Texas-Cal Holiday Bowl Post-Mortem: Offense

In ten years, according to Saint Darrell, no one will remember what the score was, they’ll remember that we won, and who we whipped.

Hey man, the Phrygian cap is cool!

“The mental picture I have of New Year’s Eve always involves a sobbing blonde in a little black dress sitting on a curb with heels in hand, mascara running down her face, processing the fight she and her boyfriend just had,”

so hot, mmmmm

Friends, food, beer, and lawn chairs in and around a garage. Easily accessible dart board and beer pong table if anyone wants it. That’s how you do a fun, relaxed new years.

Shipley was dinged, got extra attention in Cal’s secondary, and played accordingly. He’ll have a good offseason and be the man in 2012.

And that will be the last we speak of him. Shhhh. Look away.

ut-06 -
 
That’s a risk-averse formula that will get you to a good bowl game.

Simply by observing a Shipley, you can injure him.

" I watched the game with Vasherized, BrickHorn, and Longhorn Scott at Cover 3 and after the most mundane successful play, I’d punch one of them in the ribs and yell, "We have a QB!"

Holy shit, I think I may have seen you guys there and not known who you were. I remember seeing a table of four guys in the back by the hallway to the restrooms and thinking, “those look like cool dudes.” I was the guy in in the simi circle booth on the adjacent wall in blue scrubs barely modulating the volume of my exclamations of “Fuck!” every time Tipoti squeezed past Espinoza.

This is starting to sound like an entry from the Shot in the Dark section of The Austin Chronicle. Oh, well. I’m going with it.

Is there going to be a video breakdown for the Holiday Bowl? That’s one I’m looking forward to - a lot of it looks really good on second watching, and I’d just be ecstatic with a breakdown.

Great article. The NYE description is spot on. I fucking hate that bullshit holiday. It’s tailor-made for cities like NYC and Dallas, which are filled to the brim with boring, money-obsessed shitheads just looking for an excuse to spend inordinate amounts of cash for the privilege of sipping watered-down “ultra premium” potato alcohol in some dimly-lit, artificially-exclusive, bland-music-blaring toolbox. Is there any doubt that New Year’s Eve is the official holiday of the Jersey Shore cast?

Also, the Bigfoot researcher story is 100% true. I kinda feel bad for sticking the chip-and-dip sampler on LHS’s check while he was out.

Nice write up, thanks! BTW, does anyone know why analysis begins with anal?

P.S. If I had known you guys were going to be there, I would have sought you out and given each one of you an awkwardly too long man hug to express my appreciation for your work before hovering around a touch too long trying to talk to you, all while uttering nervous school girl giggles.

should not be seriously disputed by you, the reader

gneiss.

more: i had no idea fozzy is that old.

Man, I hate Armenian’s in their Affliction T shirts, they ain’t got nothing on us Persians with our awesome Ahura Mazda necklaces and Ed Hardy T’s. They also tend to drive base model 3 series Bimmers, whilst my peoples tend to ride in the much better M3. I’m glad you finally took some shots at this oft-overlooked group of hoodlums.

Your description of New Year’s Eve was spot on, btw, at least from my perspective. You really do have a way of painting a picture with words. It reminded me immensely of the New Year’s Eves that my friends and I observed during law school when I lived literally on the corner where a residential street met lower Greenville in Dallas. My friends and I would sit out in our lawn-chairs and bet over/under lines on numbers of crying girls seated on the adjacent curb, per hour/number of middle-easterny looking dudes who would try to walk up and ask the girl if he could do anything to make her feel better.

juice - Embarrassing displays of adulation are what the BC tailgate is for. Join us out there next season.

I got so excited when I went in the dashboard and saw you had this teed up. Hate New Years. As a former service industry survivor, it’s the worst night of the year. Total fucking amateur hour. The one night a year when every person who barely ever drinks decides to tie one on and throw up all over the bar.

Great write up. Glimmers of hope, flashes of talent, whatever tortured shiny shit metaphor you’d like, we’ve arrived. As you note, given the graduations and such, this team needs to make a giant leap forward next year, or I might have to grumble.

 It is imperative we find a second receiving threat to compliment Shipley. In watching the Saints over the last few weeks, it’s amazing how once teams started bracketing Graham, Brees just started to spread the ball around to Lance Moore and Marques Colsten instead. We aren’t going to get that kind of production, but we need another option.

I was in town as well. But my mom gave me free reign over the wine cellar, so by game time, I had downed a Jester King bomber, a RRV Zin, and a Barossa Cab. And steaks. Driving was not really an option at that point.

