A Matter of Perspective
If you’ve ever tried to follow a college sport on the internet, chances are you’ve seen, joined in, or started a debate on how well your team “should” do. If you’ve ever tried to follow a Texas sport on the internet, chances are you’ve already etched “Brooks was here” on a support beam and ended it already.
This is because any major program’s message boards have the same protocol: Why aren’t we better? vs. shut the fuck up you God damn whiner. The rest is filled with pictures of Erin Andrews.
Rooting for a team in college is a matter of perspective. If Texas had gone 10-3 12 years ago, and ended their season with a shellacking of a nationally ranked program, we’d have held a parade at Waterloo Park. Now it merely earns groans of jealousy as we watch WVU beat the snot out of OU like everybody seems to be able to do so easily now.
Winning begat expectation, so sayeth our Lord Mack Brown.
starters vs depth
What is Texas’ biggest concern, personnel-wise? Defensive tackle, you’d say. You wouldn’t be wrong. The general narrative is that we are extremely thin there, worryingly so. You’d be wrong.
If you swapped our guys with Missouri, or Tech, or OSU, or Nebraska, we’d all be worrying about Roy Miller or that young upstart Lamarr Houston, and wondering how we were going to stop anybody with our cast of no names.
Note that nobody is going to argue that we will not be great if Roy Miller gets hurt, or next year when he graduates. But if you don’t have bodies at DT, then you tell them to get low and let somebody else make plays. It’s not ideal, but as long as you have playmakers somewhere then you’ll be OK.
Two things contribute to this. One, Mack Brown has pretty much set the standard on the recruiting trail for the last decade. More than that, though, he’s always had some weird fascination with being 8 deep everywhere. He’s talked about it ever since he’s step foot on campus, the consequence being that we all wring our hands whenever we don’t have a 4th stringer capable of stepping in and playing at a high level.
It’s silly to worry about stopping one or two guys on other teams while we worry about not having 15 great players. Why do people worry about Tech? Crabtree. A&M? Goodson. OSU? Barry Sanders, presumably.
Darkhorse teams are expected to only have a few good players here and there before they get the media thumbs up. Texas is supposed to have depth.
Second, Texas fans are just used to kids not developing. The ones that come in a superstar are good, everybody else, not so much. This has changed lately, but the last two years of mediocre talent gracing the grass of DKR has understandably set back any progress we had made mentally as a fanbase. I contend this is just a product of bad players, as evidenced by the continued growth of players like Deon Beasley, Robert Muckelroy, and even Sergio Kindle, while the usual suspects stagnated.
It’s not unreasonable to think Michael Wilcoxin or Christian Scott will become useful players, but it’s not what we’re conditioned to think. You can go to any sports bar in Austin and listen to grown men bite their nails to the bone about the lousy depth on defense, or lack of playmakers on offense, and ever the pompous windbag contrarian, even I cannot argue.
Mack might have the best DC of his career, but nobody on this team has earned the benefit of the doubt. Mac McWhorter is the best collegiate OL coach in the country and even he put out mediocre units the last couple years. Everybody deserves the skepticism.
coaching hires
Art Briles is a good coach. So is Mike Sherman. Neither will be successful.
Guy Morriss and Dennis Franchione were also good coaches. The fact that Fran “squeezed” 9 wins out of what essentially amounted to a Fresno State level roster was nothing short of COY material. He got fired for all the right reasons, of course, the point is only that A&M doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are other good coaches in the conference, with a few great ones, who will dilute your efforts to win. If you want to be great in a power conference, you either have to have an exceptional coach, cheat, or have your competition wither under suddenly higher academic standards or the refusal to fire Greg Davis.
Mike Sherman was a head coach in the NFL, and unless you’re Rich Kotite, that earns you a lifetime membership into the You Can’t Say I Suck club. He won’t suck. He just isn’t exceptional. No kid in inner city Houston is going to get excited about playing for him.
