SB Nation - Tre' Newton

Anatomy of Stagnation: Second and Short Failures

GhostofBigRoy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:31:17 -0000

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

It doesn't take much imagination to envision a Longhorn guard laying on the ground helplessly as Suh makes this play. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

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The Big Picture

Even though play-action passing has become a much bigger part of the Longhorn offense since the coaching staff decided to uset the 11 personnel package much more often, Greg Davis continues to eschew play-action passes on second and short. The reasons for this are relatively unclear, though the most common belief is that Davis much prefers 1st and 10 to 2nd and 2, causing him to run the ball at an extremely high rate in such situations. In some ways, it's a bit paradoxical, as Davis will often eschew the running game entirely for long stretches and comes under criticism for abandoning the running game at times, with some believing that the running game has suffered over the last few years because Davis would rather pass on every down. Call it Jason Garrett syndrome with a dash of reflexive conservatism, in this case similar to a bad twitch.

Situation 1

Context

On the fifth drive of the game, Texas came out running the football after dropping back for passes on 11 of the first 12 plays (including the first play of the game, the chop block call against Chris Hall. Tre' Newton picked up four yards running power on the first play, Colt McCoy picked up 14 yards on a zone read on the second play, and then Newton picked up eight yards on a jet tempo run, most likely an inside zone play.

The Play

2nd and 2 Texas 36

For the second straight play, the Longhorns rush to the line of scrimmage in their jet tempo look with McCoy under center. Notice how Nebraska is playing this look by Texas -- with two deep safeties to take away big plays downfield on a bootleg, with both linebackers extremely close to the line of scrimmage and the nickel back walked up close to the tackle box to put pressure on McCoy in the event of a bootleg (Nebraska would later force a throwaway on a bootleg with such a look). In other words, Nebraska can effectively cover the two plays that Texas runs out of this look -- the zone play and the bootleg pass. Notice also that Ndamukong Suh is playing a two technique just over the inside shoulder of the guard, Michael Huey.

As Nebraska likely expects because EBS is on the left of the formation, the Texas line blocks left for the inside zone play. Since Suh is on the backside of the play and over the inside shoulder of Huey, there's no double team as the center Chris Hall steps playside. Suh uses his hands better than Huey, who seems to lose his balance as he gets into the big defensive tackle's body. Seemingly within a split second, Suh is into the backfield, forcing Newton to make a quick cut. Hall and Tanner get a good combo block on Crick, driving him back off the line of scrimmage, but Tanner can't get off the block quickly enough to stop the penetration of Dejon Gomes, a cornerback who played linebacker on this play and for much of the game. The violence of the cut Newton must make causes him to lose his balance and he slips well behind the line of scrimmage, losing two yards. The final aspect of the play is that McCoy doesn't execute a bootleg fake to freeze defenders in the secondary.

The Verdict

Clearly, Texas went jet tempo once too often in this sequence and Nebraska was ready for both permutations of the play. In addition, since the defensive tackles knew they were likely facing a zone run, Suh aligned to make it difficult for Huey to block him and that alignemnt allowed him a head start in shooting the gap. In addition, Huey used his hands extremely poorly on the play, letting Suh get into his body and then easily into the backfield. The lack of deception on this play allowed the playside "linebacker" Gomes to slice into the backfield before Tanner could get off the combo block.

Basically, the jet tempo might be good for one play to catch a team off guard, but going to it twice in a row, when Nebraska probably only had to spend several minutes scheming for it in practice to shut down the two plays that Texas runs, just won't work against good teams. In other words, to remain effective the jet tempo look must include a new wrinkle every week for which the defense is not prepared or there's very little point to it unless the opponent is Baylor.

The Following Play

As a result, the Longhorns go from 2nd and 2 to 3rd and 4, an obvious passing down for Texas. McCoy actually gets good protection on the play and has a chance to look downfield before checking down to Newton flaring into the flat. The Nebraska linebacker reads the play and hits Newton as the ball arrives for a loss of four yards. The Longhorns magically turn 2nd and 2 into 4th and 8. Impressive.

Situation 2

Context

Following Aaron Williams' interception in the end zone, the Longhorns move the chains by converting a third down on a crossing route to Jordan Shipley, one of the few times this season that Texas has been able to pick up first down yardage with a route that was extremely successful last season. Dan Buckner stays in the game at flex tight end and McCoy hits him on a pivot route inside for an eight-yard gain on first down.

The Play

2nd and 2 Texas 41

The Longhorns go with their 11 personnel package, bringing EBS into the game. Could it possibly signal a running play? Stay tuned. Notice that Nebraska stays with two deep safeties on the play, confident that they can win the six-on-six battle in the box.

Davis calls for the zone read. The read man stays at home, telling McCoy to give the ball. The Texas offensive line manages to control the Nebraska defensive tackles on the play, but neither David Snow nor Charlie Tanner get off their combo blocks in time to stop the linebackers slicing through the gaps. It's a race to the ballcarrier and Dejon Gomes wins, stopping Newton for no gain.

The Verdict

The substitution pattern here clearly signals a run and the Texas tendencies support it. A play-action pass would seem like a good play call, but there are two safeties deep on the play -- clearly the Huskers feel like they can stop the Texas running game with a minimum of help from the secondary. Rather than a problem with the playcalling in this specific intance, because the zone read is a good call, as it options off a defender and allows three combo blocks on the line of scrimmage, the problem is one of execution.

The failure of this play falls on the offensive line, as neither Tanner, Snow, nor Adam Ulatoski are able to get off their blocks to even contact either linebacker. David Snow had a terrible game and this play is just one example -- his failure here is no surprise. Charlie Tanner had the most difficult combo block, as he was essentially one-on-one with Jared Crick for several steps before being able to hand him off to Hall, by which point it was too late. Ulatoski is perhaps a bigger culprit than Tanner, as he could have gotten off his block with EBS much more quickly to attempt to at least slow down Gomes.

As it has been often this season, the major problem here is execution by the offensive line. They have nearly every advantage that a line could hope for in this situation -- the play options off a defender from an even match up in the box in the first place, allowing the line three combo blocks. The inability to run against a six-man box with a defender optioned off with six linemen is just pathetic. It doesn't get any easier than that in football.

The Following Play

Texas substitutes for EBS, bringing Dan Buckner back in the game and splitting out Tre' Newton. Nebraska doesn't have the personnel package they want on the field and run off a player late. Instead of hiking the ball and running the play against a defense that is confused and isn't set, McCoy allows the Huskers to call a timeout, essentially bailing them out.

Following the stop in play, the Longhorns opt for the 11 personnel package, them motion James Kirkendoll into a stack with Jordan Shipley. It's a max protection roll out with essentially two players out in the route (Malcolm Williams on the other side of the field gets an inside release and heads straight downfield) and Nebraska takes them away with four defenders, leading to a coverage sack and the injury to McCoy's left wrist. Suh and others knock McCoy into the Nebraska sideline while the Texas offensive linemen walk dejectedly across the field to the Texas sideline like a group of whipped puppies. Not a single one goes to help their quarterback.

