Football Talk

if you heard Mack at the the end of the UCLA game in the locker room post-game you heard him calling out some players for pouting and not getting playing time. I have a feeling he was talking about DJ as i noticed DJ kind of sulking on the sidelines several times and remembered this even before i heard the Mack speech. Its pure speculation on my part but i wouldn’t be surprised if he is was one of those players and with Goodwins return made it easy to put him in the doghouse for a while…

He could have been talking about DW as well.

Scip, what’s the story with Texas’ long term plans? And I’m not talking about LHN. What do you know about trying to mend fences with OU, future plans with ND, etc. Is anyone really that excited about the conference. We lost one of the most storied programs last year and lost a team that has good fan support and a large endowment.

Tucker’s non-rugby punting has been great and his kickoffs have always sucked.

Cheers to Brewster. I wish him the best and I hope his long term health issues clear up soon.

Re kicking, I really don’t understand why we can’t bring in someone with a huge leg. For now, though, ifTucker’s leg is off, they should limit him to FGs or even just rotate the back up in to give him a break.

Holy shit. I hadn’t watched any Mykkele T highlights. But he already looks better at running a zone-read offense than fucking Mexijesus up in Lincoln. Sheeeeeeit.

Holy S@%$ that kid is fast…never seen his QB highlights. Would be interested to see him run the wildcat formation. Harsin is producing much more than advertised if you ask me.

Couldn’t agree more…That kid is ridiculously quick. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be a better fit for zone read, simply because he ran it primarily in highschool. Kid has some serious talent.

I was only half paying attention to the Mykkele highlights, but I think it was 3:30 in before I saw a single pass. That could be reason for concern.

Sad to hear about Brewster, that has to be a very tough decision, but given the alternatives, he’s making the right decision. Good luck to him

It would seem that kick returns, kickoff depth, and kick coverage (to a somewhat lesser degree) are our major problems right now. QB depth is a concern, but we keep our fingers crossed there because we don’t want to screw up the timetable of development.

Overall, our problems are all manageable. It is surprising to hear rumblings of grumblings about playing time when things have been spread around so well thus far. Personality issues there, I would think, which need to be controlled by the individuals concerned. This team should have less to gripe about than any team in recent memory re: NO GUARANTEED JOBS. They should also realize the team is still in the tinkering stage where these coaches are still finding and testing all of the pieces. When criticality ensues, the best pieces will be on the field at the appropriate time.

I think we are due some luck. If Karma is a bitch, she’s over in Aggieland yucking it up.

I think Harsin is a team first guy, and anyone sulking about playing time obviously doesn’t fit that model. I don’t think DJs non playing during GDs time was just about learning the playbook. Might be a deeper issue he still has not resolved. Too bad because he is lightning. Unfortunately for him, we have 4 guys like that Harsin can use. Rewarding bad attitudes with playing time is never the right answer.

2011 Florida has a chance to be the 2008 Texas. Question mark at QB after a disappointing year. Overlooked and rated 4th or 5th in SEC. I would love to see them surprise some folks the next two weeks against Bama and LSU. I remember no one giving Texas a chance that year, and then they beat OU, Mizzou, and OSU who were all rated above us that year. I’ll be pulling for Coach Boom the next two weeks.

Bryant Jackson back to defense /safety?

Does Darius White have coverage and tackling skills? (only half kidding. The big guy is probably at a turning point in his career at Texas)

I could be way behind on this but I thought Chet Moss had permanently moved to fullback. Is he back logging practice snaps on defense?

Jaw-dropping stuff from Mykkele T. I wonder how well he can field punts.

I was thinking Mykkele would turn out to be #3. I had watched his tapes. I’d like to see how Harsin uses him at QB. I was a little surprised when Manny got him. The way we are spreading out playing time he could probably get a few plays in both ways. If he could get in a few plays at ISU it would give OU something else to worry about. It must really screw with a defensive players head to prepare for and play against UT.

Mykkele was my guess for surprise Wildcat operator from JS’s early camp posts on the subject. Glad to hear he is getting QB reps—just too talented not to see the field in one place or another. I would like to see him get some game reps as well, to develop depth and also just to f—- with future opponents’ DC’s.

All the best to Brewster. By everything I heard he was a good kid.

All I gotta say about Mykkele T is: yes please! Could you imagine the wildcat backfield with him, Jaxson and CJ or Bergeron. Seal the corner with the OL, let CJ get a LB and then you got the pitch option. Works for me.