Not that I’m complaining.

redfoot,

Funny stuff. But one quibble:

They also tend to drive base model 3 series Bimmers, whilst my peoples tend to ride in the much better M3.

Putting an M badge on a 328 does not an M3 make.

Brick,

I’ll be there if I can get my social anxiety afflicted wife to down enough liquid courage early enough in the day.

Great job on describing what New Year’s Eve REALLY IS….

I also enjoy Paul Rudd’s summation of New Years in 200 Cigarettes

boj -
 
I think we were sitting near the door. Dude we saw you in your scrubs. I wanted to drop the Election line on you:
 
“Hey, guy, nice nurse outfit.”
 
“No, actually, they’re OR scrubs.”
 
“O R they?”
 
Brick -
 
BrickHorn doesn’t mention that his Valentine’s Day presents are often a barbed wire heart covered in cow’s blood.
 
Chap -
 
Because it stinks and very few people are willing to do it?
 
redfoot -
 
Every Persian I know is either 1). a highly successful physician or 2). owns a club. Not a common job distribution pattern, one none of them can explain.
 
The Greenville club watching must have been great theater.

Oh man. I have been exhausted all week and was seriously considering not going to the gym again today. Then I read this and got all fired up about Texas football. Off to LA FItness I go!

I feel the exact same way about New Years in general. But, as I am of the “born again” variety, I just went to the big shindig my church threw for the singles. No sluts and no alcohol, so I had a good time. But I don’t suffer fools, and sluts and drunks always draw my ire.

Hilarious and insightful analysis as always. Hope to get some good write-ups from you about whatever in the off-season.

Thanks!

NYE is definitely an overrated holiday. Best one I ever spent was in London - not because the event itself was that great (it wasn’t, think a cloudy version of Times Square trying to see the fireworks shot from off the London Eye) - because I saw two chicks nearly stab each other on the top of a double-decker bus. Crazy shit.

Scipio—-you damn slacker. I’d rather have Jon Gray next fall because ole James may have a tougher time bouncing back from week to week. Regardless of Longhorn Scott’s diagramming plays on napkins saying otherwise, smart money is on that damn 240 pound backer convincing us to shelf that power play or run smooth out of RB’s before the night was over.

Days late—-that damn west coast has claimed another ner do well like the YMCA being full of those what finished second. Thankee

That’s pretty true Scip. I can’t explain it either, but then again, I’m only a halfie.
Greenville Club watching is always good theatre. I think back on my time in that trashed out duplex with fondness.

Agree completely with the usual NYE hype. The wife and I decided to do a low key night at some friends, drink wine, and play board games till we passed out. Much more fun than dealing with the drunken slobs around town.

Also agree that the general trend is pretty positive for the team heading into next year. General consistency across the offensive side should do wonders for HarsinWhite’s play calling and efficiency.

@Bateshorn - free reign over the wine cellar sounds fantastic. If you’re into wine drinking and doing so socially, and have an iPhone or iPad, check out my social wine journal app called Toast and Tell. Let me know what you think if you do. I think our website should be linked to the post somewhere since I have the option to enter it.

Hook’em

Scip, great as always. Although I believe the “nurse outfit” quote is from Rushmore.

Rushmore, yes. Damn it. Thanks. I mixed up my Wes Anderson movies.

I knew you were a Mr. Show fan, that show was the shit, very under appreciated. Good write-up.

That was a beautifully boring win. Exactly what the Dr. ordered IMO.

Ash/Brewer/JUCO guy dont have to be Drew Brees. They just need to be Greg McElroy. With some help from HarsinWhite re:scheme, that is more than doable.

As for next year I think it is going to be hard to find one unit on this team that wont show marked improvement, including coaching. I think 10 wins and a payback buttkicking in Dallas is on the table.

For a lot of reasons there was always going to be a lot of sand in the gears this year. Things will be a lot smoother next year no matter what.

And if 2011 MIchigan is a BCS team that 2012 should be too.

NYE is contrived to the max but everyone should have a puking/hookup story to tell on that at least once. Some of the numbers I was hearing for what it cost to party with the pretty people in Chicago remind me of early 80’s Dallas.

Sometimes boring is just fine.

2012 Texas should be BCS I meant.

Scip,

I love that line. I hate going out in scrubs, but alas I had to head there straight from work in light of Cover3’s insistance on a 6:30 arrival. You would have been well within your rights to mock me. I often mock myself mercilessly in similar circumstances.