Situation 3

Context

The Longhorn defense held Nebraska to a field goal following the long punt return by Niles Paul, but the poor call on Marquise Goodwin's slip near the end zone pinned Texas against their own goalline. Though the coaching staff finally decided to eschew a long-developing I-formation run on the first play, choosing to sneak instead, Davis reprised his bad habit by calling such a play on second down and Suh nearly caused a safety. Fortunately, McCoy completed a third-down pass to Shipley and later completed two more passes for Malcolm Williams for big first downs, the second coming on 3rd and 16. On the next play, a quarterback draw picked up eight yards.

The Play

2nd and 2 Nebraska 42

The Longhorns stay in their 11 personnel package from the previous play with Dan Buckner in the flex tight end position. Nebraska plays the single linebacker to the strong side of the formation, while walking a safety up towards the line of scrimmage, indicating a blitz.

It's the counter read play of WildHorn fame (infamy?), except run this time without a tight end, though the lack of a tight end isn't a problem in the scheme, as the defensive end is optioned off. On this play, the end stays at home, giving McCoy a give read. The play has a chance for success and may in fact go for a big gain if Suh doesn't blow it up, except for the blitzing linebacker on the play, who happens to run right into Newton as McCoy makes the handoff, leading to a two-yard loss.

The Verdict

It's easy to blame Davis for this play, as he seemed to get a little too cute in this situation by calling a running play from a formation the Longhorns probably haven't run out of since the Oklahoma or Colorado game -- there was a reason the coaching staff abandoned any and all 10 personnel running plays. No one provides an extra blocking surface like Greg Smith, basically. The Longhorns really have good match ups on the line of scrimmage though because the play options off a defender -- it just seems like poor luck that Nebaska happened to be blitzing on the play. In terms of the defense anticipating the call, there's little chance of that since the Longhorns hadn't run this play from this personnel grouping probably at all this season.

The Following Play

The Longhorns go five wide on 3rd and 4 and run a double slant concept with Jordan Shipley and Goodwin on the weak side. It's the same play that scored the touchdown against Oklahoma and it works again here, as the safety goes with Shipley and Goodwin gets enough separation to make a tough catch on a ball thrown behind him a bit and pick up a big first down to continue the drive.

The Final Verdict

The fact that the Longhorns only had three second-and-short opportunities in the entire game speaks to poor production on first down, while the complete lack of success on second and short illustrates a combination of poor execution, poor playcalling, and bad luck. The three plays combined lost a total of four yards and led to difficult third-down conversions each time, with Texas only converting one of the three, which is completely unacceptable.

On the first play, the call was relatively beyond reproach, but the execution of the offensive line was terrible. Given the opportunity for three combo blocks, none of the three offensive linemen got off their blocks to get to the second level, allowing both linebackers to slice into the backfield and stop the play for a loss. The scheme doesn't exactly make things easy for the linemen, but the fact is that a ton of teams in college football run the zone read and the good ones consistently execute the play at a much higher level than Texas. Despite the abject failure of this play, it was one of the least egregious examples of the type of terrible execution and individual suckitude that characterized an experienced line that should be much better than this. One would think.

Also unacceptable is the fact that the Longhorns didn't take any shots downfield on any of the three plays -- most analysts and fans know that such situations are the best time for calling play-action passes. Greg Davis seems to have a different philosophy than most in these circumstances -- he just wants to move the chains as quickly as possible to get another set of downs. Perhaps that would be acceptable if his choice of plays actually picked up the first down instead of moving backwards.

Davis also deserves criticisms for not staying with the advances in the zone read. Many times now make it a triple option play, incorporating a bubble screen on the outside of the play, giving defenses more to think about it and making it more difficult to cover. In college football, it's not necessary to be on the leading edge of innovation, but simply to keep up with and copy and integrate successful plays. One of the problems is that Davis simply isn't doing that enough. It's not about trying to incorporate everything and putting in too many plays at the risk of execution, it's about adding things that can easily be integrated like the bubble screen on the zone read, which would only require a handful of repetitions to install.

Afternooon Brewsky Is Long-Winded

GhostofBigRoy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:33:15 -0000

More photos » by Erich Schlegel - AP

Your Flavor of the Week at running back: Tre' Newton.

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Flavor of the Week at running back: Tre' Newton. It's been quite a season for this feature -- numerous running backs stepping into and out of the starting role in the Texas offense, but never able to hang onto the job. In all, my biggest regret is not giving Jamison Berryhill the Flavor of the Week Award after his performance against UTEP -- I just couldn't do it because of his fumble. Just in the last month and a half, Fozzy Whittaker looked like he earned himself the job with a strong game against Oklahoma, then it looked like Whittaker and Johnson were a strong one-two punch before Johnson carried 19 times for only the second 100-yard rushing game of the season against Baylor. Then, Johnson had a mediocre eight carries for 15 yards against Kansas and perhaps the coaches felt like his coming into the game too strongly signalled a running play -- probably because it did. Combined with his lack of ability to split out in the passing game and Johnson fell by the wayside with Vondrell McGee and Whittaker, carrying the ball only once against A&M.

The star of that game at running back was Tre' Newton, who received his first extended action since the Texas Tech game against Baylor when he broke off a 45-yard touchdown run and then came back with 12 carries for 66 yards and three catches for 36 yards against Kansas. Fully recovered from his concussion, Newton showed the ability that had some calling him the perfect fit for the Texas scheme after his strong performances against Wyoming and Tech early in the season.

What is it about Newton that makes him so valuable to his team? Perhaps his most valuable skill is his ability to pick up the blitz. It's obvious at this point that Texas is a passing team first and foremost, sprinkling in just enough running to keep the defense honest at times. Newton has been as good picking up the blitz as he was advertised to be in the spring -- his work in that respect by have been the most underrated part of the Texas win on Thursday, as he did not appear to miss an assignment at all during the game. At a solid 6-0, 200 pounds, Newton has the build that Whittaker does not to pick up blitzing linebackers and stop them in their tracks.

Combined with his blitz pick up abilities, Newton can also catch the ball, as he showed against Kansas, but there is still room for growth in that area and it will probably have to happen with Garrett Gilbert because McCoy clearly does not have the same trust with Newton that he did with Chris Obgonnaya, hardly surprising since Newton has gotten little work with the first team, while McCoy worked with Ogbonnaya for three years.

Running the football, he's hardly spectacular, but he has an excellent sense of when to be patient and when to hit the hole hard, as evidenced by his 16 carries for 107 yards and touchdown, only the third 100-yard game by a Texas back this season. What sets him apart from Fozzy Whittaker is his vision -- where Whittaker tries to bounce everything outside, which probably cost him his job, Newton doesn't get caught stretching plays horizontally when he can get up the field. And while he isn't the fastest running back around, he hasn't been caught from behind and his size makes his speed somewhat deceptive, which is just about as effective for blowing up angles as is a pure, 4.4 burst. After the Baylor game, Mack Brown probably expressed it as well as anyone could -- he said that Newton simply plays fast in pads, he has football speed.

