Texas-Iowa State Post Mortem: Defense/Special Teams

I love Mannyball. This unit is tenacious and aggressive. Always around the ball and hitting someone. The strategies have been sound.
We find out what we really have in Dallas.

Oh, and special teams.
Is a puzzlement.

Another excellent report. This seems to be a year of learning, for me and the team. I guess the question is whether the team has learned enough for this weekend. The comforting thing is that this is the first time I’ve felt like our staff is smarter than the other guys — all the other guys — so the best instruction is theirs.

On the bright side re:run defense, OU’s running games is pretty unintimidating. Their inside zone looked weak before Habern went down. Outside zone has been much better but now you are racing our guys to the alley rather than cutting back into creases downhill. Much worse prognosis.

This should raise a little hope for the OU game, and support what Scipio is saying above

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/stats/2011/divia/team/passing_efficiency_defense_byRATING.html

Yet, at a certain level, yards are yards are yards.

All this logic is wearisome, and leads to modernism.

Eloquent exposition of our defense vs. A&M;’s. aggy’s produces some sacks, TFL’s, and opportunities to chest bump and fire up the crowd—and, oh yes, consecutive embarassing losses giving up school record passing yardage. So much for DeRuyter as the hot DC—what is he thinking?

Yards per pass attempt was a telling stat in Ames. ISU got 251 from 51 attempts and a weak, 2010 Texas-like 5 ypa. Texas got 255 from 25. Those are winning numbers for us.

Agree with jerryw: we are out-coaching opponents on both sides of the ball. Amazing that a section of our fan-base doesn’t get it.

Going forward, we will give up some match-ups, certainly where experience is concerned. It will be fascinating to see how Harsin and Diaz deal with that. So far, it is very clear that the right hires were made.

WRT to kick returns I would love to see a LonghornScott style of analysis as to what’s causing our poor performance. Is it poor blocking? Are our kick returners missing holes and making poor cuts? Have we faced unusually strong-legged kickers?

WRT to kickoffs, as Scip suggests, we need to start using gimmicky tactics such as squibs, pooches and onside kicks to hide Tucker’s weak leg. I think an early onside kick has a particularly strong positive expectation for this year’s TX team as it offers the chance of recovering the ball but it also forces the OU blockers to stay home longer on subsequent kickoffs. It becomes an especially enticing option when you add in the fact that we’re only risking about 30 yards of field position in exchange.

Agree with Rover above. OU’s run game is suspect at best and they know it. The key, obviously, is not to let Broyles and Stills incinerate you. Will Stills be at 100%? It was nice LY when Aaron Williams completely took Broyles out of the game, but I also think that, maybe, our DBs as a unit are overall better. Not more talented, but better.

Meanwhile, the Machete just wants to decapitate something. He pours cordite on his frosted flakes in the morning. Call me crazy but I like our chances this weekend, especially if we win the turnover battle.

I happen to see Jeffcoat on campus every so often and he looks just as bad walking as he does playing. You know how the grandpa on King of the Hill walked? That’s how he walks. He looks like he can’t bend his knees.

“All this logic is wearisome, and leads to modernism.”

For godsakes, Parlin, not first thing on Monday morning when the abs are not ready. At least I didn’t have a mouthful of milk and cornflakes.

I was very pleased with the Defense. Wish the 3rd teamers could have avoided the cheap penalties and kept the shutout, but oh well.

Kickoffs are as you say bad. Bad, bad, bad. Paging Beau Trahan?

Insightful analysis. I’ll admit I was one of the ones lamenting our lack of run stoppage in the first half and wondering where the hell Steve Edmond was.

Still, we have an obvious concern if teams can complement power running with a credible passing game. OU, OSU and A&M; immediately come to mind. Beyond that, I’m most intrigued to see how Diaz defends the Bear Jesus (e.g., RG3) show.