Art Briles is an upgrade from Morriss, I think, but he will likely never have the defense that Bill Bradley brought, oh and also he is at Baylor.
The Big 12 hasn’t been the same since KSU and NU both fell to earth with a thud, but it’s not the WAC. You can’t win by just by not sucking. You have to be better than 5-6 good teams, and I can’t see that happening any place with a new coach. There are only so many Stoopses/Manginos out there.
July 15, 2008 at 7:14 pm
If you’re a Texas fan, chances are you’ve accidentally clicked on yet another thread with the “we’re outrecruiting aggy once again” fantasy boys vs the “but we’ve lost to them the last two years on the field, y’know, where it actually counts” realists.
Not that I have a dog in that fight. As Michael Vick would say.
July 15, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’m pretty sure we would win more if Mad Dog just ate Greg Davis. You know he wants to.
July 16, 2008 at 3:58 am
We’re Texas, damnit. This article is aggy. Screw this article.
July 16, 2008 at 6:18 am
I am in the 2009 National Championship mindset. Nevermind that about 4 or 5 teams have similar young talent that should put them in that position, I am a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist. Neither of those mindsets are supported with facts. Just interweb smarts.
July 16, 2008 at 7:27 am
I’m new to this site, so I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn… but what was the purpose of this article? Breaking the news that Texas fans now have higher expectations? Do the Barkers have a monthly quota to make?
Yours truly.
Blackie Sherrod
July 16, 2008 at 7:31 am
Sailor Ripley pays us by the word, and ChrisApplewhite just made himself an extra 200 Thai satang.
July 16, 2008 at 7:59 am
Hey CA, was the dog sitting in your lap again?
July 16, 2008 at 8:48 am
“I’m pretty sure we would win more if Mad Dog just ate Greg Davis. You know he wants to.”
I’m not sure Mad Dog swings that way.
July 16, 2008 at 8:56 am
I find it hard to believe that Stoops and Mangino should be compared in the same sentence.
July 16, 2008 at 9:10 am
jc is right. Mangino actually wins BCS games.
July 16, 2008 at 11:11 am
bartoncreek:
BCS games? Plural? That’s news.
July 16, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Mangino is as big a reason OU has a championship in modern times as anyone else.
In fact, he’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve ever seen.
“Breaking the news that Texas fans now have higher expectations?”
No. It may not have turned out this way but it started out as a comment on CFN picking Tech to win the conference, and Phil Steele picking them second. Guess I should’ve been more clear on the overall direction.
You think CFN is worried about their DT depth? No. They focus on positives of the darkhorses, while ignoring crucial things like the an awful defense. I don’t understand it.
Not saying they are wrong or anything, but one Michael Crabtree goes a long way, seemingly.
July 16, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I have been thinking about the implications of being undersized at DT. In a goal line situation (when I played nose tackle), I was taught to get lower than the offensive players (even if that means brushing up against the ground), drive forward, and grab legs. I’m pretty sure the grabbing legs part was illegal (but hard to detect in all the confusion in the middle on the goal line).
It seems to me that getting lower than the OT will enable you to neutralize him, even if he out weighs you by a bunch. the question is how to identify a running play fast enough (to go low and avoid getting obliterated by the OT)while still retaining the possibility of rushing the passer on pass plays. With really fast DTs, UT should be able to rush the passer and pursue much from the DT position much better than in years past. This is more important in the Big 12 than being massive against the run (except against OU and A&M, of course. Sigh).
My perspective has changed in recent years on the importance of coaching in college football. I used to think that coaching was over rated but now think that it is super critical and that the best way to improve your program (legally) is to buy the best coaching you can get.
Mack really screwed up last year by putting Akina in charge of the D. It not only hurt the D but also hurt the special teams (which had been pretty good in recent years when akina was in charge) because, with the promotion to D coordinator, Aina was no longer in charge of the special teams.