Great writeup, by the way. It’s almost as if you felt challenged by my assertion that you are funnier when you’re mad, because this piece was pretty damn funny AND upbeat.

How much improvement can we expect from the O-line with an offseason of instruction and S&C work? Should expectations be tempered, or should we be pissed if they are not significantly improved?

And even then he’ll be the best go-to guy you have.

I would take Jordan Shipley on a crutch over Darius White on a Harley.

Though you missed the deadline, great article. Worth the wait !

Read that Goodwin intends to pursue track goals and will not be available for Spring and possibly Fall camp. May be similar situation as last year.

Receivers and tight ends need to step-up.

Hmmmmm, pancake references in both of your most recent columns.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Ash strikes me as at least an above-average QB, considering he got no QB1 snaps in the spring and summer. He’s Chance Mock absent the excellent high school tutelage. We can win with him.

Ash, showed improvement, which was crucial. I don’t know what to make of him, but since I was ready to throw him on the heap a month ago, this represents real improvement.

The one area of the game where I thought we’d see more improvement was the O-line, and I finished thinking they’d regressed. Scip, you do a great job listing all the reasons the O-line has struggled with consistency this year, and major kudos to you for predicting the problems we’d have dealing with the Cal front. Do you think it was entirely a question of getting pushed around by superior talent? Or was there a schematic deficiency? Just seemed like an area where you’d expect dramatic improvement in the last game of the season, and after a month of rest and bowl practices. Would welcome your thoughts.

2012 offensive improvement will be highly dependent on the quality of the WR corps going into summer camp. If the starting rotation is Shipley, Davis, Goodwin … then I have serious doubts about any marked improvement. If the rotation ends up Shipley, Harris, Onyegbule/Cayleb Jones/Thomas Johnson … I think we have another B12 banner in the bag. Ash has improvement areas, but the WR’s need to step up big time too.

And I’ll leave the DGB hype for signing day …. (fingers crossed)

Turns out the guy who tranqued me just wanted to discuss the details of running outside zone against an odd front. If anyone else sees me at a bar, at the zoo, or even in the wild… don’t tranq me, bro. Meanwhile, our waitress was much better at math than Brickhorn.

Like Jones, I stuck on the pancake reference, and will be thinking about pancakes for some time.

This team was so close to putting it together and really making a big stride during the season. I do think that the McCoy and Ash dual QB’s think was a mistake to carry on as long as it did. I know that the coaches have to play them to evaluate them but it didn’t help them progress any during the season. That is a tough position to be in as a coach and as a player, Ash should have had the most practice and playing overall and the game plan could have helped to limit the turnovers. I hope he can grow into a solid QB, I just didn’t see much improvement in his play the whole season.
The sideways runs just killed the running game to start out at Cal, but when the coach called up the gut plays we seemed to make a few yards. Ash did play with confidence which was not really displayed for most of the regular season. The game was frustrating because the passes were so close and the opportunities to make big plays were there. And when we did get some pass plays out of the backfield the run game started to get more productive. Hopefully the McCoy thing is done and the JUCO player can help to push the play of Ash next year.

Meanwhile, our waitress was much better at math than Brickhorn.

That may be true. But did she manage to pull off the swindle of the century by swapping Scipio Tex $9 for a $20 bill? That’s $11 in pure profit, beeyotches!

Punch all the Armenians you want, but stay away from the Turks. Those fuckers are crazy. I’ve similar advice to the degree that you hang around the rodeo crowd. You can generally pick fights with the bronc riders and calf-ropers and come out all right. But the bull riders are ant-like in their size/strength ratio and batshit crazy.

I enjoyed this write-up and miss LHS. Here’s hoping the bigfoot researchers finish their work soon…

I think your reaction to the game is close to universal among the fandom not camped around the lunatic fringe, particularly about the staff being determined not to pull David, effectively giving Case the pink slip he should have gotten after OU save for the complete lack of depth at the pos. Also, not telling Mack beforehand may be the best move Harsin and Major made all year. Bless Mack’s heart. Now we see that Bo wallace is coming in soon for a visit. If Mack can just stay out of the way on gameday and do what he does best, we have a very good chance to get back to championship level football.

Also, any blog with a Mr. Show mention, much less a clip, is well worth the reading. And the Nancy Grace comment made me laugh out loud. You are much appreciated for your anal (ysis) and your sense of humor!

Nice writeup, Scip. The Texas O did what it needed to…not turn the ball over. With the way the defense played, that’s all you really needed.