It also looks like Newton has a nice stiff arm, as well:

That stiff arm delivered to an Aggie defender segues into the next point -- since Newton doesn't necessarily have breakaway speed, he does have to break some tackles, which he accomplishes by running with good pad level and finishing by driving his legs. He's a tough guy to bring down, as several Aggies got taken for a ride late in the game (with an assist from EBS):

In other words, Newton is basically a bigger, faster, stronger version of Chris Ogbonnaya and that's an excellent sign for the future of the running back position.

Return of the zone read. While Colt McCoy picked up some serious yardage on scrambles and quarterback draws, his Heisman moment on Thursday night came on his 65-yard touchdown run on a zone read, that staple under Vince Young that McCoy struggled running early in his career because he wasn't making the proper reads and was rarely used this season as the coaches sought to protect their star quarterback. Well, it's back and in a big way.

At least for the Texas A&M game, that is. It's hard to say how effective it will remain for a major reason -- the Aggies didn't seem prepared for it. During the game, they eventually adjusted by having the read man get upfield and force the handoff, but Nebraska and Florida/Alabama if the Longhorns win on Saturday may use the now tried-and-true technique of forcing the quarterback to keep the ball by crashing the read man down the line of scrimmage, then scraping a linebacker to that side to cover the quarterback -- basically the way that teams stop the zone read these days.

Doing that, however, may take a scraping linebacker out of the play on the straight inside zone, which could open up holes for the running back and allow a lineman to even get to the third level of the defense. Basically, running the zone read should open up the running game for Texas because the defense has to decide where to commit resources -- to stopping the running back or stopping McCoy by scraping a linebacker and leaving the Longhorns with even better numbers on the inside zone.

Here's a perfect example from the A&M game -- obviously the Aggies were caught off guard with the zone read, most likely just thinking the Longhorns were running the inside zone, but adjusted at halftime by sending the read man upfield to force a handoff:

The read man on the play gets upfield, giving McCoy a give read. The Aggie player on the right end of the line of scrimmage runs himself out of the play for some reason, perhaps concerned with McCoy, while the offensive line does an excellent job of sustaining their blocks and getting to the second level to take out the linebackers. It's a perfect example of how the threat of McCoy running can open up the running game -- Newton picked up 20 yards on this play extremely easily.

if teams get lazy and forget about McCoy, the Texas quarterback will gash them for big plays with his feet. If teams focus too much on McCoy, it opens up the inside zone for Tre' Newton. In other words, using McCoy in the running game is the best way for Texas to run the ball consistently and with him becoming a threat in recent weeks, it puts a ton of pressure on the defense and elevates the Longhorn running game from inconsistent and sporadic to a serious threat.

Malcolm Williams continues his emergence. Rivals has a scouting report ($) up from an opposing Big 12 coach about the Longhorns, from the context probably an Oklahoma coach because he talks about being physical with Shipley and Texas not having another dangerous receiver. Clearly, that coach hasn't watched the Longhorns over the last several weeks as Malcolm Williams and James Kirkendoll have emerged as excellent no. 2 and no. 3 options for McCoy. Of course, the same coach also said that McCoy "doesn't look like a substantial guy," so he clearly doesn't really know what he's talking about. Have you seen his guns the last two years, dude? The guy is ripped and has been for some time.

The bigger point here is that Texas is at a much different point right now with their receiving corps than they were a month and a half ago after playing Oklahoma, a game in which every receiver other than Marquise Goodwin had a bad day and Goodwin even made a huge mistake late by going behind the defender on a slant. Since then, Williams has accounted for 27 of his 35 catches, 411 of his 494 yards and both of his touchdowns. In the last two games, Williams has caught 15 passes for 235 yards and a touchdown -- nearly half of his receiving yards on the entire season and the second and third games of his career with more than 100 yards receiving. So, for that coach who hasn't been paying attention -- check out what Malcolm Williams has been doing, because it's pretty impressive.

More than pure numbers, though, Williams has opened up the Texas offense by providing a threat down the field, as well as a physical presence in the short passing game who has the ability to break a tackle and pick up big yardage. On one play in the second quarter, the Aggies failed to put a safety over the top of Williams and tried to jam him with Justin McQueen. As soon as McCoy saw him walking up on Williams, he pointed and made eye contact with his big receiver, perhaps making a sight adjustment on the play. Williams did an excellent job using his hands to get the inside release and then ran by McQueen, catching the pass at the first-down marker and accelerating downfield.

The play would have gone for a 75-yard touchdown had McQueen not made a shoestring tackle on Williams to limit him to a 28-yard gain. A productive play, but one that ended up essentially costing the Longhorns points because they were not able to score on the drive -- had Williams recognized that McQueen was right behind him and done something that a lot of running backs do well in chopping his feet high and hard, he might have broken the tackle and scored on the play.

Even with that small complaint, the play illustrates just how close Williams is to breaking big plays consistently. In fact, had McCoy hit him on several targeted deep passes, the Garland product and former track star may have easily eclipsed 200 yards receiving on the day -- it's clear that he and McCoy aren't quite on the same page consistently on deep passes. Part of the problem is that Williams seems to get caught up in hand fighting with defensive backs instead of trusting his speed to get him downfield, something that has caused McCoy to overthrow him twice in the last two weeks on plays that could have gone for touchdowns. If the Longhorns can get past Nebraska this week, then McCoy and Williams will have a little more than a month to get ready for a national championship game and connecting on deep passes. With how far they have come in a month and a half, that extra time could lead to some big plays even against good defenses like Alabama and Florida.

One key for McCoy might be to not try to lead Williams so much, but rather to make sure that he has a chance to make a play on the ball, even if he has to slow down to do so. Slight underthrows also make it more likely that a defensive back will interfere with the play and though that isn't as big in college football as it is in the NFL, 15 yards is still much more helpful to a drive than an incomplete pass. A perfect example of his came on the first drive of the third quarter when the Longhorns tried a play-action pass off their jet tempo look -- McCoy had some pressure in his face and had to get rid of the ball a little early, but overthrew Williams to the inside instead of giving him a chance to make a play on the ball.

Tracking: special teams play. For the second straight week, covering kicks was an abject disaster. The first problem is that unless he has some wind behind him or is in the thin air of Wyoming, Justin Tucker can't seem to put the ball in the end zone, forcing the Texas coverage kickoff unit to cover every single kick. The reasons for the other problems -- failing to fill lanes, missing tackles, not getting off blocks -- are harder to explain, but they need to get fixed and soon.

Virtually everyone on both the kickoff coverage unit and the kickoff return unit are to blame for the poor performace against the Aggies. Outside of the touchdown return from Goodwin, the Longhorns averaged a paltry 15 yards per return on the first six Aggie kicks -- that's a terrible average that would rank dead last in the country over the course of a season.