Only problem is… Mykkele cannot be on the field at the same time as DJ. They’re both number #26. They’re gonna have to change his number to something on defense that’s not also being utilized by some consistent weapon on offense.

Is anyone else upset that John Harris is out for the rest of this season? His chance for playing time at Texas could be done before it even started. He now has to worry about losing his job to Miles O., Caleb J., and possibly DGB for next season. It’s a real shame…

Scipio, I too am excited that Habern is out for the RRS. I think Manny’s gotta be licking his chops thinking about the kinda blitz’s he can conjure. Are you worried about the ISU O-line and the fact that it’s going gorgeous at game time. Those guys are friggin huge, and it’s going to be around in the 50F’s at game time. Those hogs could be feelin frisky…

Whatever happened to DeSean Hales? Seems like he could help with kick returns and in spot duty on offense.

Will Russ is a funny name.

I suppose now that we’re down to 2 real QB’s, we won’t be seeing Ash punt anytime soon.

Was it Richmond McGee a few years back whose leg we wore out in a similar fashion? I remember Mack saying how much he disliked having one guy do all of the kicking and punting.

Giving Nick Jordan a schollie doesn’t bode well for Russ in the future. I suspect we’ll see either Jordan or Ben Pruitt next year.

We have a Mack Brown issue on special teams. Will it get fixed before it costs us dearly?

I watched 4 minutes of highlights and he still has not thrown the ball once. Can Thompson be more than a wildcat/zone read option QB in a pinch?

You must not have seen Russ punt in warmups. He is no better than you or I out there. He literally put the ball in the stands one time prior to the Rice game. He is not an option.

Mykkele looks like VY2 in those videos. Too bad we don’t play high schools. At least we’re doing some work and contingency planning around “what if our sometimes running quarterback gets a bizarre arm numbing stinger thing?”

That’s another thing, how do you have misses at kicker? They do the same shit they did in High School – nothing changes.

I have no idea how we missed on Russ. Kicker/punter should be the easiest position to scout for. He either can or cannot do it.

On the 24/7 boards I asked Gerry H. if Texas coaches actually saw him in person because it seems very strange that he would get a scholarship.

mileslong – Saw a report from someone that viewed the LHN that said Darius White was the one upset with playing time leading to Mack’s comments. Darius is losing PT due to his lack of blocking.

DJ was indecisive on bringing a kickoff out of the end zone against UCLA and was replaced.

Leg “wearing out” is bologna. Soccer may be boring to watch, but it is proof that one can kick a ball with great regularity and maintain leg power. Maybe we need to trawl on-campus futbol players for one who can boot our kickoffs for us.

torre-

Blocking and his repeated dropping of passes. He really has not contributed in any positive way yet. If there are others who can move on over Darius.

Thompson could make a great college QB. They showed several of his throws and he throws a nice ball. But, he’s got a wind-up delivery and is a little slight. Texas did a good job of landing him as a DB, where he could project in the NFL. He could give us some games at QB in a pinch and might turn some heads.

As long as we are just having general “Football Talk” here is some bad news for my fellow lurking Aggies: Jonathan Mathis and Steven Campbell are out for the season. Judie and Swope are likely out for Arkansas. Swpoe more likely to play than Judie. If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here killing myself.

Scip,

I think you should start writing about how Vaccaro is an average football player with limited NFL potential. Maybe if you repeat it enough people will start to believe it.

Perception is reality, right???

Could DeMarco Cobbs play safety? 6-2 215 sounds like ideal safety size to me.

I’m not sure that Cobbs’s 40 time is very conducive to safety, but what about Hicks in a pinch?

Darius was such a high-profile “get” for Texas that I really had high hopes for him. But it seems a WR who can’t or won’t block is a limited-purpose asset in the Rube-Goldberg Harsinwhite offense. Hopefully Mr. White can turn it around soon, or else Darius’ reign could be cut short long before he ever becomes known as Great.

i’ve wondered about what beowulf asked. could darius possibly make a good safety?

thinking, though, is that if he just doesn’t like contact, that’s not a good place for him, either. a football player who doesn’t like contact has very limited usefulness.

i had high hopes for darius, but if he doesn’t want to play all aspects of the game he really limits his future there. maybe dedicated punt or kick returner? would he have a career in the league at that? i’m hopeful something works out for him.