Although I must confess, your NYE recollections of the club scene brought back some shudders. During college I worked as a bouncer in San Francisco* and came face to face with every douchebag and club slut stereotype in the books. While the club scene unto itself is a fascinating sociological study in drunken fail, my job still entailed direct interaction with these people for 5 to 8 hours a night…sober. Thus, i’ve totally rebelled from the NYE “holiday” and now prefer to stay in and be in bed by 11:30. Why? Because FUCK THE ARMENIANS. That’s why.

*insert joke about working SF gay bars here.

heh. i seldom link cartoons, but this one made me reverberate in kind:

hxttp://dilbert.com/2011-12-31/ (remove the x)

Happy New Years suckas!

cover3? Seriously?

How come I didn’t get the memo dammit!

I love their sliders and the Hickory Burger is to die for.

Friends, food, beer, and lawn chairs in and around a garage

A foot of snow and sub freezing temperatures tends to put a damper on the garage festivities.

Fuck you and your moderate winter climes.

I hate NYE as well, but I feel I must point out that sluts and alcohol tend to make everything better.

I’m gonna go ahead and date myself. As a youth, I always had a great time sitting on NYE, watching the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl. It was special, in a way that Capital One Bowl Week is not.

“The mental picture I have of New Year’s Eve always involves a sobbing blonde in a little black dress sitting on a curb with heels in hand, mascara running down her face, processing the fight she and her boyfriend just had, against the backdrop of a $125 cover charge nightclub that’s wall-to-wall strangers who are defying fire codes, listening to bad music (DJ Mothra Fokka all night, y’all!), drinking worse champagne (you get two free glasses of Korbel!), and pretending that this consistently over-promised and under-delivered false holiday isn’t just a giant pain in the ass that we’re all fooled into participating in every year. We all line up for it mostly because no one will speak up and voice their displeasure for fear of being labeled a Holiday curmudgeon, even though it lacks the real sweetness of Christmas, the awesome food payoff and nephew-delivered hand turkey tracings of Thanksgiving, or the brilliance of the Halloween I-can-dress-like-a-slut tonight-without-recriminations vibe. New Year’s Eve rates well below Bastille Day. AND THAT SHIT IS FRENCH.”

W-O-R-D….I despise New Years, the most over-rated Holiday of the Year.

Thanks for the usual great write-up, Scipio. Happy New Year to you and all here at BC.

Agree completely on NYE. I had a string of awful experiences with dates each year up to and including a last minute cancellation by a date due to an emergency appendectomy (didn’t get hosed—I visited her in the hospital). At about age 30 I gave up on the whole NYE date thing and started going single to big parties in friends’ homes and staying or leaving depending on mood and company. Like your Young Life/board game experience I had a terrific time more often than not just being open to what the evening might bring.

I had very similar thoughts watching our offense meet my low expectations (“just don’t lose it for us, guys”). Jessie Palmer made a similar observation on the broadcast to yours re: each offensive unit grouping likely being better for us in 2012.

Good one to end a development year on. Let’s see where this goes.

date myself

is that, like, a prelude to masturbation? dinner and a movie?

“…a college freshman who has never been exposed to television, much less big time college football.”

I knew Belton was a little backward, but I didn’t realize that they don’t have television.

“is that, like, a prelude to masturbation? dinner and a movie?”

You know how those Houston guys are. When a guy from Rice says he’s bisexual, that means he can do it with either hand.

We should have invited srr50 just for the senior discount.

 Actually, it was pretty packed and we didn’t have a reservation so we had to settle for a table near the bar, which did not offer optimal viewing.

I voted Black Sheep but Scipio wasn’t sure if his Chevy Leaf rental could make it that far and Brickhorn’s wife only let’s him cross the river on weekends.

Good times nonetheless and yes I remember dudes in scrubs. I figured they were Cal fans.

Great write up as always. 2012 looks promising. I like where our team is headed behind these coaches. Especially since all Coordinators turned down job interviews…shows some serious buy-in and dedication.

I miss living in Austin damnit….could have eaten at Enchiladas Y Mas before heading to Cover 3 and downing copious amounts of whiskey. shit…

However, I’m freakishly enjoying watching Dana H’s balding mullet run down the sidelines as WVU is coming to life. Oh ya, and NYE blows (quite literally if you can pick up the drunken black dress chick on the curb)

The thing I keep going back to regarding our offense is that we started a true freshman at the most important Positions - QB, RB, LT and WR. 4 of 5 OL return with a possible upgrade of Hawkins/ Hopkins over Hopkins/Snow. We are adding a 5 star RB and at least a couple studs at WR ( plus getting Harris back). We should be significantly better on offense next year.