Those pooches by Tucker were horrendous. I’m not even sure if he was actively trying to pooch, or if he just couldn’t even kick it to the 5 anymore. I have absolutely no idea how Russ and/or Pruitt haven’t gotten the leg strength to boom it deep; can’t they get there if that’s all we’re asking them to do? Or have them work on legitimate pooches, and, if all else fails, squib kicks. We’re spotting teams 15 yards of field position for no good reason whatsoever. Jiminy.

At this point I would like to see Ash punt. I know its probably not a good idea since a roughing the punter play could take him out of the game with injury but that punting game or lack thereof is hard to watch

Also note on the Texas adjusted stats page that we are #1 in adjusted 3rd Down Conversion Percentage Allowed.

Hopefully that gets tested a lot this weekend by virtue of getting the Sooners to 3rd down and we hold up.

At this point I think Tucker’s on kickoffs because of his athleticism and tackling ability

First time I’ve seen Edmonds in extended play. Very, very good, but it’s going to take extreme discipline, diet, and innovative workout regimes to keep him under 260. And some luck. He’s the kind of kid that if you let him follow a simple protein shake and olympic lift routine, he’ll just keep gaining weight. Wylie is going to have to design something special as he develops if they want to keep him a LB.

He looks like he could carry another 15-25 lbs. easy, which would make him a tweener on the interior. It may be worth it to have a look at him on the DL during the Kansas game, and see if it’s worth going Marcus Tubbs and shoot for putting on 30+lbs.

Give Ash a run, pass or punt option inside the 50.

I thought our young corners went down quickly and consistently in run support, but otherwise am as excited as you about their performance. An Akina-coached secondary actually getting it in zone… and at a young age to boot.

“A fantastic punt block by Mykkele Thompson”

He likes to be called ‘Y2K’, imo.

Good point Bateshorn, as extremely compelling as it might be to have an honest-to-God 250 pound throwback Mike, having a 300 pound Defensive tackle who moves like a linebacker has some benefits. See Nebraska defenses of 2008-2009, Lions defenses of 2010-2011.

The latter is far more valuable anyways, this year is demonstrating that playing OLB’s inside is just fine in this league. Hell, Diaz played an OLB at Mike in the SEC and was fine.

All I see when I watch Edmonds is Levon Kirkland, 6-1, 275-ish ilb for the Steelers. A rare run stuffing-monster.

I was happy to learn Steele Jantz’s fathers name was Foxx and had a brother named Stig.

As far as the game, one thing I liked Diaz doing was constantly bringing pressure from Jantz’s right. He was forced to throw into tight coverage while moving to his left and he just could not do it. Diaz might have seen that on film.

I hope that Wylie’s conditioning holds up this weekend. There is a chance our offense takes a little while to get moving, and OU will be happy to speed things up.

Vulva Bingo is actually a pretty good descriptor of my dating tactics in college.

Great thoughts and probably spot on with how Diaz would have described his game strategy.

While the college and pro games vary in a number of substantial ways, there’s been a convergence towards spread-style short/intermediate passing dominating both levels. While I was raised on an old-school, run-the-damn-ball, ‘The Cowboys are 73-0 when Emmitt gets 20 carries’ mindset, I think I’ve been pretty completely converted to the Football Outsiders weltanschauung – you win because of your passing, and you run because you’re winning. Offenses like Texas’ that beat you first with run diversity and play action are becoming more anomalous – the first thing I’d want to see on any DC’s resume is a demonstrated ability to shut down and disrupt the passing game between 0 and 15 yards from the LOS. It’s not like we’ve been facing the Air Raid during this first month of the season, but thusfar we’ve accomplished that in SPADES and the work rate we’re getting out of this young secondary is tremendous.

Unless you’re facing a superback that can punish you by taking the ball 50 yards to the house on a decently blocked run, giving up some creases in the run game is a fine area for the defense to compromise on. There’s a visceral desire not to get ‘pushed around’ by the other guys that’s endemic to football and all of its testosterone-laden mythology, but if you’re kicking ass on other more vital dimensions it don’t really make a fuck.

With all that said, I do have a hankering to watch Steve Edmond get in there and wreck shit when those pussies think they can run on us.

