Nebraska was fantastically foolish.

Vaccaro I feel safe naming as a difference maker in the secondary. Sounds like Phillips, Byndom, and Diggs could be the next Michael Huff, Curtis Brown, and Nathan Vasher respectively but won’t finish their gestation into those advanced forms until next year or the year after.

Case is not D 1 QB. Gilbert just flat out does not have it. See: season, 2010. Give me Ash or give me death

Dom Espinosa is your center folks

Its not hard to see the logic in expecting nothing from the qb position this year. Thanks to Mack and GD’s recruiting laziness, our options are a near-sighted, emotional lace doily; a true frosh who by all accounts tucks and runs when his primary is covered, and a legacy that needs to up his bench press to +125lbs. Not pretty.
However, if success depends on Fozzy “Balsawood” Whittaker, last year’s Answer [who never was, as I predicted] and some frosh——not to mention an offensive line from last year that couldn’t block me—-we are in a world of hurt.
Better hope the defense is really really good.

Trick plays are like telling jokes – timing is just as important as content. So we will see Harsin’s style of delivery – cutting, droll, surprising? Or will we see Uncle Mack’s – predictable, dumbed-down, here-it-comes-get-ready-to-chortle-politely-eye-rollingly obvious?

ransomstoddard,

How many years has it looked like OU was in a world of hurt at offensive line in the preseason, only to turn out to put together a pretty good unit (usually better than ours) and compete for the conference title? I think people will be singing a very different tune about them by the end of this year. Development is the key this season, next season we are in the BCS hunt.

due to the great coaching I think we have every reason to be excited about this year. regardless what our record is when the season is over this will be one of the most exciting years ever.
Our main weakness in my view is our depth. At this point, the depth chart looks thin at several positions. On offense, we really can’t afford many injuries on the line. On defense, Oak, Randall, Vaccaro, don’t have much behind them on the charts. If those guys all stay reasonably healthy we will have a very good year 8 to 10 wins. If not, I believe we might be looking at as few as 6 wins.

agree with icehead. this year is going to be exciting because we are witness to something we haven’t seen on both sides of the ball, and however we struggle, it will be growth pains and fit to watch. i didn’t see a down of play last year because the previous year i promised myself — as a health issue — that i would never watch another down of greg davis football.

Oh yeah great. I see the comparisons, let’s talk about OU’s line. This just in…they have been coaching cirlces around our panty waste bleed for the program tenure seeming coaching staff. They also have a winning record against us under stoops which in my mind at least, is the greatest sin of all. Excuse me but I’m not buying the hype about our preseason reports. Just last year we were fed a steady dose of GG brining the lunch pale, tweaking the run game, Greg smith coming on, Gideon becoming a leader, I could go on and on but you get the idea it’s a bunch of shit. The same garbage comes out every year about accountability and entitlement but nothing happens. My reccomdation is to take everything with a grain of salt and we will know very quickly, perhaps even during the Rice game, if anything has changed for the better.

package is becoming less mysterious.

LonghornScott: “Development is the key this season, next season we are in the BCS hunt.”

Agreed. I’m looking at this like the old coaching staff got fired, and the new coaching staff has a chance at one of those accelerated two-year turnarounds you hear the media mention from time to time. Hopefully, it works out that way. Oh, while I’m at it, good work on the scheme series.

yeh -
“package is becoming less mysterious.”
Great line. My first laugh of the day.

Brined lunch is usually pale.

“panty waste” can be fixed with a kotex …

Mysterious Package,

you may have noticed that OU stopped coaching circles around us when Muschamp took over the defense… that gave us a dog in the fight for 3 seasons straight. It looks to me like we have a legit coaching architecture on both sides of the ball. The only coaching advantage that OU will enjoy this year is experience in the system which projects to easier adjustments for their players. Bob can’t walk into this matchup licking his chops like he did for the first 8 years of the matchup. We may not win that game this year, but it won’t be because we are totally unprepared.

