Losing the Point of Attack

Good stuff! Thanks, Nickel!!!

Great breakdown, Nick - love to see this stuff even when I hate seeing this particular stuff.

I’d love some thoughts on:

- Whether Randall came close to generating any interior pass rush and whether he was frequently doubled

- Some more particulars on why OU was able to defeat our run game with honest numbers and how we kept losing the POA

- Whether it would be inappropriate to buy a bottle of Dom from Willie Lyles at the Houston Specs in order to toast #21’s graduation, which I will be celebrating with more fervor than I celebrated my own

Great analysis. Do you think throwing to Fozzy in the flat would have been the better decision? It seems so to me, but maybe that doesn’t have the chance for the first down.

I couldn’t agree more as to your last paragraph.

I tend to agree long term Ash has more upside, but he was clearly lost and looking at the rush against OU. McCoy wasn’t any better though. We really needed to be able to hold the ball and run (never easy against OU) to have success.

I actually thought if Gilbert had stuck around it could have been a redemption moment for him. (Not would but could). In that game, I think Gilbert would have given us more of a chance.

Still think this team is on an upward trend line, even with these two games back to back and Longhorn kryptonite ahead.

Great stuff. Have any thoughts about why OU was so successful blowing up run plays by blitzing the boundary corner? And what Harsin could do about it.

Give Gideon a break on that bite on the fake. That pattern combo has been a Heupel fave since he was playing because when the inside receiver breaks it looks like the QB is looking right at him, and since it would be a 15 yard out to the opposite sideline, the kind of velocity that has to be put on the ball is about the same as it would be to throw it into the end zone. Its a lot tougher to read than it looks from above. However, he was still being undisciplined. Wish he had some more eligibility…

As for Drew Allen and next years Sooners. He has to win the starting spot over Blake Bell (who has a bigger arm) first, but I think he probably will. The offensive line will probably be similar to the last few OU O-lines… in other words, not that great, but good enough to win. One of the advantages of always having a kind of crappy O line is that there is not that much of a drop off when guys graduate. I’m not sure losing our latest converted TE to graduation is going to be that big of a blow to the ability of OU to run its offense. The WR corps will still be stacked (obviously not AS stacked w/o Broyles, but this won’t be like 2005 where we graduated everyone who caught a pass in Norman the year before) because Stills and Reynolds will be around and lots of young guys are riding the pine because there are not any 7 WR sets out there. Justin McCay, Kameel Jackson, and if he can learn the three R’s by next year Metoyer will all be contributors at that spot. We return every running back on the roster. Barring some sort of nightmarish injury situation like 2009, OU will be pretty solid on offense. The D will have to replace a couple stars like Lewis and Alexander (and maybe R. Lewis if he leaves early), but will return the bulk of the current starters. I’m not saying they’ll be as good, but they will be the kind of team that helps a first time starting QB out.

That being said, in 2005 and 2009 we would have been OK had we not had unreal attrition (guys quitting, injuries, etc), so it could very well all go to shit before next September.

By the way, Drew Allen’s dad played at UT I believe.

once it was obvious that OU was living in our backfield… i wish harsin would have made some adjustments and rolled the pocket more to allow our QB more time to do things.

Also, i know Harsin is supposed to get the ball to our playmakers, but he failed big time to get the ball to monroe in space and fozzy was playing his ass off and it’d been nice to get the ball to him more as well. Compared to the first 4 games, we barely ran the wildcat package.

i dunno, i’m trying to hold out hope against OSU but i can’t see anyway we stop OSU

Yep, Soonerfan, Allen’s dad played at UT and he grew up a huge Longhorn fan. Trevor Knight, your current commit, grew up a Horn fan, too.
Randy MacEachern’s son went to OU, also.

Not sure what’s up with that.

Great article.

Good stuff Nickle. I agree with Soonerfan about Gideon — because the QB is looking in the same direction, only at a deeper route, it’s tough not to bite on that pump fake. Then it takes a s econd after the ball is in the air to realize it is actually going over you — which I think explains why Gideon looked so slow in deciphering it. It was nicely done by Jones who played a whale of a game.

nobis60: didn’t watch Randall as much because I focused on our coverages and how we executed them. He looks like a 3-4 NFL defensive end who still needs to work on pass-rush moves but physically there is no reason he can’t collapse the pocket with his physical skills.