Here's a look at each kickoff return:

1st return: An Aggie player comes completely free from the right edge of the Texas return team, while Aaron Smith and Malcolm Williams both fail to get blocks inside. Shipley never has a chance on his 13-yard return.
2nd return: A high, short kick by the Aggies gives the coverage excellent time to get down the field. Goodwin fields the ball at the 14 yardline and heads up behind the wedge of Eddie Jones, Aaron Smith. and Antwan Cobb. The blocks are good initially, but as Goodwin tries to get arond Jones' man, the Aggie defender disengages and makes the play. If Jones could have help the block longer and done a better job of sealing the defender inside, the return might go for a big play. However, it was destined to come back because Kenny Vaccaro absolutely tackled his man on the right side of the unnecessarily.
3rd return: Another high, short kick by the Aggies field at the 14 by Goodwin and the wedge never forms because Aaron Smith gets absolutely blown up and Nolan Brewster gets beat on the edge, keeping Goodwin from getting quickly upfield. He does manage to take the corner and picks up 22 yards, a good return on this evening.
4th return: Goodwin fields the ball at the 6 and heads upfield, but has no chance to get up into the wedge because Nolan Brewster misses his block on the edge so badly that the Aggie hits Goodwin in the legs at the 16, a tackle the speedster escapes before he gets hit on the left side of the field at the 22 by an Aggie who was unblocked on the play. Had the blocking been better on the edges, Goodwin still wouldn't have had much of a chance, as Cody Johnson missed his block and Aaron Smith didn't manage to block anyone. The Longhorns start at the 22 after a 16-yard return.
5th return: This was a really bad play for the Texas running backs. Cody Johnson misses a block in the wedge that forces Goodwin outside after his catch at the 2 yardline, while both Fozzy Whittaker and Jeremy Hills miss blocks on the right side of the return. Kenny Vaccaro also misses his block early in the coverage, so basically everything on the right side broke down. Goodwin bounces it outside left, then tries to cut back, eventually getting to the 17. Unfortunately, Hills, in his attempt to get back into the block, gets a cheap, unnecessary block in the back call at the end of the play that didn't even help Texas. The Longhorns end up backed up inside their own 10.
6th return: Goodwin catches the ball at the 3 yardline, then heads upfield into the wedeg. Oh wait, there is no wedge on this play because Cody Johnson and Aaron Smith both fail to block the single Aggie coming at them. Guess who eventually collapses the play? Yeah, that guy who didn't get blocked. Goodwin gets 19 yards out to the 22.
7th return: Ah yes -- the seventh time is the charm, apparently. This time, Cody Johnson and Aaron Smith knock down an Aggie trying to split their block, then keep him on the ground. On the other side of the wedge, Eddie Jones blocks one Aggie, while getting in the way of another -- looks like one of them got out of their lane pretty badly to allow that to happen, while Vondrell McGee walls off another Aggie behind Jones. Meanwhile, Nolan Brewster gets an excellent block on the edge, despite getting a hand to his throat and facemask. An unblocked Aggie comes from the right edge, but Goodwin blows up his angle with his speed, as the Aggie slips trying to make the tackle. At this point, Goodwin is up in the wedge with a beautiful running lane and needs only to get a block from Malcolm Williams and beat the kicker. Williams overruns the last Aggie in hole, but recovers to get a piece of him as Goodwin sprints by. Now, it's just Goodwin and a short, fat, dumpy kicker in the open field. Goodwin cruises for the last 30 yards of his game-changing 95-yard touchdown return, the 11th non-offensive touchdown for the Longhorns this season.

It's hard to say that the return unit made up for the consistently poor blocking the rest of the game with one good effort, but considering how much that one play changed the game, it's probably not out of line to say that. However, it doesn't excuse the poor effort by some of the same players on the coverage unit, particularly Kenny Vaccaro. A special teams standout since the Oklahoma State game, Vaccaro had by far his worst game as a Longhorn, with only one good block that was close to being a hold on kickoff, while committing another holding penalty and a late-hit personal foul on the return after Goodwin's touchdown when he jumped way late into Ryan Swopes and the two Longhorns pushing him out of bounds.

Vaccaro clearly walks a fine line between playing with near-reckless abandon and playing out of control. Against the Aggies, he was clearly out of control and he needs to reign himself in if he wants to keep playing on special teams because both of those penalties were extremely harmful to the field position in the game -- after his personal foul, the Aggies started their drive at the Texas 36 yardline, an extremely short field. Add in the penalty on Jeremy Hills and the special teams accounted for three of the six Longhorn penalties on the evening.

In the punting game, Justin Tucker was adequate, averaging just over 43 yards on his two kicks and Colt McCoy continued his streak of killing the ball inside the 20 on his pooch punts, punting for 33 yards and pinning the Aggies inside their own 8 yardline. The Longhorns also ran a fake punt, hiking the ball to Antwan Cobb, who pitched it to Malcolm Williams, who ran the option with Justin Tucker. The Aggie forced the pitch and Tucker got within two yards of the marker, but Nolan Brewster missed his block and Keenan Robinson could get not outside fast enough to get his block. The timing and position on the field of the call were questionable, but the Longhorns would have made it if it had only been 4th and 4 instead of 4th and 6 or possibly if Brewster could have made his block.

The special teams has disturbingly trended downward throughout the latter part of the season, as the kickoff return game has stalled at times, Jordan Shipley has fumbled twice, Justin Tucker's punting has been inconsistent, and the kickoff coverage has cratered over the last two weeks, giving up around 25 yards per return, which would put them in the bottom seven in the country over the course of a whole season. As it is, ranking 63rd in the country, right behind North Texas and Ball State, is hardly something to brag about. The Longhorns have some serious work to do if they can escape the Big 12 championship game against Nebaska before they move on to a possible national championship game, as both Florida and Alabama both rank in the top 15 in kickoff returns and Alabama ranks sixth in punt returns.

Tracking: third-down conversions. The Longhorns rank second this year in converting third downs, picking up nearly 48% of their attempts. Against the Aggies, Texas was slightly below their season average in conversions at 42% or five of 12.

Here's a look at each third down:

3rd and 11 Texas A&M 41: Texas A&M brings a linebacker, a safety, and a standup end or linebacker and though the Texas offensive line mostly holds up well, Adam Ulatoski allows enough pressure on McCoy and the coverage downfield is good enough that he has to throw the ball short of the first-down marker to Jordan Shipley for a five-yard gain. The Longhorns ran their unsucessful fake punt attempt on the next play and came up short.
3rd and 10 Texas 45: After dropping back to pass and scanning the field without finding a receiver open, McCoy heads heads towards the line of scrimmage and pumps fakes one A&M defender before breaking the tackle of another to get close to the first-down marker. The Longhorns sneak the ball on fourth and short to pick up the fourth down -- the third-down scramble doesn't go down as a conversion, but basically works as such since the Longhorns couldn't have gone for it and fourth and long.
3rd and 5 Texas A&M 40: The Longhorns line up in 10 personnel with Buckner as the flex tight end. A&M brings a blitz from the defensive back lined up over Buckner and there isn't a safety close enough to stop Buckner after McCoy finds him on a short route over the middle. Buckner does a nice job of planting his foot and making one defender miss to pick up 12 yards on the play.
3rd and 2 Texas 35: Ah yes, the Heisman moment: Texas lines up in 11 personnel and the Aggies bring a blitz from the weakside. McCoy does an excellent job of waiting just long enough for a defender coming free from his left to get too far upfield, while another defender coming on the blitz bites hard on the running back. Adam Ulatoski and Charlie Tanner both get good blocks and then McCoy simply outruns two defensive backs to the end zone for a 65-yard touchdown.
3rd and 4 Texas A&M 41: This is the possession where Malcolm Williams nearly broke the short pass for a long touchdown, but got taken down from behind. McCoy drops back and scans the field, then checks down to Tre' Newton over the middle, who can't hand onto the catch just short of the marker -- the only real mistake from Newton on the evening. Had he caught the ball, the Longhorns might have gone for it just over midfield. The second-down play also led to the lack of a third-down conversion, as McCoy misfired on a short pass that Shipley couldn't hang onto that would have been about a yard and half short, setting up an easier third down.
3rd and 8 Texas 39: The Longhorns are in 10 personnel with Buckner as the flex tight end. The Aggies blitz and Williams runs a hitch, pushing McQueen well off the ball, then using his superior size and a stiff arm to get the last several yards to pick up the first down. A perfect example of the physical dominance Williams possesses over 95% of college cornerbacks.
3rd and 8 Texas A&M 50: This looks like almost the exact same play as the previous third down: the Aggies blitz and McCoy hits Williams on a hitch. This time, McQueen does a better job of making the tackle and Williams appears to be inches short, but gets a poor spot nearly a yard from the first-down marker. The Longhorns go to the quick-snap sneak one time too many and get stopped -- it would have been a perfect time for the Jumbo package.
3rd and 1 Texas A&M 13: Chris Fowler calls this a zone read on the broadcast, but it's really power, with Davis Snow pulling into the hole and picking up a good block for Tre' Newton, who picks up six yards on the play.
3rd and 8 Texas 22: Aganst an 11 personnel look from the Longhorns, the Aggies bring both linebackers and though Tre' Newton does an adequate job of picking one up, the defender collapses the pocket, forcing McCoy to step up into the rush of a defensive tackle who knocked Charlie Tanner onto his back and Von Miller, who used a nice inside move that knocked Ulatoski off balance. McCoy is sacked for a loss of six yards.
3rd and 10 Texas 8: This one really comes down to poor plays on first and second down. On first down, Williams dropped what would have been a five or six yard gain, making playcalling on the next two downs much easier. Then, on second down, McCoy gets himself in trouble by stepping up in the pocket, which helps a defensive lineman disengage and nearly takes a safety before overthrowing Malcolm Williams downfield. On third down, the Longhorns go to empty and the Aggies drop nine into coverage to take away any scrambles by McCoy, who forces a pass to a covered Buckner and overthrows him on the play.
3rd and 12 Texas A&M 47: This is the touchdown pass to James Kirkendoll. See here for analysis.
3rd and 7 Texas A&M 50: This is the final play of the game -- victory formation for the Longhorns.

Taking out the final play and putting the two fourth-down sneak attempts in, the Longhorns finished at 46% for the game, close to their season average. The major blemishes were the two three and outs in the third quarter, which had more to do with more plays on first and second down than poor playcalling or execution on third down. Those two drives illustrate just how important it is to pick up yardage on first and second down -- this is why Greg Davis doesn't mind callilng short passes -- two short passes to set up third and short end up being extremely effective. What stands out here is that McCoy targeted Williams on two consecutive third and long plays and Williams converted the first and nearly converted the second, as his size and strength makes him difficult to stop when the cornerback has to respect his ability to go deep.

Anatomy of Momentum: Replying Against A&M

GhostofBigRoy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:19:06 -0000

by Dave Einsel - AP

If Aggies were smarter, they would know that horns go up. Of course, if they were smarter, they might not be Aggies.

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Context

Momentum is a fickle mistress, willing to switch sides at the drop of a hat, to follow the most recent success, to abandon at the first sign of distress, cresting and surging along with a raucous home crowd and abandoning the poor road team in distress. However fickle, though, our lady is, perhaps more than anything, she is ready to abandon a mentally fragile team, whether they are playing at home or not, whether they are going against a meaningless non-conference patsy or playing in the most heated rivalry game. Yes, a fickle mistress indeed.

The Longhorns took a 35-21 lead midway through the third quarter and it looked like momentum was on the side of the road team, with the notoriously fragile psyche of the young Aggie team appearing ready to collapse at any moment. A methodical drive into Texas territory re-energized the crowd and gave the A&M offense confidence again, but an Earl Thomas interception in the end zone threatened once more to swing momentum firmly to the side of the visiting Longhorns, who had a chance to blow the game open. An incomplete pass by Colt McCoy, however, followed by a short run and a sack, killed the Texas drive and gave the ball back to the Aggies. No momentum swing after all.

This time, Jerrod Johnson gashed the defense with his feet on the first play for 38 yards before the Longhorns stiffened to hold the Aggies to a field goal. Three incomplete passes by McCoy on the next series gave the ball right back to the Aggies with great field position, while the home team caught a break by recovering Jordan Pugh's fumble on the return. With the Longhorns defense coming back onto the field after only a short break, momentum was firmly back on the Texas A&M sideline, no doubt ready to make out with a goofy member of the Corps with a bad haircut -- so yes, just about any one of those silly, homely, wanna-be members of the military.* Christine Michael took advantage of poor tackling by the Longhorns to finish the drive with an 18-yard touchdown run and Ryan Tannehill easily beat the coverage of Blake Gideon to convert the two-point play, bringing the Aggies to within 35-32 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. And that would be our fickle mistress getting tongue thrashed on national television by a redneck who was made to drink his own urine the night before as part of ritualistic hazing. And that would be people of taste all over the country vomiting up their turkey onto their living room floor.

After all that, Marquise Goodwin returned the kickoff 19 yards to the Texas 22 with 13:38 left in the game.

*Note: if you want to be like someone in the military, join the military -- dressing up is for little girls.

The Plays

1st and 10 Texas 22

Texas comes out in an empty set on first down with five wide receivers and the camera angle makes it difficult to see who is on the field. Regardless, A&M shows blitz at the line of scrimmage, with six defenders against the five Texas offensive linemen.

McCoy reads blitz prior to the snap and probably decides at that point to go to his hot read, Jordan Shipley on a quick out. Perhaps because the offensive line knows the hot read is to the right side, the protection slides in that direction, leaving the backside defender free, even though A&M drops two of the defenders who showed blitz into coverage in an attempt to take away any hot reads by McCoy in the middle of the field. The backside defending coming free forces a quick and inaccurate pass from McCoy, as the ball hits near Shipley's feet.

2nd and 10 Texas 22

It wasn't a great decision by Greg Davis to start the drive in an empty set that allowed A&M to show blitz and force the quick throw, so Davis takes out a receiver and puts Tre' Newton into the game at running back. Notice that the Aggie defense is still spread out and has only one safety deep in bracket coverage on Malcolm Wiliams at the top of the screen, with the defensive back over Shipley in the slot showing blitz, then retreating into coverage.

The weakside linebacker comes on a delayed blitz, while McCoy drops back showing pass.

McCoy sells the pass well, something he doesn't always do well on quarterback draws, then heads towards the line of scrimmage, while Chris Hall and Charlie Tanner release upfield to block. Michael Huey can't maintain his block and the defensive tackle appears to have a play on McCoy.