And then just about everyone, including all 5 OL return for 2013.

I always thought NYE was amateur hour. That said, I do like the bubbly.

Anyway, I’m still pumped about the D, pumped about the incoming frosh/JC players, pumped about the recruiting class, and mildly bemused by the O.

Mike Davis, Darius White, Malcolm Williams, Kirkendahl (sp?), Dan Buckner, John Chiles… What’s up w/ Texas receivers not developing at best, and regressing over their careers at worst?

I was not exactly pleased with Harsin. He tried running wide to the short side and between the guards then seemd to throw in the towel on the running game in the first half. When he finally started running off Tackle, we had some success. Why he didn’t try that until the 2nd half, I have no idea. The Somoan that was giving Espinoza whiplash and was blowing anything up between the Guards couldn’t get there on off tackle runs and we don’t have to rely on a seal from the TE or a block from the WR (which rarely happen) like when we run wide. That was a bit irritating to say the least.

As for NYE, its suckiness is unquestioned. I spent mine watching Jaws with my 11 and 13 year old and having a nice Hangar and soda. At 12:07 my 11 year old says, “Oh, happy new year.” I then imparted my immense wisdom and told them that this was as good as NYE gets and that Jaws was a true story. They know my sarcasm well enough to know that I meant it about NYE and didn’t about Jaws.

Watching Holgor the Barbarian and his crew run rampant over Clemson… thank goodness Mack nixed him, otherwise we might not have won so many games.

Watching Holgor the Barbarian and his crew run rampant over Clemson… thank goodness Mack nixed him, otherwise we might not have won so many games

If you honestly believe that Holgerson could have done more with our talent this year you need to seriously re-evaluate your evaluation skills.

What gave me hope was that in the 4th quarter Maynard looked more like a shell-shocked, true freshman quarterback than Ash.

After each team’s first drive of the night, I would’ve bet the house that wasn’t going to happen.

I dont think holgorson was nixed because of his coaching ability. Hes gonna go full nick nolte on south beach in about 2 hours

If you honestly believe that Holgerson could have done more with our talent this year you need to seriously re-evaluate your evaluation skills.

And a Happy New Year to you, too.

I dont think holgorson was nixed because of his coaching ability. Hes gonna go full nick nolte on south beach in about 2 hours

Absolutely agree, and he prolly be good on Sixth, too…

Those Oranges will not be eaten tonight…

I am looking at a freeze frame of Texas’s formation on the fake punt. There are 7 men with at least one foot on the 40 yard line. The 3 men to the right of the snapper have both feet on the 40 yd. line.

What am I missing? What is the rule?

Election is an Alexander Payne movie. Otherwise I have no quibbles. We really don’t need a world beater at QB. Ash certainly isn’t one.

I was looking for Vasherized so I watched the game at Liberty Bar. Saw lots of fixies and questionable hygiene.

Once we all sober up, I look forward to some analysis on the subject of how we are going to beat the spread offenses [WVU = 70+ points!] in the Big 12 with our new ‘we love 3 yards and a cloud of dust, power running game’ offense with a 2 star QB. Love the Diaz defense, pray for kickers who can actually KICK, but worry about the Harsin offense.

Once we all sober up, I look forward to some analysis on the subject of how we are going to beat the spread offenses [WVU = 70+ points!] in the Big 12 with our new ‘we love 3 yards and a cloud of dust, power running game’ offense with a 2 star QB.

Analysis you ask for, and analysis you shall receive:

They will score more points while holding them to fewer points,….this approach proved effective in 5 wins vs. spread teams earlier in the season for Texas as well as for many others this season …. Conversely, the alternative tactic of scoring fewer points and allowing more points has proven far more problematic. In fact, even spread teams found this approach to have a fairlly high failure rate.

In the interest of completeness, I must also note for the purpose of this analysis that the attempt to score the same number of points has proven impossible in the post-OT era to definitively replicate, given that the experiments tend to last unto infinity, and the inherent mortality of human life.

First of all, having such an eclectic group of friends speaks highly of a man. Secondly, I refuse to pin much on Hairsin on this game. At any level, with any scheme - when you C gets completely humped - it is a bitch.

Armenians are dynamic, hospitable people, but on NYE they like to hang out in clubs and pick fights, usually for perceived slights involving their Affliction shirts or unibrow.