Re: Edmonds I say we just let him get as powerful as is natural and then deploy him according to what he can do rather than fighting nature to in order to fit him into a pre-defined role.

Maybe he can stay at Mike though, not saying that wouldn’t would be awesome. He and Whaley seem to be a rare talents such as we haven’t seen since Kindle or Houston. Big guys who can move.

“Vulva Bingo Riot, comes out this February. It’s a re-imagining of the Mandrell Sisters”

What is the name of your lawyer so I can submit it to my lawyer for the lawsuit.

I tore two ribs, re-aggravated an old ACL and spilled diet Dr. Pepper on my wifes new couch.
Damages must be paid by you!

“With all that said, I do have a hankering to watch Steve Edmond get in there and wreck shit when those pussies think they can run on us.”

I PRAY you are the real Tommy Nobis – this is what I would have expected him to say AND do.

 Well played.

Speaking of Whaley, did you seem him basically running stride for stride with the ISU RB in the first half? Huge human to be moving that fast.

Vacarro had a couple of pretty bad missed tackles in the first half that are worth mentioning.

When OU found themselves short a kicker a few years back, didn’t they hold open campus auditions? And IIRC, didn’t that actually work pretty well for them? If Tucker can’t kick the ball past the 15 on kickoffs and Russ and Pruitt can’t take that job away from him, maybe Mack should simply declare the kickoff job open to the student body. On a campus of 50,000, surely someone can boot it more than 50 yards in the air.

Was anyone else annoyed with all of the crappy cut blocks that ISU’s recievers were making on our DBs? It was getting ridiculous! They weren’t even trying to block them, straight-up. Reynolds was really breaking the mold for the rest of t WRs with his holding penalties. I’m surprised our corners didn’t leave the game with some form of knee injury.

Just walk over to the club soccer team’s practice, one or more of the defenders or keepers can crush the ball.

If Tucker can’t kick the ball past the 15…

He’s had a few deep balls, but they don’t have enough hang time. When the returner fields it at the goal line and doesn’t even SEE a Horn until he hits the 20… you’re right, if the other guys can’t do it either, it’s time for tryouts. Bring it.

Does Harsin know any K-O gadgets? The Little Rock (? I think?) coach in HS who’s quit punting the last few years has also quit kicking off – he had a game earlier this fall where they on-sided (and recovered) the first four K-O of the game, and the oppo was down 29-0 before they finally covered a kick and got their O on the field. Maybe we need to get holda that guy and get some tapes and playbooks?

I always thought the Mandrell sisters were sorta hot. All that hair!

ST is my big worry. The worst case on Saturday, I think, is that ST play consistently puts OU on the 50 and Texas on the 20, in which case I think OU covers the 9.5 without too much trouble. On the other hand, if we can improve enough or get enough breaks on ST to make it an overall push, then I think Saturday’s game is tight going into the 4th quarter where our overall conditioning and 2nd half toughness (which, let’s face it, OU hasn’t seen in some time) give us a really good shot at pulling the upset.

Steel Horn -

OR, how about we pull soccer out of the club leagues, put the games on LHN, increase viewer demand throughout south-central Texas, then shamelessly poach their scholarship players?

We’ve got to give Tucker some sort of break. Let Russ handle a few PATs and kickoffs, allow Ash to boom a few punts.

Give Ash a run, pass or punt option inside the 50.

I’ve really been expecting this, after the preseason hype about his kicking abilities. He looked damned good warming up at BYU game. Hope we’re gonna break this out against the ‘Clips. I’m thinking deep gun, rather than conventional 13-15 yard punt formation- don’t have to take the 2 or 3 step standard punt if the D is having to protect against option – if you do kick, just get it to open space and let it roll.

(This is one of the rules changes I’d love to see, that would really bring some excitement to the game: ANY kick is live ball once it hits the ground, not just kickoffs. That’d be some shit, yeah?)