This mistake by Mack was the result of hubris and cronyism. Mack’s specialty in coaching is on the offensive side. He has no experience or expertise on the D side. He should always hire the best D coordinator he can buy. The Muschamp hire rectified that mistake and I expect an ass kicking horn D this year. Special teams are also going to be much better with the return of Akina to heading special teams.
On O, I realize that you think that GD is not too swift but we really don’t know how much input Mack has on the O (i.e. a lot of the problems on the O side may result from input by Mack). I think the O should be a little better in 2008 than in 2007 because Colt can’t possibly thow as many interceptions and fumble as much this season as he did last season, because the O line should be more competent, and the game planning should improve significantly with the addition of Major to the brain trust (and the time consuming grind of film study to identify exploitable weaknesses in next week’s opponent).
My hope (not necessarily an expectation) is that GD or Major will study what Mike Leach, Urban Meyer , Rich Rodriguez and the Mizzou and KU OCs did last season and incorporate some of this good stuff into the horn offense.
Rather than going with 3 tradional WOs, I would prefer to play one traditional WO at WO, put a big fast guy (such as Malcom Williams) who can block and go over the middle and win 50-50 balls as a second WO, and put an explosive TB type (such as Fozzy) as the 3rd WO. If the horns can pair up on one side a big WO who can really block with an exploive TB type as the other WO on the same side, it make it much easier to run productive screens.
Another advantage of putting an explosive RB type guy at WO is that it makes the running game much more versatile and less predictable. Urban Meyer has done a great job of this at Florida.
I also hope to see Chiles lined up at flanker quite a bit and getting the ball via reverses where he can either throw or run. I realize that he has not demonstrated that he throws very well but there must be some distance where he is effective (10 yard passes, for example).
I hope to see Colt throwing more short, quick passes and rolling out more to throw. Both approaches will reduce stress on the O line.
The horns O needs to help out the more than it did last year in terms of just hanging onto the ball and permitting the D to rest and giving it good field position when it gets on the field. Too often last year, the horns’ O was chaotic, with Colt running around in a random fashion until somebody got open (or he threw into double coverage).
July 16, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Sombody sign up Kafka as a barker! Nice post!
Yeah, regarding the Tech defense…DCTF tells me that they sacked the QB eight times in the spring game, so they must be good!
July 16, 2008 at 3:48 pm
‘You have to be better than 5-6 good teams, and I can’t see that happening any place with a new coach. There are only so many Stoopses/Manginos out there.’
Pelini is one to look out for. More disciplined than Stoops, and with lower LDL than Mangino.
July 16, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Now that I think about it I wish I had thought about the Mangino vs. Stoops thing.
It’s too late now but I do think that Mangino is far and away the best head coach in the conference.
“Pelini is one to look out for. More disciplined than Stoops, and with lower LDL than Mangino.”
I would agree if they hired him instead of Callahan. It’s going to be a lot tougher to resurrect that program now. It’s still NU, though.
July 16, 2008 at 6:35 pm
“It’s too late now but I do think that Mangino is far and away the best head coach in the conference.”
Tell you what, Chris. Let’s revisit this discussion AFTER KU plays their first tough Big 12 schedule with the Orange Bowl champion tag on their backs. Anything better than 8-4, and I might be willing to agree with you. But I see KU losing to Tech, UT, OU, and South Florida at a bare minimum.
July 16, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Good post. I’ve just been thinking lately about how many other schools would love to have our “problems.”
I could not agree more. I will probably get bashed for this, but I do think Colt is a bit under-rated. No, he didn’t make the best decisions last year, but most of that can be traced back to not having enough time to even get the snap, much less try to decide where to throw it. I do think he let it get in his head as well, which led to hurried decisions when there shouldn’t have been, but cut the kid some slack. Not only is he following VY, but that was only his second year as a starter (and his first year was behind a ridiculously stellar o-line).