Անցնել, մինչեւ վերջ իմ ետեւ.

First, all/most of my NYEs growing up were playing board games at church or at a friend’s house, so I grew up kind of liking it. We had some people over to our house this year to do the same. Except we only played until 9:30 because we all have young children who were screaming by 9:00. Still pretty fun.

The best thing about the Texas O is that it got better as the game wore on. The 1st Q was trash. The 2nd Q was okay. the 2nd half was acceptable. Just as a gut feel I would bet our ypc in the 2nd half was around 5. Harsin is the best playcaller all the time, but at least he is picking from more that 4-5. I am optimistic on the OL next year just because all these underclassmen should get stronger. Some of Espinosa’s problems with the NG was being out of position, so hopefully an extra year of practice will help that is well. OL play is all about nuance, which should get better with practice.

David Ash looked like a real QB in the 2nd half. Once he can think about more than just “don’t turn the ball over” while playing he might actually be accurate as well. At this point that is his main problem though accuracy. I have a wait and see attitude which is more than I had after Baylor. 9-11 regular season wins is my expectation in 2012. I was thinking 7-9 wins this year.

I predicted 7-5 last year, but then again I’m the cynical pragmatist. Given our schedule next year, all we have to do is have a deep threat and we go 10 wins. It’s that simple. Ash needs a full offseason of meaningful practice. He’s improved in ALL areas of play.

Seeing the deep ball connections is critical. Again, I’ll reiterate, with a deep threat, we go 10 wins with a BCS bowl bid. See ya next year Scip. Great stuff as always.

Quickly revisiting my (I thought) faint praise of Dana Holgorsen - while trying, and failing, to not slip into speling notsie mode over the apparent lack of ability (two for two in the responses, both different) to simply copy the man’s name…

Do I really think Holgo might’ve done a better job with our O than Harsin? Well… not necessarily, but I think it’s certainly possible that it coulda woulda shoulda happened… so that’s a Definite Maybe. It’s not really arguable in any meaningful sense. Ehhh, whatever - it is possible to admire one without denigrating the other.

The only reason I mentioned it at all is that I thought last year (okay, late 2010) that Holgo was a better choice, and I was disappointed when Mack turned him down, and that he did so for what I consider the wrong reasons. Personally, given the stories about his off-the-field adventures, I probably have more in common with him than with Harsin, so that’s part of the equation. The deciding factor in my evaluation - whether you give a shit or not, and whether you agree or not - was that we’d just seen Harsin take over for Petersen and continue the already-successful BSU program (and probably with a lot of input and assistance from his HC), while Holgorsen had moved from Tech to Houston to Okie Lite with success at all three - the latter seemed to me to be a much better indicator that he would be more likely to be able to step into DKR and make chocolate cake out of the steaming piles of shit to be found there.

All that being said (or at least typed - I still haven’t gotten Dragon to do the speech-to-text thing with enough accuracy and ease to warrant serious use), I am not hugely disappointed in what Harsin accomplished - our offense was at least respectable for the most part and showed signs of marked improvement,, and not outright incompetent and pathetic. It woulda been nice if the wrong injuries hadn’t happened, and we could’ve returned to the Ten Win Standard of Mack… but, it’s a little embarrassing to STILL have only the “it was the injuries” argument to fall back on.

Watching WVU pile up touchdown after touchdown on a Clemson team that we would’ve been unlikely to score double digits on (if the Dago Bowl is any indicator) just kinda made me think about what mighta been. On the other hand, our fighting Manny Men likely would’ve held Clemson a good bit better in check than WVU did… and possibly scored some for us, too.

I suspect that if WVU does get all the contractual horseshit outta the way and slide smoothly into our Missouri slot (no homo), we’re going to be looking at the need to score a whole lot more like our KU and Tech games than like the last five or six. Maybe Geno Smith was just Colt McVince Junior, but somehow I have a feeling that - like the Pirate - Holgo will just hand the keys to the next thrower and keep pumping out the points. Hopefully, Harsin will do likewise and we can look forward to some AlamoBowlish hundred and twenty-odd points shootouts.

Bottom line: Holgorsen was my first choice, when we replaced GDGD, but Harsin was a very close second. I’m not unhappy about how it played out, but we’re still allowed to dream.

Okay, so… not “quickly”.

If Mack had picked Holgerson last year chances are he’d have gone Jerry Gray on us a few weeks later or we’d be looking for another OC right now.

Tex Long - I submitted that response before I saw your last one.