Nuge: Guys who can play safety in today’s game at that size are really rare, hence Vaccaro’s likely drafting this summer. You need to be able to cover a Wes Welker in addition to providing support and tackling these days. Big physical safeties in today’s game are closer to the 6’ 205 range, like Michael Griffin or Huff.
Cobbs is actually playing kind of a hybrid position though, part outside blitzer, part slot corner/safety, part linebacker.

If DW doesn’t like blocking, I can’t see how he’d be physical enough to play S. But then again I thought the same about Melton.

Will Russ has a pretty impressive offer list and was committed to Arkansas. Regarding the comment about them doing the same thing in high school, high school kickers get to kick field goals off of a tee. That is the biggest learning curve from HS to college.

The dude cannot punt the ball more than 25 yards without it going 90 degrees to the right or left.

That should have nothing to do with using or not using a tee.

Russ was offered as PK, though not a P, wasn’t he? I may be mistaken. Still, we ought to be able to get someone that can kick the ball into the end zone on kickoffs.

After that bye week on the schedule, I’m jonesing for the next game more than usual. In the meantime, I’ve went over the entire “Understanding UCLA” post a couple of times for a fix.

Best of luck to Nolan. May his future be bright.

In total agreement regarding Adrian Phillips’ future, and the current state of the special teams.
I’ve tried to convince myself Mack doesn’t want a kicker that can routinely kick out of the end zone, but it has proven difficult. I have no idea how these issues persist on special teams. If everyone on staff is incapable of addressing it, perhaps they should pick GAs with a ST background. Lord knows they could use all the help they can get in this department. I’ll keep hoping for the best.

Bring on the Cyclone tanks!
http://barkingcarnival.fantake.com/2010/10/20/a-message-from-jamie-pollard/

Kicker who wore out his leg a few years ago was Greg Johnson (2006). Mack said several times that fall he was concerned about one player having handle all three phases of kicking, how they were diffferent, how it called for so much practice time. And, GJ got hurt, which led to the emergency kicker beating Nebraska in the snow in Lincoln, and Hunter Lawrence losing his redshirt season to become the KO man. (Something about failing to learn from history could be inserted here. But I won’t.)

John Harris will always have a role in the Harsin offense. He’s much more than a blocker, but he can always get PT just in that role.

Mykkele Thompson was eyed as a DB before he ever committed to us. He apparently welcomed the switch from QB, and he needed the defensive work this year with Gideon, Scott and now Brewster (and maybe Vaccaro) being gone a year from now.

Thanks for the update Scip. Any word on special teams in general? It appears that the focus has been so heavy on O & D due to the youth of the team that we might not have enough hours in the day to do more than just maintain the status quo on special teams. Hopefully the off week has helped.

Scipio … Ikard played center during most of spring practice, so it shouldn’t be that difficult of a transition. That four-week time frame would mean he’s healthy enough to slide over to guard, too. He won’t be snapping the ball anytime soon.

Never happy to see an injury, but this is football and it happens… if it results in a tactical advantage, you take it. Landry Jones, meet Desmond Jackson.

Sorry to see Brewster go, but curious how this and Gilbert’s situation affect recruiting numbers for the next year or two. We need to find some safeties ASAP.

Also waiting patiently and gratefully for Mondays with Big Spliff…

Thanks, ponderos. Ikard should be OK then and Ball State will be a good practice session.
 
Some scatter shots:
 
Darius White lost playing time for not blocking and for going 0 for 3 on catchable balls against BYU. He should check the incoming recruiting class and figure out what he wants to do about it attitude wise.
 
John Harris is a loss because he’s physical and is a really reliable player. Not to mention it’s fun when Harsin has 3-4 players on the field at a time who can throw a TD pass.
 
The thought was that Russ could handle kickoffs, not punting.
 
The staff spends time on special teams. We’re just bad at them. I haven’t spent the time to analyze our kick returns, but it’s pretty clear we’re not cohesive. I’m not sure if it’s scheme execution or we need to try new guys. I’ll try to break this down against the Cyclones.
 
Mykkele can throw acceptably if you have an open wide receiver on a simple route, but it’s pretty clear we’re a running team if he has to play. As we can all see, he’s a pretty gifted athlete.
 
DeSean Hales has a specific niche and there are better players who can fill that role. Shipley, Monroe, Goodwin, Davis. He’ll get a chance at some PT in Ames. We’ll see what he does with it.
 
Cobbs can’t play safety to suit the requirements of what we want from the position. Once Mykkele Thompson gains 10-15 pounds, he’s our man at FS. Then we’ll start four guys in the secondary who have serious ball skills – which is a pretty nice advantage if you can recall Texas secondaries of the past where balls ricochet off of brick hands with some frequency. We’ll lose a lot of the physicality Vaccaro brought though.
 