OU’s run defense was effective without loading up the box for a few reasons. One was that they were playing big bodies on the line like in the play I broke down, using a defensive tackle as a 5-tech. Also; they attacked us inside out and spilled runs with downhill play from the linebackers, they played their safeties closer at times so they could get in there faster, and all of them came off blocks and made plays in pursuit when we caught them off guard.

They were aggressive and played really fast as a result. Our guys weren’t ready to block against that and they closed up running lanes real quick.

Ultralight: I don’t recall that they had spectacular success doing that actually. On the play I showed the blitzing corner had no real impact, it was about how we couldn’t move their DL off the line.

Soonerfan: I did intend to credit some of the success y’all had saturday to the fact that accounting for Broyles and Stills, especially on the same side of the field with Landry throwing, is a very difficult concept. However, we need Gideon to win the head games because he isn’t winning many of the physical ones.

I think you are overlooking the loss of Broyles, Landry, and however many OL are gone. Even if your OL aren’t talented there’s a lot to be said for understanding pass-protections and zone-blocking. You guys almost always get positive yards with your zone plays because you know how to execute them properly, you don’t get much yardage this year because you aren’t really driving people, but mastering those running schemes takes a lot of time and experience.

And Landry Jones. As good as Heupel is at developing your QB’s, it took Landry basically 2 years as a starter to reach his current level of pre-snap reads and always throwing the ball to the right spot. Your passing game is a well-oiled machine. I know you can rebuild it but no Landry knocks you guys back to no better than 10 wins.

In the third and fourth pictures it looks like we’ve got two guys committed to keeping the referee frozen squarely in place.

Among many frustrations in watching the game was the number of times on offense we turned a 2nd and short into a 3rd and long. Was there any tendency OU was exploiting there?

GM Platter: A lot of it was just them recognizing blocking schemes and beating our OL and other blockers. Also, when they blitzed it wasn’t Fire Zones, they were throwing 6 or more guys at us and relying on their secondary playing man defense (and our QB’s getting rattled).

Harsin’s stuff, like any other offense, won’t work if you just get beat all over the field. They played confidently and aggressively, because they knew what they were doing and they are programmed to have an attacking mindset. Our guys weren’t ready to handle players of comparable or better talent who knew what they were doing and could play that fast and aggressively.

We could go into a few schematics but it’s not really that relevant. They could have run a lot of different fronts (and they did) and beaten us by virtue of their talent, experience and playing speed.

Thanks NR, understood there’s no magic formula you can draw up to overcome their 11 whipping your 11 consistently. It just seemed to me unusual that on downs where the offense has the strategic advantage (2nd and short) we crapped the bed over and over. Kind of like a pitcher giving up a bunch of hits on 2 strike counts.

Great article, thanks. The main problem I have with the Gideon play is the total lack of value or benefit his jumping either of the short routes nets us. I mean it’s not like he can make a play in the flat or get a PBU on Broyles. His value is his positioning, nothing more, and he throws that all away for what, exactly? It’s mind-numbingly stupid to do anything other than stay over the top of the route. If he was Sean Taylor or Bob Sanders, I’d get it.

As for the 9-tech comment, it’s certainly intriguing especially if we commit to playing a beast at MIKE like say, I don’t know, Steve Edmond.

shuttlesworth: totally agreed on Gideon. He also got whooped a few times playing rip/lizz patternmatch stuff where he would try and pick up broyles and match him but you expect that.
I was watching the 2008 OU game yesterday and noted that Gideon seemed much faster as a freshman than he is today. The fact that he started that season seemed totally sensible, but the fact that he’s gotten slower (unless it was a function of Muschamp playing him closer to the line) was rather jarring.