Arriveste, good point but actually I was referring to good spread offenses like blowu and Osu, not the poor copies other teams tried. I think we were 0 for all against the good ones.

NYE is so lame that I make it a point to choose to serve my annual holiday on-call obligation on New Years Eve/Day. Didn’t even miss a single bowl game this year.

I don’t think I ever recovered from the hype and resultant catatonia of Millenium New Years. I was a post-call resident in North Carolina when I hopped a transcontinental flight to LAX on 12/31/99. The plan was for me to be picked up by a female friend in order to reach a ranch near Joshua Tree owned by one of the band members of Ween. Her attempting to speed through LA in a grand cherokee was about the time I realized the mushrooms she had eaten hot tubbing back at the ranch hadn’t worn off, and when I realized I hadn’t eaten a meal since sunrise on the east coast. After feeding on a keg in the sand with some Dutch bikers with great anticipation of the night to come, my Kreb’s cycle reminded me who wins that shell game. In an unintended and very abrupt fashion, I was Y2k-sted. The final pre-stupor chapter involved me dropping one of my wool gloves into the tank of a makeshift outhouse. Choosing to wander off into the desert in the dark in search of something to fish it out with was probably more dangerous than stupid. At some point, I realized I was more likely to have a run-in with the ghost of Gram Parsons than find a stick in the desert and made it back to the event wearing a single glove. It didn’t enhance my dance moves any. I was roused at The Momentous Hour by a violent rocking motion from the group who was outside peering through the windows at me hugging my duffel in the back seat of the jeep. It certainly signaled the end of one era as far as I was concerned.

The Holiday Day bowl win was a great way to end the year, and beyond X’s and O’s, it’s a mark that the team is back to having fun again and puts a stamp on the recovery from the bottomless collapse of a year ago. Onward and Upward !

I think we were 0 for all against the good ones.

Texas A&M was a top 10 offensive team by most adjusted metrics, and Texas Tech’s was in the top quartile, so…no.

A foot of snow and sub freezing temperatures tends to put a damper on the garage festivities.

Fuck you and your moderate winter climes.

Moderate winter?! It was 70 degrees and BREEZY! I had to wear a jacket, and it was rapidly dropping in to the mid 60s!! We almost started a fire with the beer pong table to survive.

Is it wrong that the bride and I spent New Year’s in an apartment with two Russians, four Osetians and two Armenians, drinking vodka toasts until 5 a.m.? And had a very good time doing it? (By the by: After about the 17th toast - which involves throwing back a shot of vodka - you can actually understand Russian even if you’ve never heard or spoken it in your life.)

“he was darted in the 3rd quarter by a Bigfoot researcher and weighed on a field scale as Mexican bats picked garlic fries from his beard.”

Oh, that’s why all my Bigfoot Search websites are blowing up about Bigfoot’s newly discovered habit of breaking down game film and the expansion of the search to near college stadiums on gamedays.

NYE is for the birds, so I took it off. Went wheels up 6:00 am Jan 1 straight to the Bellagio and watched every game football game from the Cowboys debacle on in that Sports Book. Jan 2 is officially my New New Year.

Also changing my name to Snake Papageorgio.

It’s sort of funny that we seem to be divided on Barking Carnival between those who we know are physicians and those who we have no idea what they do.

You may have recognized me at Cover 3. I have a Longhorn tattooed on my forehead and I was barbecuing a lovely couple’s dog on a beaten up old grill in the parking lot.

I’ll miss the weekly ScipioTex posts in the off season. I may never kiss his ring, but I swear by all that is wholly holy that I will never eat that man’s dog.

I swear by all that is wholly holy that I will never eat that man’s dog.

I would never swear wholly on that matter. Twelve-dollar-a-gallon gas, and the Boiled Dog recipe starts looking better.

Clearly, you weren’t invited to the [REDACTED] or you’d already be aware that - although it is a mite greasy - most dog meat is fairly tasty in a stew, especially those pampered domestic ones sporting all the neotenistic (or paedomorphic if you prefer Happy-Valleyisms) characteristics… coyote tends to be pretty stringy and tough.

I like to use greasy mites as a garnish.

I like to use greasy mites as a garnish.

An excellent choice, but - to me - they’re better on the roasts, as they tend to get panicky trying to swim in the grease and tickle the eater’s innards. Shaking the mites out of the pelts over the roasting fire will burn off the mites’ legs and prevent them scrambling about during your gustation.