The talk about offensive improvement in previous offseasons was always within the Greg Davis constraint. One of the reasons why my writing has picked up is because we have finally left that behind. I’ll put my belief out there that if this core offensive staff is together for at least 3 seasons that we will see talent development and utilization that embarrasses anything we have seen previously under Mack Brown. We could see in 2008 that we were developing a great defensive unit right from the get go even though it wouldn’t really become dominant until 2009. I think that we will see similar evidence of an upward trend on offense this year.

But I fully expect folks to wait until they see tangible evidence in a game to start to feel hope. I’m hoping that we will be able to delve into the development as we see it happening and that will really be the fun of this season for me. Skepticism is encouraged as long as it’s coming from an analytic place and not from and emotionally scarred one.

We stand on the edge of a cliff and after last years horrific performance it is hard not to look down.

I can see your points on GG. However, he should have been redshirted his fiirst year. And who says he can’t make a drastic improvement from year 1 to year 2 or 3 as it applies here. With a few good breaks he may regain his confidence and quit playing beyond himself and just manage the situations.

Behind GG there are some significant concerns. While Case seems to have a better grasp on where his receivers will be, and throws a more catchable ball, McCoy’s popgun arm will not hold up under the scrutiny of Big 12 play.

Ash is a mystery at this point, and Wood doesn’t appear to be the answer. Hopefully, a strong run game can function as a bridge until all this is straightened out and we reach the other side of this abyss.

If GG were redshirted, who would have been Colt’s backup? Sherrod Harris? John Chiles?

I agree that the Rice game will answer 90% of the questions about how this season will unfold. The biggest myth in football is that “teams improve the most between the first and second game”.

“Skepticism is encouraged as long as it’s coming from an analytic place and not from and emotionally scarred one.”

LHS – Thank you.

Oh, and as for all the wonderous changes being made to the offense, the video of the scrimmage on Mack’s site features both the bubble screen and zone read plays by the first team O. Both were stuffed by the second team D. Hope and change?

FIY. My anti-virus blocked the Exploit virus when I went to the link. If you opened the link, you may want to run your anti-virus. I’ve had a computer infected with Exploit and its nasty.

I like how ransom just figured out that Boise State uses the bubble screen. Do you know they have blue turf too brah?

ransom,

there’s nothing inherently bad about either of those offensive concepts. That would fall in the emotionally scarred category. We are going to have plenty of plays that are unsuccessful. Boise State did. The difference is that we will learn about the defense through our successful and unsuccessful plays and we will understand and call the logical responses. This playbook is much more coherent from that perspective than what we saw in the past.

@Longhorn Scott — As I read the owl entrails coming out of Norman, I sense that Stuups is discomfited in seeing a transition from a coaching staff he pwned to one that displayed some pwnership of him.

Longhorn Scott,

In all your X’s and O’s wisdom, do you think we’ll see a return to scoring defensive points as a result of Manny Diaz’s schemes? I keep hearing about A. Phillips’ comparisons to Earl Thomas and that leaves me salivating thinking about getting some of those pick 6’s that ET brought to the 2009 team, which were woefully lacking from the 2010 team.

o-time, i hope we are all looking at owl entrails in two weeks time.

Burntorangejuice: I think part of the reason we didn’t get any Defensive scoring last year was that we had the worst luck on fumbles I’ve ever seen. Also, teams didn’t throw on us much so we didn’t get many chances at strip/sacks or INT’s.

Both Diaz’s zone defense and his blitzing should create additional turnovers. I think we should ease our foot off the accelerator on Phillips=Thomas but I think he may some potential to be a Huff down the line.

burntorangejuice,

It’s impossible to project outcomes, particularly with something with as many contributing factors as something like a turnover. Most turnovers come from forcing mistakes with pressure on the quarterback and anticipation giving defenders an advantage. I think that we will get more pressure on the quarterback this year and I think that with our players reading the backfield more often we will be in a better position to make impact hits on offensive players and breaks on the ball in the air. But then a big part of the reason why we weren’t able to do those things more often last year was because teams rarely felt pressured to make something happen on offense. Another factor that I think helps over the coarse of the season is that this coverage scheme should help our secondary anticipate routes over time, and that’s where big time interceptions come from. So I think some of our base factors will be strengthened in turnover production schematically, but it’s hard to say that how that plays out… particularly with so much youth at cornerback.