Huey ends up releasing his defender just long enough to avoid a holding penalty, then gets him to the ground as McCoy goes by. Chris Hall cut blocks a linebacker in the open field, leaving McCoy with only a defensive back to beat to make a big play.

MCoy takes a glancing blow from the defensive back as three other Aggies converge on him -- perhaps the most underrated part of McCoy's game right now is his combination of strength and balance. There aren't many ways in which comparisons between McCoy and Vince Young are valid, but McCoy's ability to pause and gather himself for a minute to use an opponent's momentum against him is positively Vince Young-esque and it makes McCoy extremely difficult to take down in the open field, as the Aggies learned on Thursday night. Notice as well the fine blocking of Malcolm Williams at the top of the screen.

As McCoy escapes the group of Aggie defenders, there is nothing but open field in front of him for 25-30 yards or more.

Unfortunately, Malcolm Williams works too hard blocking on the play, catching Justin McQueen in the back relatively unnecessarily. On the broadcast, Chris Fowler notes that Williams didn't need to block McQueen at all on the play because he wasn't going to catch McCoy, but that is questionable. In the end, it isn't a terrible block in the back by Williams, as he has one hand on the front of McQueen's shoulder and his other hand barely in McQueen's back -- a good call, but a close one. McCoy gets inside the 25 yardline on the play, which would have made it a 54-yard run by McCoy, but the penalty brings the ball back to the Aggie 45, reducing it to a 43-yard run by the Texas quarterback.

1st and 10 Texas A&M 45

The Longhorns bring EBS onto the field in their 11 personnel package to do what he does best -- provide that nice blocking surface. Of course, bringing him onto the field at this point also telegraphs a run.

The Aggies don't necessarily anticipate the run though, as one of the two deep safeties sells out down the field without even reading his keys. The Longhorns run what looks like the power play (though it isn't blocked like most power plays) they've begun using in recent weeks but that familiar, oft-bumbling duo of Hall and Charlie Tanner rear their ugly heads, as both miss badly on their blocks, leaving two free defenders in the backfield. Newton avoids Tanner's man, but gets forced outside where the pursuit of the Aggie defense stops him for a two-yard loss.

2nd and 12 Texas A&M 47

After the failed running play, the Longhorns bring Dan Buckner back onto the field in an obvious passing situation. Annoyingly, the bottom receiver is not on the screen once again because of the poor angle the cameras have at Kyle Field. Notice that the Aggies have only two down linemen, with Von Miller and another Aggie standing at the line of scrimmage. Notice as well that the linebackers are playing only three yards off of the line of scrimmage.

The reason for the linebackers' proximity to the line of scrimmage becomes immediately apparent -- they're both blitzing. The Longhorn offensive line does a good job of picking up the blitzers, as does Tre' Newton, but the two Texas tackles do a poor job with the speed rushers off the edge, particularly Adam Ultatoski matched against Von Miller, who gets by the big senior before Ulatoski can really even get his hands on him.

McCoy steps up in the pocket and attempts to deliver the pass to Shipley as he gets hit, but the pass comes out just as Shipley is coming out of his break -- too late on this play. Had McCoy read the depth of the linebackers at the snap as a blitz look, he might have made the adjustment with Shipley to run his route with less depth. Instead, it's third and long for the Longhorns.

3rd and 12 Texas A&M 47

The Longhorns stay in their 10 personnel look, with Dan Buckner remaining on the field for this crucial third down. Notice that A&M once again has their linebackers extremely close to the line of scrimmage, signaling another blitz.

This time, Ulatoski gets his hands on Miller and the rest of the line does an equally good job of picking up the blitz. Tre' Newton deserves special mention once again for his effort. McCoy has time in the pocket to scan the field.

The good protection allows McCoy to hit a relatively slow developing route -- a seven-yard in by Kirkendoll, who has one defender, known on this play as RAS #1 -- Random Aggie Scrub #1 -- to pick up the first down

Since McCoy hits Kirkendoll on time and in stride, he allows his receiver to make a spin move up the field and elude RAS #1, who apparently thinks he is playing flag football and tries to grab Kirkendoll's towel. Unfortunately for RAS #1 and all the military wanna be's out in the crowd, RAS #1 is not playing flag football, but rather football of the tackling variety. Oops!

Kirkendoll takes the edge against RAS #2, seen here trailing the play, while RAS #3 tries to cut off his angle as the Longhorn receiver heads inside of the Buckner "block." I'm using the term block here loosely.

RAS #3, seen here convingly playing the role of a slow white linebacker, flails about helplessly against the much faster player as RAS #4 tries to catch Kirkendoll flat-flooted. Hmm, doesn't look like he has the hips to be a cornerback. Oops!

Having left nearly half the Aggie defense, random scrubs all, in his tracks, Kirkendoll has an easy jaunt to the end zone to complete his 47-yard touchdown catch. One thing though, Kirk -- could you throw your horns up when you score a touchdown instead of just pointing at people/things?

Final Totals

Five plays, 78 yards, 1:34 expired. One of three passing for McCoy for 47 yards and a touchdown, with both incomplete passes intended for Jordan Shipley and neither one catchable. One catch for 47 yards and a touchdown for Kirkendoll, along with four Random Aggie Scrubs beat on the play. One carry for a loss of two yards by Tre' Newton, who also had two excellent blitz pick ups on the drive. One missed pass block each for Adam Ulatoski and Kyle Hix. Two good blitz pick ups by the interior line and good pass blocks from Ulatoski and Hix on the same play. One missed run block apiece by Chris Hall and Charlie Tanner. One good cut block in space by Chris Hall.

Final Verdict

As mentioned in the lengthy Context section, this was an extremely important drive for the Longhorns. Not only had the Aggies roared back from the earlier 35-21 deficit, but the Longhorn offense had struggled in the second half with the exception of the second drive on which Texas ran every play. On the other three drives, the Longhorns had been stopped on downs and had two three and outs. Not good enough.

The major point here is that Texas responded, giving themselves some breathing room and, though they didn't allow the defense much of a break with such a short drive in terms of time elapsed from the clock, it did give the defense more margin for error, which they quickly proved they neeed.

In terms of playcalling, the run on first down was obvious after bringing in Greg Smith and the empty set on the first play begged the Aggies to bring a blitz and force a quick pass -- the empty set doesn't seem to have any advantage over the 10 personnel package with Buckner in the flex tight end role, especially since Tre' Newton does so well picking up the blitz. Ditch it. The quarterback draw was an excellent playcall, however, and caught one linebacker bailing out in coverage and the other an a blitz.

The touchdown pass to Kirkendoll was certainly an effective call, but the offensive line and Newton deserve most of the credit on the play for picking up the blitz and giving McCoy a perfect pocket from which to throw. As expected given the time, McCoy delivered the pass perfectly and Kirkendoll showed yet again why the coaching staff did an excellent job challenging him after the Oklahoma game with his benching and forcing him to earn his playing time. Challenging him, along with switching him to his more natural position outside, has lit a fire under Kirkendoll and has led to the break-out performances over the last several games that everyone expected much earlier in the season. The junior from Round Rock is now a serious threat and McCoy's confidence in him seems to grow every week -- that's extremely encouraging for the offense moving forward.