Chet Moss is a utility man. He’ll play where needed. For now, I think that’s back at LB.

Kicking the ball. How does it work?

Just read that we have 2 sacks this year and rank 112 in that category. I get the sacks don’t matter since the opposition plans to eliminate them argument, but that fails to explain why the other 112 teams have more when they play opposition also wanting to eliminate sacks. Bottom line is when taking into account our poor competion and schedule we should have more. Its not like when we start conference things get easier. Pressure numbers are down and that’s concerning. It doesn’t have to be 2010 for this not to be addressed.

About kick off coverage I made some observations during the BYU game since I was in attendance. On average, when BYU kicked-off the line of coverage was at the 25-20 yd line when the Texas returner caught the ball. On average, when Texas kicked-off the line of coverage was around the 30 yd line when the BYU returner caught the ball. That extra 5 yards and time allows the returner to gain speed, find the crease, and make cuts. It seemed very helpful because I think BYU’s average field position after kick-offs was at least 5 yds better than Texas, probably more like 10 yds.

The position of the line of coverage when the returner catches the kick has several determining factors. 1) hang time, 2) speed of coverage, 3) return blocking success/gap discipline.

I have no real data but I don’t think 2) was the problem. If coverage speed is part of the problem then the fix should be simple. If players aren’t giving effort they need to find someone who can make special teams their role a la Beau Trahan or Ungar. Hang time should also be fixable. There are several kickers on the team there has to be one that can boot it. If not, find a walk-on! I think issues 3) could be the most problematic because that means our coverage doesn’t know how run by a blocker or fight off a block properly or trying to do one of those things runs away from his lane responsibility. We need to find people who want to cover kicks. That’s a lot of it.

but that fails to explain why the other 112 teams have more when they play opposition also wanting to eliminate sacks

That would be more valid if our sample size wasn’t so small…if they’re still at 112 by season’s end there’d be a problem, for now, sacks are a bit like gossamer in the sea of pass rush.

Lots of quick drops and opposing QBs getting rid of the ball quickly. And INT’s, which we prefer over sacks.

what if we had 18 sacks and were 0-3? Would sacks matter

The lack of sacks will show whether it’s a problem or not when we start playing teams where the QB holds on to the ball for more than 2.5 seconds.
 
Jantz should give us some ops.

In addition to the kick coverage and return mess we have on our hands, I for one can’t wait for Mack’s first call for a totally obvious fake punt on 4th and 4 from our 41, or the equally predictable fake FG on 4th and 3 from the other team’s 35. Either or even both should be pulling into the station this weekend for no reason other than to do it, right on time to absolutely no one’s surprise.

There may not be a book on scouting Harsin or Diaz at this point, but Mack still has his fingers in a third of a the pie, and that has to make a lot of coaches not wearing burnt orange smile.

I’m suspecting they move Moss back to fullback before too long. We lose both Berryhill and Cody at the end of the year. While moving Bergeron to FB next year may be the plan, in our scheme the backup FB can get up to 20 snaps a game and I’m not sure if we want to hand those to Ryan Roberson on a platter. I could be wrong if Roberson doesn’t need the competition, or if Moss looks like a keeper at MLB. But looking at the roster and next year’s frosh I don’t really see another fullback in there. DLT, maybe? Dom Jones? That’s the best I got.

Monahorns, noticed the exact same thing. Hustling as opposed to preventing long returned paid off for BYU. It almost gave up one long return (but didn’t). I don’t think the UT coverage teams were dogging it.

Casual -
 
During Mack’s time here, our fake punts have been consistently successful. That’s an odd gripe.

As far as random trivia goes, the 2006 kicker at the Nebraska game was Ryan Bailey (walk-on that year). Even more random trivia, dude is a hell of a softball player and is crazy fast.

Is Mykkele a giant or did he play in some special midget league high school classification?

Special Teams= The short bus?

Dagga: I’m not sure on Berryhill. He’s listed as a senior on MB-TF roster, but he’s a fourth-year player. If you click on his name on the roster, and read his bio, they list him as a junior and specifically mention that 2008 was a redshirt season.

The staff may be planning for him to return, and maybe go on (well deserved) scholly in 2012.

Berryhill will be back in ’12.