Our defensive play style also probably means that we will be more susceptible to misdirection, play action, screens, and draws. So while we may be able to generate some game changing plays, heads up plays and open field tackling is going to be really important. Otherwise teams will be able to make conservative plays underneath develop into the big plays their offense needs and the likelihood of turnovers goes way down.

Nickel Rover,

I apologize, I should have addressed the question to you or LHS, LHS just seemed to be more live on the thread recently. Thanks for responding and for the great post.

I’m not buying into the Phillips=Thomas meme as much as my post represented. I am cautiously optimistic at most. The fumble recovery misfortune was rather perplexing, that can only improve. I didn’t really recall that teams had a tendency to favor running plays against us, so I appreciate the insight on that.

But I fully expect folks to wait until they see tangible evidence in a game to start to feel hope.

I felt hope the moment GD was finally out the door albeit at least 5 years too late. The retention of Applewhite with the addition of Harsin only fueled that hope. I don’t have to see the results yet to have hope. On the field evidence is what brings the affirmation of that hope.

Neither the bubble screen or the ZR were stuffed by the defense in the latest scrimmage video. Pessimistic is understandable. Objective is preferred.

We won’t be advertising our intentions with down and distance, personnel, or formation this year so both plays will have a greater chance of success. And Harsinwhite has made mention of quality control with regards to our tendencies on O. Something wholly ignored by the heavy breathing joweled coordinator enjoying his redshift year.

LHS,

I understand one can’t predict outcomes- I just recently read “The Black Swan” and “Fooled By Randomness” by Nassim Nicolas Taleb (not sure how to underline or italicize with the interface of this site).

That being said, what I was after was exactly what you gave me: that our schemes on defense have the basic groundwork for producing turnovers. Thank you. Hopefully we’ll carry some leads late in games thanks to our new offensive philosophies and new found running game, which will lead to teams throwing more and with more need to force something.

One of Cody’s biggest contributions in a hybrid/motion role will be to chip or help in pass pro. If he effectively manages to buy another 1.5 seconds for Gilbert, that makes his motion/screen game even more dangerous.

I’m really anticipating a well-orchestrated offense.

Bobby_Batronic said, “We won’t be advertising our intentions with down and distance, personnel, or formation this year so both plays will have a greater chance of success.”

I can only imagine we’ll see better execution on screens and zone read plays, as well. I’m sure Wyatt will teach the WR’s when and how it is appropriate to block. Also, on zone reads, we’ll (hopefully) have credible running threats for both options to carry the ball.

Scott,

1) What do you see/hear from practice reports re: Gilbert that gives you hope, if anything?

2) With what QB (Gilbert, McCoy, Ash) would you have the most hope for this season, and why?

Young Williams,

I’m gonna take a brief rain check on that. I think any well defined opinions are premature but I may try to devote a post to in the near future. I think there’s enough emotional investment around the situation that it needs more than a cursory answer. If I address it, I want it to be in a longer format where I have a little bit more opportunity to get into how the different attributes that the guys seemingly posses play into the offense as a whole.

Fair enough, and thanks for the response.

I’ll look forward to whatever thoughts you have, in however fleshed-out a form you want to put them.

burntorangejuice: no offense taken, if I didn’t have an answer I would have asked LS as well.

Dr G said on August 21st, 2011 at 10:26 am

FIY. My anti-virus blocked the Exploit virus when I went to the link. If you opened the link, you may want to run your anti-virus. I’ve had a computer infected with Exploit and its nasty.

That’s real fine, brother, but somewhat worthless without particulars as to the State Vector of your computer including OS and A-V software.