I really enjoy reading the articles….Although I couldnt disagree more with anything that has been said about David Ash. He’s at best a 2nd tier quarterback and in no way our future. I have posted this numerous times and I try to watch every game with an open mind. It is really sad that our standards of qb play are not turning it over instead of winning the game. I understand that we are trying to build confidence going into the offseason but at Texas we should strive to have more. I belive that our upside in in Jalen Overstreet at the qb position. I could be wrong and I do not have the inside information that many of you have but he looks the part!!! I am saving this post and will review it in 3 years to see whether I am genious or a blabbering idiot.

hecox -
 
Jalen is more likely to fulfill your dreams as a OLB, SS, jack-of-all-trades special teamer, or oversized WR a la Anquan Boldin.
 
If he turns out to be Denard Robinson, Barking Carnival will give you a writing privilege to mock all of us fiercely. Also, I would be very interested in hearing your stock tips.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/kerry_byrne/01/21/int.ladder/index.html

Every interception thrown by a QB drastically reduces that teams’ chance of victory. Especially in the NFL where there is far less disparity of talent than in college football.

Anyways, as LSU and Bama routinely demonstrate, if you avoid turnovers on offense and have a team comprised of top-tier talent you are going to find yourself in the win column far more often than not.
A QB who throws for less yardage and fewer TD’s will still help his team more than a guy who turns it over 2 or 3 times en route to a 400 yard day.

I resemble that remark.

Click for photos of my jewels!

A QB who throws for less yardage and fewer TD’s will still help his team more than a guy who turns it over 2 or 3 times en route to a 400 yard day.

Fuck you and your made up stats

That may be true. But did she manage to pull off the swindle of the century by swapping Scipio Tex $9 for a $20 bill? That’s $11 in pure profit, beeyotches!

CHARGE IT 2 DA GAME!

Thanks for the analysis Scip. Gonna miss these in the upcoming months. They helped me keep up with everything when I’m on location and miss the games.
My NYE wasn’t nearly as bad as y’alls. Went to my girl’s family ranch, drank vast quantities of moonshine, and ate fantastic menudo. Her cousin tripped on a cow pie, and promptly passed out in the pasture after a bit too much airline fuel. 2 of his uncles came over, removed the .45 from his belt loop, unchambered the round and dropped the clip. Both were put in his pocket, the empty .45 back in the belt, and he was carried to a shed with hay in it. NO one even blinked. This is apparently normal behavior. Yeah, I’ll take South Tx over Dallas every day of the week.
Looking forward to next season, a killer D, and some improved fun on O.
Hook em!

No WTF throws??? Let the sunshine in, face it with a grin. Smilers never lose, and frowners never win. Did we watch the same game?

People need to give Ash a chance. He didn’t redshirt and was fourth in practice snaps distribution until the second game of the season, and even then he was limited to running a defined QB option attack with a few PA passes until OU. As a true freshmen. Try something similar with any other position on the field and let me know how that works out for you.

He may not be the answer, but he deserves an offseason to prove he’s no longer a question mark.

Oh, and NYE is the classic Mcholiday.

The Bishop -
 
I don’t define a WTF throw as an incompletion. It’s more like a pass bouncing off of a LBs hands, with no receiver to be seen.

(staring at feet, kicking rocks around)

Cover 3 huh. That sounds cool. I mean, it would have been… you know…. I mean, I wasn’t busy or anything that night, so much. That’s all I’m saying. Just sayin’.

someone’s feeling sorry

Some fooken eejit wrote:

No WTF throws???

What is it you think you saw? Link to video, with quarter/time positionn down/distance or whatever ya got and explanation of reasoning for WTF.

I wasn’t busy or anything that night, so much.

Obviously you were too busy to read the Secret Email… or is your Barking Carnival Decoder App expired?

I apologize to all Austin area people who didn’t receive the invite. I barely received the invite and I run the shit.

I apologize to all Austin area people who didn’t receive the invite. I barely received the invite and I run the shit.

Why wait for an invitation? Just do what I do - invite yourself. Once you’re there, nobody ever thinks to ask “Who asked BrickHorn to come along?” I just show up and join the group. And, in doing so, I gain the acceptance and nurturing my Tiger mother denied me as a child.

Wow, Qb’s can improve in a months time. Lets consider how much better Ash will be, being # 1 on the rung this spring and in 7 on 7’s. Considering he was #4 and getting very little work until GG bit the dust. Much improvement will be made.

“I get my Wes Anderson movies mixed up.” Now you’re just baiting me into sounding like a movie nerd…since Anderson didn’t direct Election.