I don’t know if the wide-9 is something that we will see a lot of on a consistent basis. We get a lot of pressure with our stunts rather than playing base defense. Also it doesn’t really take advantage of Okafor’s strengths. Maybe in the future if we have a smaller Buck we’ll do it. Dead on that Edmond could fill that C gap just fine without a defensive end in it.

It’s not like Gideon was in position to make the play had it gone to Broyles. Why is he guessing when everything about the play is unfolding in front of him and he can see that Stills has passed Byndom? I need to stop, it’s frustrating.

I don’t think there’s a ton of value in raking Gideon over the coals all over again. He’s a kid that’s done everything he can to contribute to Texas, and I appreciate that. He’s just not that good.

However, I can’t figure out why the coaches keep sending him out there. My issue isn’t so much that Gideon seems to have maxed out as a player. It’s that we keep investing despite the promise of no return. I’d like to start repping some of the younger guys, like the Asset/Cigar hinted at.

My guess is that OU was faster this year than in 2008. It’s notoriously difficult to judge speed on film other than relative to the team you are actually playing at the time. I highly doubt Gideon is slower now, unless he is injured.

Really great stuff, Nickel.

The first TD is understandable. OU had been baiting with us early on with the RB flare-out. Byndom thought he had the pattern read and jumped it. Gideon has to make a split-second decision, and I think he still has the earlier Broyles catch-and-run on his mind. Thus, TD Stills. We talked a lot about Harsin using progression play-calling to get the defense confused, and I think this is a perfect example of HeupelVell doing the same thing. Also, the playcall was the first of the 2nd quarter, and showed an optimal use of the end of quarter break.

The second play was borderline inexcusable. I’m not sure why the play started with 10 men jammed at the LOS. It was like Diaz wanted to force a no gain on the play so the field goal attempt would be insanely difficult. He was playing for zero instead of three and it cost him six. I was astounded when I saw Diggs press with no over the top help. With the cover 2 against 4 verts, you should expect the safety to diagnose the throw and offer coverage or at least the unlodge the ball hit. I still think it would have made more sense for Texas to sit the CBs in a medium zone and prevent the big play. 16-3 vs. 20-3 was a huge difference for the team and the crowd, and that play absolutely killed us.

Roach, what if I told you that in many of our sets we trusted Gideon to cover Jermaine Gresham and he did a solid job? I’m telling you he was faster. He ran a 4.6 coming out of High School, I’m betting he’s a 4.7 now at best.

JC25: little confused. When you talk about Diggs pressing with no help what play are you talking about? In the completion to Reynolds he is lined up on the receiver but fails to actually jam reynolds. He absolutely did have help over the top it just didn’t arrive in time because Phillips also was helping with the vertical route by the inside receiver. I think the coverage call was great and would have worked with better execution.

What would you have called there? Maybe a Fire Zone works better unless he hits the no. 2 receiver in the seam, unless pressure gets there…ultimately what matters is that the execution wasn’t there because we have freshmen in the secondary.

10 on 11 with Gideon unless he shows presence and deters a deep ball. Freshman type performance. Might as well go with one.

Nickel:

Excellent article and follow-up commentary. Much appreciated.

I agree with your critique of Gideon on the selected plays. What I don’t understand is, why he has been the safety of choice for “4 straight years” under two quality DC’s and Akina. Are we focusing only on his mistakes? Do his assets outweigh the liabilities? If neither is the case, please don’t tell me that for 4 years no replacement safety has emerged to supplant Gideon if he is an average to below average player.

Would appreciate your candid thoughts.

Where’s Leon Fuller when you need him? At least he could make his guys tackle and put pressure on the QB.

Rio: I actually don’t love talking about Gideon because he’s an overdone topic but his play was pretty significant in this game as we couldn’t hide his coverage deficiencies as well with Vaccaro playing in the nickel. I actually wonder if we would have been better off playing a linebacker on Broyles more, or Adrian Phillips, and kept vaccaro back as safety…but I digress.

Gideon started freshman year because he played hard and mastered the scheme before all his fellow fresmen rivals at the position. Sophomore year Ben Wells hadn’t overtaken him, a freshman wasn’t going to beat him out and Christian Scott was declared ineligible after nearly unseating him.