Combine that with emergence of Malcolm Williams as a downfield threat and this offense is hitting on just about every cylinder right now, although the struggles early in the second half illustrate that there is still room to grow with more than a month of practice left to do so. If Alabama and Florida fans aren't a little bit scared by that thought, they should be.

Five Things to Watch Against Kansas

GhostofBigRoy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:14:09 -0000

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

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How will this weekend the recruiting efforts of the Longhorns? Though the big news of the week is Darius White's unexpected and resurgent interest in Texas and official visit on Saturday, Jackson Jeffcoat's visit is no less important. Seen throwing up a Hook ‘Em sign in his playoff game last week, Jeffcoat has kept his feelings under wraps throughout the entire process, leaving few hints about his leader board or potential plans. Unfortunately, his father won't be able to make the trip with him, as was planned for the Texas Tech game, but Jeffcoat will have a chance to see the Legion of Boom up close and personal and Muschamp will surely provide him an idea of how the Longhorns would use him as an edge pass rusher in the Buck package.

Prospects like Jeffcoat aren't generally concerned about the depth chart - he is rated as one of the best players in the country regardless of position, after all, but USC and Oklahoma, the other two schools likely in his top three, both offer less competition at his position. At Texas, Jeffcoat would be competing with Eddie Jones, Sam Acho, Alex Okafor, and Reggie Wilson for playing time next season, not to mention Dravannti Johnson, Russell Carter, and Dominique Jones. Given his pedigree and the coaching advice he has received from his father, the latter group is probably not particularly imposing for him, but the former group represents a significant number of talented, experienced players competing for two positions.

Jeffcoat will probably remain relatively silent after his visit, so it will likely be difficult to tell just how much of an impact his visit will make until he elects to make a decision and it's impossible to know when that might come. Right now, however, things look good for the Longhorns and the visit this weekend will be a great opportunity for the Legion of Boom to show just how dominating they can be and how appealing it is to be a part of that group.

As for White, the prospects for an official visit seemed unlikely just days ago, particularly after the commitment of DeMarco Cobbs -- it seemed likely only a matter of time until White would become a Sooner. The depth chart is still a critical factor in his recruitment and may eventually help land him in Norman, as might the commitment of long-time friend Rashod Favors to Oklahoma. There's also speculation that his stepdad, who just recently married his mother, favors Oklahoma as well, though that is of course speculation.

The key is that White contacted the Texas coaching staff to express his renewed interest, much like Cobbs did a little more than a month ago -- his contacting the coaching staff makes his feelings for Texas seem as strong and genuine as they have in months. In other words, the official visit moves White's recruitment in a much more positive direction for Texas than it has since his visit for a summer camp in June. Oklahoma may still be a slightly favorite, but it appears that the Longhorns are back in the mix with White.

Another important visitor is San Antiono Madison running back Aaron Green, a top target for 2011 and a player who has taken few visits this season. Madison lost last week in the playoffs to Lake Travis, providing an opportunity for Green to take in the final Texas home game of the season. The Longhorns have been mentioned more often in recent weeks by Green, who says he has a srong relationship with Major Applewhite, but it's probably the Texas scheme that Green will be most interested in this weekend.

In nearly every interview, Green mentions that he wants to attend a school that runs a "pro style" offense, certainly a vague statement, but whatever that really means, it's apparently extremely important for Green. Most likely it means that Green doesn't want to play in a shotgun, zone blocking scheme, but it's difficult to say. The Longhorns will probably run some from under center, as they did last week against Baylor, though it won't be a big part of the offense -- if Green is looking for a school that runs from under center, the game against Kansas probably won't help much in that regard. The good news is that Texas will probably tweak the offense next season with Garrett Gilbert and may return to an offense more closely resembling the one that Texas ran with Chris Simms than the zone read-based offense under Vince Young and that may appeal to Green.

Will Kansas rally around their embattled coach? The story of the week in college football in the increasingly hot seat upon which Kansas head coach Mark Mangino sits, as more and more stories emerge about systematic verbal abuse -- basically, Magino is not a nice person. At all. Though Mangino has tried to shift the blame to the parents of players and Mack Brown believes the current internal investigation by the Jayhawk athletic department will unite the team, that may not be the case. It's impossible to tell how the players on the team feel about the situation, but if the feelings of former players is any indication, things could be deteriorating radiply in the KU locker room. The current five-game losing streak only adds to that perception and increases the potential that the Kansas team could quit on Mangino.

If Texas gets out to a quick lead, will the Jayhawks fight back to help try to save their coach's job or will they hasten his increasingly-inevitable departure by quitting on the field? If the Jayhawks do give up on the game, their coach, and their season, things could turn ugly extremely quickly at DKR on Saturday night in front of a national television audience.

Will the 2009 version of the "Midget Revenge Tour" end any more successfully than the 2008 version? Regardless of how Todd Reesing feels about his head coach, and he might not be on the best of terms with Mangino given his benching several weeks ago, the former Lake Travis star is one player on the Kansas roster who will surely give his best effort on Saturday night. Passed over by the hometown Longhorns, Reesing has surely circled this game on his calendar ever since he got to Kansas and this will be his opportunity to prove his doubters wrong, both on the Texas coaching staff and amongst the general populace. Reesing faces the same problem that Chase Daniel faced last year in his efforts for revenge -- he's just too short and not good enough to succeed against the superior athletes of Texas. Rather than proving that the Longhorns erred in passing him up, the game will more likely prove that Mack Brown and his staff made the right decision by choosing not to offer the pint-sized quarterback.

Can Texas continue to build on the rushing success achieved against Baylor? Baylor wasn't exactly an elite or even average run-stuffing team, but the success of Cody Johnson and Tre' Newton against the Bears was a step forward, most notably for the play of the offensive line. Greg Davis simplified the number of running plays, repping the weakside zone, counter, and power repeatedly in practice against the different fronts and strategies they were likely to face against the Bears. It worked, as the offensive line missed fewer assignment than they had all season and the results were readily apparent.

Will Davis expand the rushing playbook against another poor run-stopping team in Kansas, or will the Longhorns continue to keep it simple? Can the offensive line perform well for a second straight week? One factor in the improvement may be the increased emphasis on drive blocking at times with the power play, which seemed to energize the offensive line, particularly the more physical players in the group like Michael Huey and Kyle Hix. Another week of successfully running the football could help allay continued concerns about Texas being unable to pick up critical yardage on the ground in a possible national championship game appearance.

Can the defense continue to force turnovers and sack the quarterback? An enduring image from last season was Reesing stepping in the bucket and releasing a duck into the frigid Kansas air faced with the intimidating rush of...Blake Gideon, perhaps the least physically intidimating player on the team. At barely 5-10, Reesing is susceptible to pressure in his face and may face a great deal of it against the Longhorns - standing behind an inexperienced and underperforming offensive line isn't exactly the safest place when going against the Legion of Boom. If Texas even approaches the level of pressure they put on Reesing last year, it will be a long and frustrating game for the diminutive senior, much like it was for Chase Daniel in his lone appearance at DKR.