The one thing that worried me is we seemed to always be outnumbered (and easily blocked) on the WR screens they threw. It didn’t hurt us overly much against ISU, but if that’s Broyles or Stills out there it could be big trouble.

Excellent idea tex2step, but you have just pointed out another reason for the LHN to be unfair, improving our special teams…

Exactly Tex Long, they have to respect his run/pass option. Love that rule change idea.

Steel Horn

Fair enough. Change the last sentence to “… and very quietly poach their scholarship players.”

I was happy to learn Steele Jantz’s fathers name was Foxx and had a brother named Stig.

Don’t forget his other uncle Wolfe and his brother Truk either. Do ridiculous names make the football good too?

Nickel Rover sez: Re: Edmonds I say we just let him get as powerful as is natural and then deploy him according to what he can do rather than fighting nature to in order to fit him into a pre-defined role.

Congratulations! You are now channeling John Wooden: get the best guys you can find, and scheme to suit their abilities. Gotta love it.

Re: Whaley… really have to wonder if Mack bothered to look at his family (bro at Cornhusker LB, BIIIG people lurking around the gravy boat, etc) before making him yet another “one and only” RB recruit? I’ve never scouted recruits, but, fucking hell, you gotta look at a kid’s gene pool, yeah?

It’s kind of unfair to ask a 260 lb. 18 year-old kid to remain at 260 lbs. I’ll be shocked if he’s not 290 in three years.

Saturday promises to be a very interesting game.
OU passing vs. UT defense:
1. Has Texas played a competent passing offense yet, and does UT’s lofty pass defense ranking reflect this mostly?
2. OU has 3 legitimate WR, TE, and backs that can catch. Can UT defend all 3 levels and the middle and outside of the field.

OU rushing vs. UT defense:
1. OU usually saves something special in the run game for UT. Sometimes it works (Peterson misdirection, delayed draw to Murray), sometimes not (Pistol).
2. OU’s OL is not great at run blocking but is better than the last couple of years.

paedon me, if o’m not that easy tp undestand righr now. i’ve gor a moughful of crow regarding one ud our safrties. hell of a game by the young man, and i tip my hat most appreciatively.

actually i tip my hat to the whole defense and their coaching staff. these guys are getting better by the possession.

“When OU found themselves short a kicker a few years back, didn’t they hold open campus auditions? And IIRC, didn’t that actually work pretty well for them? If Tucker can’t kick the ball past the 15 on kickoffs and Russ and Pruitt can’t take that job away from him, maybe Mack should simply declare the kickoff job open to the student body. On a campus of 50,000, surely someone can boot it more than 50 yards in the air.”

This, really, seriously, today!

(This is one of the rules changes I’d love to see, that would really bring some excitement to the game: ANY kick is live ball once it hits the ground, not just kickoffs. That’d be some shit, yeah?)

Clearly you have never returned a punt if you think this is a good idea.

I think it was the Pirate that held open kicker tryouts and actually found a guy who could make some field goals.

OU still needs a placekicker.

I’m thrilled to see the props for Gideon, who played his best game as a Longhorn. He doesn’t get enough credit for the things he does well. Cannot wait for Saturday.

Excellent analysis as always, especially feedin the hounds who think our run defense is a bust. I agree on Jeffcoat’s overall movement but he was dropped into zone coverage a bunch on Saturday.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Ash used this weekend on a lot of punting downs. I think any possibility of him being roughed would be offset by OU pulling back enough to make sure we don’t fake it and throw or run.

As to Edmond, I really want him to stay at Mike, and I think of James Harrison, who is carrying 242 pounds on a 6’0" frame and has a small spare tire like Steve. I know Edmond will always weigh more, but he’s also carrying it on 6’3" frame. Hey, I can dream, right?

Oh and I forgot to mention, Scott is out “indefinitely” with the wrist injury. Hicks (hammy) and Dom (ankle) were also mentioned as the only other injuries. I’m assuming they’ll play, since nothing else was said.

Thanks, Scip! Good stuff, as always.