Glad you survived. My Surfbored MMXI browsing with Firefox 3.6.16 under Ubuntu Linux 10.04 current didn’t notice any virus attacks. Perception is Reality.

They also have a winning record against us under stoops which in my mind at least, is the greatest sin of all.

No, giving us the worst loss ever to OU, then following it up w/ an even worse loss, is the greatest sin of all.

The same garbage comes out every year about accountability and entitlement but nothing happens. My recomendation is to take everything with a grain of salt and we will know very quickly, perhaps even during the Rice game, if anything has changed for the better.

ITA. I realize that we have almost an entirely new staff, but perhaps it’s b/c the head man is still the same, or the fatigue of the ANNUAL promise of “it’s gonna be different this year, really!,” but I am firmly in the camp of I won’t believe it until I see it.

I don’t know if this thread is still alive but i wanted to ask one more question.
With new personnel such as Desmond Jackson a potential beast up the middle and speedsters such as Mykkele Thompson do you think we will have the time to work out a killer punt blocking unit or will we be too busy installing everything else? I haven’t heard anything about special teams other than kickers and returners.

God I hope so. Given the level of athletes that Texas enjoys in the 2nd and 3rd string and in freshman classes there is no excuse for not fielding a top 10 Special teams every season.

Given our likely struggle to rediscover the offensive potency of, say, 2008, it would be criminally stupid for this staff not to be devoting a great deal of time to special teams.

Thing is, none of us ask or talk about it much and you can be sure the main media doesn’t either. Mack probably likes that, develop real weapons in ST that fly under the media radar.

Nickel -
 
Do you think Texas fans inordinately fetishize the QB position? Or is it just fans in general?
 
It seems to me that our fans still are operating off of some old management assumptions despite the staff changes.
 
National evidence suggests that you can win a lot of football games without your QB being a stud.

Hey Scip,

that’s a good question to ponder. It seems like maybe in the last 7 years or so we have fetishized the QB to a greater extent after what Vince Young did. Before that it was all about Ricky Williams, Earl Campbell, Cedric Benson. I subscribe to your theory, well generally all of your theories, but your theory that Jamaal Charles is one of the most underrated Longhorn stars.

On the other hand, you tune into the radio and every national pundit is talking about how you can’t win in the National Football League without an elite quarterback, that it’s a quarterback league, etc. Peyton Manning’s reputation rises and falls every day with the sun as the Colts deal with OL injuries, WR changes, DE injuries and overhauls on the defensive side.

I think at the national level, winning bias has promoted the idea that having a championship season is all about having the greatest QB. On a micro level, fans will always defend their own team’s chances and bark against any prevailing wisdom with the multitude of reasons why their run-oriented team will win the championship against any hotshot, spread QB.

A few years of Brown, Gray, and I guess Bergeron leading us to wins and I bet Texas fans will resume temple constructions for tailback personality cults.

All that to say, I believe we could win a national championship with Gilbert if he cut his interceptions in half or better. QB is only one cog in the system.

You can win games with a quarterback who is less than all-Universe in terms of phyisical talent… not only can, but as pointed out, it happens, and not infrequently.

But… you can’t win games with a quarterback who is stupid, regardless of his physical attributes. Not talking rocket surgery here, just defense-dismantling. Some may point to Terry Bradshaw as proof of the opposite, but those some are wrong. Terry isn’t stupid, he’s just goofy… besides, football’s about the only thing he ever actually studied, and it sure looked like he had a pretty good idea what he was doing out there on the field.

I think you guys are on to something with the obsession of most fans with the talismanic transcendent offensive player. GD’s “offense” made it worse because it was so schematically weak that it required such a player to function.

Longhorn Scott’s series on Harsin’s offense at Boise shows the antithesis of that, using scheme to put good but not great players in positions where they can be productive. The idea of that sort of offense manned by Texas talent is intriguing, to say the least.

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Funny enough my favorite Nicole Kidman movie, during her time with The Cruise, was “The Others”. Which I found creepy as hell to watch. But I loved it.