Junior year he was competing with freshman and no one else. Who do we start over him last year? Phillips as a freshman? Brewster was out for the year and Scott was pushed into service next to him by Earl’s departure. Vaccaro was already basically starting at nickelback. What happened is we missed on a lot of safety recruits. Scott, Gideon, Brewster and Vaccaro are all similar big body safeties and only one of them proved capable of handling the myriad of tasks of a Big 12 safety. We did a poor job recruiting to what we need and then we had some misses and injuries with guys like Marcus Davis and Ben Wells.

It should be clear to anyone who has watched Texas football under Mack Brown why Gideon started for the three years before Manny arrived. This year, as a 3 year starter at safety with a very young group, the staff probably figured it was a smart move to have someone with experience back there, but only if he’d play smart. Having read the Asset post by JS regarding more snaps for Evans, Turner and possibly Thompson at safety, they may now be realizing that building for the future with a younger guy is better than having a “veteran” out there who just isn’t up to the task physically. Hate to heap more on the guy, but he is who he is and, IMO, we need to begin the process of reducing his playing time so we aren’t rolling out a pup at safety next year.

Thanks Nickel. Good explanation. Akina must have had many sleepless nights for the past 3 years.

NR, having read your response, you bring a more plausible explanation to the situation than I did (leftover animus from the Derry, Chef days I guess). Nothwistanding that, we now have young but viable players to pull him at least some of the time so they can be developed, particularly since he is not making either the physical or mental plays.

Rio Lobo: Serves him right. His reruiting at DB has been pretty unsteady. If we recruited the position as consistently well as he teaches it we might have more Big 12 championship trophies.

Nickel:

True. However, had Earl Thomas not jumped early to the NFL after his sophomore year and Aaron Williams doing the same after his junior year — our secondary would be making a strong impression on WRs and QBs this year.

In the first half we had five second down plays that followed a first down gaining more than 3 yards. We had negative yardage on 4 of the 5 plays. 80% of 2nd downs following a decent 1st down had negative yards. I don’t know what that means but surely it means something, other than we should just throw the ball out of bounds in that situation.

Thanks for the write-up. On Ash’s int, would the smart play have been to Fozzy in the flats? It looks like it would have gotten at least the 1st down.

Nickel, my understanding is that if you’re running Cover 2 and both receivers on your side of the field go vertical, you should be in a position to adjust to whichever receiver the QB throws to. Especially if you see Diggs miss his jam at the line.

My argument is, why are you running press coverage when they have to make it 25 yards for a first down? Play soft zone coverage and keep that pass underneath. Yes, I understand a 50+ yard field goal is much more missable (or Stoops opts to punt), keeping the score at 13-3. But Id much rather have seen our CBs play with a 10 yard cushion and limit the deep pass and surrender an easier 3 point attempt.

JC25: Phillips and Diggs both misplayed it. Why run press coverage? Because Cover-5, if executed properly, makes the first down a very poor bet on that play and there’s a good chance that Uncle Rico throws the ball to the wrong team.

Plus, playing soft coverage means potentially having to tackle Broyles in the open field. I wouldn’t have been averse to a Fire Zone call there but that’s what we would have been dealing with. With Cover-5 you force the QB to throw short or hold on to the ball by out-leveraging the deep throws.

On Ash’s int, it also looked like Shipley may have had to slightly turn his route more vertical to avoid running into Wort. This made it easier for Jefferson to come underneath him and be in position for the pick.

Nickel Rover,
Thanks for a very well written and thought out article. I have attended the OU/Texas game for 46 consecutive years and, although a die-hard OU fan, have been blesssed to see some of the great players in college history - from both sides. all of us have experienced the twists and turns that happen in this game and that is what makes it so wonderful. Next year, and all the years thereafter, will be no different. Thanks again.

ultralight: Absolutely, that’s what good team coverage looks like. In fact, I think I wrote this, I suspect it had a lot to do with Shipley tripping.

blackspider: Thanks, I appreciate that. I have a lot of respect for OU’s program but I have to hope for their failure at every turn and am loathe to give them credit for much, I’m sure you understand.