Bad news about C Scott. I liked what I saw of him on Saturday…

Hope he makes it back soon. Like the fact that D. Cobbs is back on the depth chart. Can’t wait to see what he can do.

Clearly you have never returned a punt if you think this is a good idea.

Only in rugby, where punting is nominally an offensive weapon either as a pass or to gain field position. On a high punt, the “halo” is real. American Football, I punted when on O and rushed punts when on D (my only “other” TD was on a punt block – not so much a block as a catch… got it about two feet off of the kicker’s foot and ran it in, still holding it over my head with both hands… took a lot of ribbing for that, just that I was as surprised as the punter was). Still, didn’t say no fair catches, so what’s the problem?

On the Gideon props, I’ll second, third, fourth or whatever both the props themselves and the ‘nother helping of crow, please. Hell’s fire, this is getting old – first McCoy Minor and now Gideon. It’s a damn good thing the results are worth it… but, ya know, crow does taste a lot like rattlesnake.

In his press conference today, Mack said C. Scott is out indefinitely, but everyone else is a go for Saturday.

parlin -
 
You made me laugh. Thanks.

O-69.

If we can’t kick-off deep and can’t cover kick-offs then maybe we should onside kick it every time. It would end up about the same place on the field and we might recover some of them.

Go get one of those girls off the soccer team to kick off.

Monty is Coach Riggendorf!

Late comment to the post here…balanced and insightful as always Scipio. Rewatching the game right now, and at 11:33 in the 4th our kick return after their first TD is a study in ineptitude. Dear God, we sucked. We had 4 blockers and 5 defenders in the immediate vicinity of the returner, who under good circumstances might have only one guy to shake.

Cody the senior Johnson blocks nobody. Just mumbles forward and does nothing within 2 yards of ANYBODY. Roberson, again an upper classman, totally wiffs on his guy. #2, I think it’s AJ White, shields his guy for 1/2 a second. Berryhill, of course, makes a diving chip block that works. And lastly, the returner, MB, gets tackled by the closest man to him. We did not even block the tip of the spear.

THAT is why our kick returns suck. We don’t block anybody. We should just have our guys pick a number, shout it out, and whoever can put a hat on a hat gets the role. We just need simple blocks to make some improvement. Put Edmond and Whaley out there :)

where the fack is Randall? Has he made a tackle this season?

Texas vs Iowa St: http://www.youtube.com/v/SN_T1QTTu1M

Tex long

In my opinion returning a punt is the most frightrning thing you can do on a football field. You get guys with a 40 yard head start trying to take off your head meanwhile you can only look up and pray tghe ball gvets there quicker.

But my real objection to the idea is just practical. It would be nearly impossible to field a punt and protect against a fake if the ball became live after it hit the ground

Kick return is much different in that the kicking team can’t advance the ball at the same time.

I said:
 I’m not in favor of on side all the time. But a squib kick could be very effective on occasion.

Also didn’t our kick team recovedr a fumble? Getting the ball bhack immediately after a score makes up for a bunch of sins.

If Landry Jones has time, he will carve up anybody. The horns are going to have to hit him early and often. The DL has to at least get their hands up if they can’t get to the QB.

Maybe play a lot of dime to encourage OU to run but, to facilitate run support, play zone and deploy as many hard hitting DBs as possible. Whatever Manny does, he is going to have to switch it up to make it a bit tougher for Landry to get in sync.

Do the horns have anybody who can do a good job of keeping Broyles from getting off the line of scrimmage? You have to screw up that precision timing between Landry and Broyles.

You know, Berryhill can also move a pile. Ive seen it in mop up duty when Texas was trying not to score in years past..Had the walk on team blocking for him. He needs more playing time at fullback. One thing is for sure, he wont tiptoe to the line of scrimage.