Agreed. I think the one game that gives me hope about this year’s offense was the Tech game last year. I remember being very impressed with how the offense kept an incredibly slow but steady pace while on the field. I realize this year’s game is at Tech, but I am speaking of the broader implications of that game. The offense was so discombobulated last year in almost every other game. The Tech game showed that they could be “on” for an entire game and control the tempo and clock like they wanted.
And I agree with Nate on KU. They may go better than 8-4, but last year both KU and Mizzou caught people off guard. This year they won’t. It should be a good indicator of where each is as a program, IMO.
July 16, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Mangino just got a raise this week. He is now third on the list of Big 12 coaches in terms of salary.
Coach School Salary
1. Bob Stoops Oklahoma $3.8M
2. Mack Brown Texas $2.75M
3. Mark Mangino Kansas $2.3M
4. Gary Pinkel Missouri $1.85M
5. Mike Sherman Texas A&M $1.8M
5. Art Briles Baylor $1.8M
7. Mike Leach Texas Tech $1.66M
8. Bo Pelini Nebraska $1.1M
9. Mike Gundy OSU $1.05M
10. Gene Chizik Iowa State $1.03M
11. Dan Hawkins Colorado $936K
12. Ron Prince K-State $755K
July 16, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Mack’s more than a bill behind Stoopsie? I thought that was rendered unpossible by his contract.
July 17, 2008 at 12:35 am
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s gosh darned Kansas we’re talking about.
July 17, 2008 at 11:48 am
“Doesn’t change the fact that it’s gosh darned Kansas we’re talking about.”
Conceded. But Mangino’s record at KU is 38-37. Mike Gundy’s record at OSU is 18-19. KU faced the 6th easiest schedule of any BCS conference team on their way to their magical season. While Mangino is on the short list, he’s not the “far and away” best that you claim. Not even close.
That “best coach” title stays between Stoops and/or Brown until Mangino wins a conference title. Why? Because for those who say “it’s easy to win all the time at OU or UT”, tell that to John Mackovic or John Blake.
July 18, 2008 at 9:07 am
Sasha_Is_A_Longhorn_Dog:
Thanks for the nice words. I wasn’t really clear in my writing about Colt. I totally agree with you that the O line woes got into Colt’s head and impacted O production. Having said that, Colt is responsible for the interceptions that he threw and his fumbles. He has to know when to throw the ball out of bounds and when to go down. When running, he needs to keep two hands on the ball. He has to stop treating tipped balls as an act of God.
Colt, GD, and Mack all share blame for not taking a different approach when it became obvious that the O line was not giving Colt enough time to run the time consuming routes that Mack/GD/Colt favor. The horns should have had Colt roll out more. This would have made it much tougher on the D to blitz Colt and much easier for the O line to get good blocking angles. A lot more reverses would have kept the D more honest. Throwing the ball immediately makes it impossible for the D to get to the QB in time. Colt often passed up the open short man to throw longer, riskier passes.
Colt will throw fewer picks in 2008 and better decision making by Colt will be the big reason why.
I am curious to see how strong Colt’s arm is this season. My hope all along has been that as he filled out, his arm strength would improve a lot.
July 21, 2008 at 12:36 pm
CA–your assessment that it depends on perspective probably is accurate, IMO. We (or the pundits) may well tend to look solely at the pluses of the darkhorses while the big-timers like us get micro-analyzed beyond objectivity.
July 22, 2008 at 12:22 am
I may be in the extreme minority, but I’m not impressed with Bo Pellini.
I seem to remember Nebraska getting spanked in Austin and against Kansas State in 2003, his only year at Nebraska. Those two games preceded Steve Pederson’s infamous “I will not let Nebraska sink into mediocrity” speech.
Kentucky and Arkansas didn’t seem to impressed with him last season, either, despite both teams fielding inferior talent to LSU.
I think they’re gonna be running the spread in Lincoln this year, so we’ll see how they do.
July 24, 2008 at 11:31 am
You lost me at “A&M doesn’t exist in a vacuum.”