Nickel Rover,
I understand as my feelings for OSU are much like yours for OU. Nevertheless, I hope you guys win out.
Black Spider

When we gave up 3rd-and-25 for a first down I knew we were done. Against the polish of OU’s attack our young guys would have had to play almost perfectly. As it was, the end result of what the defense actually gave up is not out of the bounds of expectations. Time and experience will work wonders. We may see substantial improvement as early as this week, though it may not be apparent at game time given OSU’s proficiency in the passing game.

We were basically playing offense with one hand tied behind our back. OU is good enough that what passing we have could virtually be discounted. OU obviously had a pretty good idea that our O-line would not actually be a real problem for them, so the running game was not a great worry, either. Only DJ’s speed or Malcolm’s bullishness could cause them problems down the stretch, but they could not possibly cause enough damage to offset the deficiencies. A different game plan by Texas would not have changed the result. All it could have done is possibly keep the score down by reducing turnovers. We have a lot more work to do on offense than defense. The systemic deficiencies of our offense are worse than those on defense.

All of our coaches are doing very well to get what they are getting with what we have. Much of our talent lacks the necessary experience. At some positions we have no players who are really suited to those positions. We should be much better in 2012 and really good in 2013. But now is now.

Clarification: When I say the systemic deficiencies on offense are worse than on defense, I really mean we have more personnel issues. I love Harsin’s approach, whether you call it a “system” or not. That’s not the problem.

Nice job, man.

Here is the point from all of these analytical articles: ou took our alleged ‘talent’ and beat the crap out of us with it. As I’ve said for months, the talent discrepancy between ou and us is enormous.

I agree the talent gap is big, I hate the thought it could take us several years to get back to the mountain top.

Every board I read people talk about current young players and recruits, until we can start talking about badass Jr’s and Sr’s we will be an average team.

At some point we need to develop what we have, we still have a lot of players on the team that were big time recruits but havent panned out.

We are basically in the liquidation phase of the recovery, the roster is easily more than 50% underclassmen. At least we aren’t trying to extend-and-pretend and bail out the big banks anymore.

Agree Nickel, its just painful with all of the success we have had, OU has had some subpar years but Stoops got them back on track pretty quick, I was hoping for the same here but looks like it will take longer.

I think the problems are worse that I thought.

OU had some seasons in which they didn’t have quarterbacks well developed and it cost them the chance to win but they never had total systemic failure on the offensive side of the ball and definitely not on defense. Also they jettisoned Chuck Long, their 1 subpar coordinator, before he sunk the program.

They also struggled when we kept beating them in recruiting battles regardless of how bad they beat us but they’ve adjusted. It’s a stronger and more stable system they have their and it means that calamity has to occur, like having your starting QB kicked off the team or injured early in the year, for them to even dip below 9 wins.

Great point on recruting, the last few years I think we have beat them head to head on most 4-5 star recruits but its not translating on the field, at this point I have wished that some of those players, like T Bible, would have gone to OU but who knows maybe Stoops could develop them better, thats the mystery too me.

Stoops has also hit on some Cali kids like Stills and Jefferson that have helped them.

But great point on their system, Stoops adjusted and has won that battle, its back in our court now I just hope Mack can bring back the magic, if not he needs to go sooner (pardon the pun) than later.

Scipio wrote a post a year or so back pointing out that California was a ripe ground for filling in needs in down years in Texas because there is less competition there. Stoops has gone that route but Mack really hasn’t.

Muschamp actually wanted to try and get some kids from SEC country, which was not really that great a plan. Everyone is trying to get those kids, besides the SEC schools that have the best offers.

Its driven me crazy for 20 years that we dont recruit nationally enough, I get that most of our roster will be Texas kids but I think we rely on that too much but Mack thinks that’s the route to success.

I think USC when Pete Carroll was there had the right balance, most kids from CA and some studs from all around the country. Urban Meyer did the same at FL. I know that is low % game but if we had a few more Jordan Hicks I think it would help.

Thanks for the feedback, love the BC websites.