Scipio —

Perhaps someone mentioned this in the comments (have to admit I haven’t read thru all of them thoroughly), but the comparative numbers with OU in regard to the kicking-game may give you a little more hope on that front for this weekend:

NET PUNTING
texas 40.17 ypg
ou 35.94 ypg
— advantage ou, 4.23 ypg

PUNT RETURNS
texas 12.00 ypg, 1 TD
ou 4.44 ypg, 0 TD
- texas, 7.56 ypg
PUNT RETURNS DEFENSE
texas 5.57 ypg, 0 TD
ou 14.00 ypg, 0 TD
- texas, 8.43 ypg
total yds comparison, punt returns: advantage texas, 15.99 ypg

KICKOFF RETURNS
texas 19.58 ypg, 0 TD
ou 18.00 ypg, 0 TD
- texas, 1.58 ypg
KICKOFF RETURNS DEFENSE
texas 23.50 ypg, 0 TD
ou 19.46 ypg, 0 TD
- ou, 4.04 ypg
total yds comparison, kickoff returns: advantage ou, 2.46 ypg

While they do have the better net-punter (by a decent margin) and also better results on kickoffs (by a surprisingly slim margin), look at how far ahead we are in punt-returns and punt-return defense. This is partly because we’re not as bad in those areas as folks think we are (yes, the blocked-punt TD helped, but it was only a 34-yd return, not exactly a statbreaker), but also because OU has been really bad on both fronts this year.

Stats are beyond damn lies and all that, yes….but I don’t get the impression that the kicking-game is what’s going to put us on the ropes in Dallas. (Though at some point during the year, it probably will.)

Of course I whiffed on the Net-Punting above — swap the two teams. (Also it looks like I got the OU number slightly off — should be 40.06 and not 40.17. So their edge in net punting is 4.12 yards.)

“Stats are for losers”……Seems like Diaz is using different stats for different purposes…..results based on probabilities and odds. I love the fact that instead of digging down to ensure the shutout…..he took an opportunity to play more freshmen. I’ve never been a fan of bend, don’t break…..but the results so far have me buying in.

As for special teams, your odds to significantly affect the outcome of the game is packed most dense in these few plays. It’s like pit stops in Nascar. You can drive your ass off for 40 laps to gain a few spots and lose them in 2 seconds when Bobby Joe drops a lug nut.

A good kick, return, or coverage is as significant as a turnover…..but we gush about turnovers and their importance statistically to the outcome of the game. I can actually point to special teams for the same thing. So, what you need to add are kicks blocked and field goals made. A field goal may likely determine the outcome of this weeks game.

All the coach hiring, the big salaries, the scheming, the off seasons, the spring ball, practices, the film reviewing, the scouting, the strength and conditioning, the boosters, the donors, the officials, the band, the cheer leaders, the stadium, the merch sales, the TV time, the BCS money, the Title……..can potentially come down to being decided by the goofy out of shape ex soccer player that walked on during the off season.

F-me.

salts, darrell was a punter as well as a qb and, i think, db. i come from the era when darrell walked our sidelines, and there were a few things you could always count on back then. a great o-line and great kicking games. everything else waxed and waned, but he always saw to it those two areas would be first rate. i saw him win games he shouldn’t have with a great punter. the guy just kept the opponent facing a long field all day, and darrell had enough else that the opponent couldn’t get up that long hill enough times to win.

i sure wish we had that kind of mindset these days. it pays surprising dividends.

Saltshaker,

Perhaps my logical faculties are an out of shape ex-soccer player, but I fail to see the connection between the cheerleaders and band to special teams success.

Gus Johnson’s salacious narrative on Keenan Robinson’s physique was not unwarranted.

Gus also had to contain a freak out when confronted with a rugby punt.

Salt — true about the importance of FG-kickers, for sure. For what it’s worth, so far this year we seem to be about equal to OU on that front. Their guy is 4-of-5, ours is 6-of-7.

My general sense with Tucker is that while I don’t necessarily trust him to win a game at the end on a FG (not saying he wouldn’t, just can’t feel quite sure of it yet), I don’t worry that he’ll lose it by shanking a couple along the way.

Don’t know their guy enough to have a sense of him. Something I should look into, probably.

I’m late in calling it, but Irlene Mandrell won this thread.