Beat me to it, Scip. And Bergeron may very well be destined for FB for the reason you stated, i.e., Harsin wanting one who can take some snaps and Joe fills that bill with pass catching ability too. Then there’s the /Malcolm Brown/Johnathan Gray thing…

I look for a fired up Texas team to take the field in Ames. As someone else said, it’s one of the two benefits from 5-7 with a home loss to the Cyclones.

With an opening qualifier that I am extremely fond of Coach Boom, I think Florida can win the SEC East. Brantley isn’t the same guy under Weiss and he has substantial talent around him and a very talented defense behind him, too. SC is a talented team but something about them screams mentally weak to me. Their coach, who I also like, is football schizophrenic and so is his team. Thay have a QB whose track record in the clutch is pretty shaky and Spurrier isn’t exactly fond of him. Even though they went to the CCG last year, they lost 3 conference games and got there mostly because Florida had a down year. Granted, they have a much easier schedule than the Gators, but they also have a propensity to lose 2 or 3 of “wtf?” games every year.

mack’s site still shows the ucla game depth chart. if someone has the d-chart for the iowa state game, i wish he or she would post it. even though it is a formality and not that meanigful, i’d like to know what we’re putting out.

Berryhill was awarded a scholarship this year and will be back next season.

In 2009, Goodwin and Monroe both returned two kicks for TDs each and were generally fantastic kick returners as freshman. We haven’t done shit in the last 15 games and nothing has changed really.

I think they did update the depth chart, they just forgot to change UCLA to Iowa St. Christian Scott is on there, and Brewster is off… Marquise is off KO return duties… thought curiously Gilbert is still listed as 3rd string QB.

Yes, it’s the ISU depth chart, but mislabeled.

Ive been watching Thompson for 2 years now. We might see him in the Iowa St game just to give Oklahoma one more problem to game plan for. I could see the Oklahoma DB’s over playing his running ability and a receiver wide open behind them. Amazing how many possible game changers arrived with this freshman class.

The PDF is certainly updated (says Iowa State and Gilbert is not on it).

good catch. love the phonetic spelling for Miles O’s last name… “(on-yay-boo-lay)”

also that’s good news on Berryhill, didn’t realize he would be coming back. Although they do list him as a senior on that PDF with no redshirt indication.

oh. thanks miles and scip.

oh, and thanks, huck, too. just realized what you were talking about.

Scip…the design is actually quite good. It’s the increasingly predictable timing of both fakes, and seeing how teams are now looking for it that has me worried. Mack has always seemed to be slow to catch on that others have caught on.

rivals is reporting Neinas says there are no longer any objections to other Texas schools joining the Big 12.

Not that I believe something as trivial as a broken arm will keep OUs center from snapping the ball, but hypothetically that could be an issue. Even if he snapped during the spring the rrs is a totally diffedrent animal. My main concern would be problems with cadence although manny may be able to confuse the line calls too.

Dallas’ center who I prsume also had snapped the ball before looked worse than any center I have ever seen on MNF.

I don’t believe it will have a huge effect on the game, but if it does go bad it could go bad fast

Not to be a pessimist, but the sacks are somewhat worrisome. Perhaps more worrisome than a random stat is the lack of domination from the d-line. I would love to see more penetration from the DL. Manny loves to mix it up and bring all kinds of people, but a dominant DL is a DC best friend. Jeffcoat in particular has disappointed so far. He has seemed disinterested at times. Hopefully, you all save this message and mock me in 2 weeks

I think it was about the 3:36 mark of the Thompson video where I noticed the first play that was not Thompson taking for a touchdown. I think the first play that wasn’t any kind of touchdown was at about the 5min. mark. You just have to wonder if he would be able to command any kind of honesty from the defense if he were taking the snap. It sure would be fun to see him go at it.

Georgia Tech anyone?

In response to the question about Thompson playing in a district of midgets while that might have been meant to be a joke you have no idea how close to true that statement is about the district. Drop a great athlete in most likely the second worst 5A district in the state and you have what you see on film. The worst 5A district in the state was the district they faced the first round of the play-offs. Unless you have seen it live it is quite hard to grasp just how it is possible in the state of Texas for 5A football to be that void of athletes.

There is however so video that shows the kids toughness and ability and that is in Stephens play-off loss to Pearland. He had a great first half before being shut down in the second and unless he has improved dramatically throwing the ball he is not much of a threat at the college level.

In regards to the comments about Ga. Tech remember that the offense works because they are fully committed to it. The triple option is like marriage, not going to work unless you are sticking with in through thick and thin, work at it each day, and you do need the right pieces.

It is not an offense you dabble in.