A point of emphasis this week will remain stripping the football and, just as importantly, recovering the football afterwards. The Longhorns defense has missed out on two touchdowns -- one against Oklahoma and one against Baylor -- by failing to recover the football in or near the end zone after a forced fumble. Forcing and recovering more fumbles is really the last step towards the Texas defense fulfilling its potential as the best all-around unit in the country.

Weekly Words From Mack: Mini Edition (Updated)

GhostofBigRoy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:57:26 -0000

More photos » by Eric Gay - AP

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Talkin' special teams: Kick returners undecided. Last week, the special teams were a major topic of conversation, as Brown spent much of his press conference discussing the various units. Since there wasn't a game last weekend, there wasn't as much to talk about this week, but Brown did mention that the coaches still haven't decided on who will be back with Monroe on kickoffs:

We are not sure. We are looking at that right now. We obviously made a mistake on the short kick before, and we are going to have to have guys that make really good decisions back there.

...

We’re having discussions every day about things that we feel like give us a chance to score every time we touch the ball, and that’s what we’re trying to do. You’ve got Malcolm [Williams], you’ve got John Chiles, you’ve got Marquise [Goodwin] and you’ve got D.J. right now working every day. Malcolm can also work at the wings because if they’re going to start kicking it really short, Eddie Jones can catch and run, you’ve got Antwan Cobb, you could put Malcolm up there and get a faster guy at the wing and you’ve got Cody Johnson. We want the wings to be really fast now and strong too, so if they catch it at the 30-[yard line], you still want to get to the 45-[yard line] and not have a pop-up take you out of your ability to get good field position.

While having two extremely fast players on the unit in Goodwin and Monroe is certainly intriguing, my personal preference is to have the better blocker back there in Williams. Goodwin was on the return unit that sprung Monroe the distance against UTEP, but he didn't have to throw any important blocks, though it was impressive to see that he was the only player on the field capable of running with Monroe.

Teams kicking away from Monroe with Williams back returning kicks is a strategy many teams would employ, but LSU has a solution for that with Trindon Holliday -- Holliday stacks with the other player back with him in the middle of the field before pursuing the kick in whichever direction it heads, a possible wrinkle the Longhorns could use.

The other major revelation with the "House Party" unit was that the coaches are removing the defensive backs from consideration in returning kicks because the rotation is a little bit thin there and those players are on the field for a ton of snaps every game. However, the depth chart does still list Earl Thomas and Curtis Brown as the back-up punt returners, so I guess that simply means that Shipley will remain as the punt returner until the game is no longer close, at which point Brown or Thomas will go in and fair catch everything.

[Update]: After thinking about it some more, as long as the coaching staff trusts Goodwin to make good decisions back with Monroe, using Williams on the wing, probably the all-purpose MVP of the special teams so far this season, helps combat the things that teams are going to do to keep the ball away from Monroe.

Brown has been talking at length recently about the problems teams are having covering kicks since the rule change (moving the kick back five yards) and I think that gives him perspective now on how much of a difference guys like Monroe can make in changing games and making it much easier for the offense. The daily discussions allude to that and it's another example of Brown looking hard on what the team can do to improve and working hard to maximize those findings.

Rag-armed Lil Hawk just like McCoy. Perhaps the most amusing tidbit of the week was Brown's discussion about Colorado quarterback Cody Hawkins:

Yes, we actually had Cody here at our camp. He came down and spent time with us. I think Major was coaching him at that time when he was a graduate assistant. Cody is a lot like Colt. He is tough, he's smart, he makes good decisions, and you're not going to rattle him. Every time he gets knocked down, he jumps up before they get off the field and he is a very good football player. They are throwing the ball more this year than they did last year, and he's throwing it at a very high rate. (emphasis mine)

Yes, Hawkins is a lot like McCoy -- he's a quarterback, he's white, and, um, well, that's about it. I guess he is tough, or otherwise he probably would have given up football by this point in the season after taking such a beating and is commendable that he can still get up after taking vicious hits all the time. Before the rest of his teammates leave the field even! The last comment is pretty golden as well -- he is throwing the ball at a high rate. He's just not completing many of them. In summary, the rag-armed opponent punching bag that lines up behind center for Colorado is really nothing like the Heisman contender Texas puts behind center. Nice try though, Mack.

Mythical Fozzy creature 100%, for now. Even though they have been fortunate to avoid major injuries, the Texas running backs have had their share of bumps and bruises this fall -- the Mythical Fozzy creature hurt his knee in fall practice, again, Vondrell McGee tweaked his ankle, and Tre' Newton left the UTEP game with sore neck muscles. However, Brown said this week that they are all healthy:

Vondrell [McGee] is finally 100 percent, Tre' [Newton] is 100 percent, Fozzy [Whittaker] is 100 percent, and Cody [Johnson] has lost his weight, so we are back to really where we think that any of those guys could step up and play at any time. We still have to figure out how we use them in a ballgame. We haven't had Fozzy healthy over time for a while, so this is good for us. We hit him last week, and he looks quick. In fact, when you put Fozzy out there with D.J., they are both so fast, if you pull their jerseys up a bit that, wearing numbers 26 and 28, it is hard to tell which one is in the game. We are also excited about Cody. I think that he is fighting his way back into the mix, so Major [Applewhite], Greg [Davis], and I really have to try and balance who plays and when during the ball game.

Besides the unusual nature of having a healthy Fozzy creature, the most surprising news is that the coaches are once again looking at Johnson as a viable option in the middle of the field, after he was seemingly eliminated from consideration earlier in the season. The big back from Waller has now lost nearly 20 pounds ($) since reporting for fall camp and has his body fat down to 13%, which has apparently been enough to put him back in the mix -- he certainly looked faster on his 18-yard touchdown run against UTEP. Despite the developments there, Johnson is still probably best utilized as a bludgeon in the fourth quarter and in short-yardage situations.

What happened to the Monroe package? The speedster's star turn at running back earned him the inaugural (and now highly coveted) Flavor of the Week award (before it was officially named), but has since faded into the background of the base offense, though he is the running back in the WildHorn formation. Brown said this week that the coaches are still looking at ways to get him involved in the offense, without being apparent what they are doing before the snap:

That is another problem. We are so proud of him on kickoff returns, and he has done a great job, but you cannot just put him in and do things with him because it is a huge tendency. We looked at our tendencies over the first four weeks, and when he is in, you are trying to get it to him, so we are really trying to see where he fits other than just on kickoff returns.

Obviously pass protection is an issue, leading to Monroe being split out as a wide receiver much more recently than lining up in the backfield, but it would be nice to see him targeted in the passing game, whether it be on a go route down the sideline against a Cover Two zone, which would be open, or throwing him a screen pass to get him the ball in space.

Finding a third receiver that McCoy trusts and further developing the running game are higher priorities, but hey, there wasn't a game last weekend and Monroe is one of the two fastest players on the team, so I'm going to indulge myself here a little bit.

Words From Mack...

GhostofBigRoy — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:20:32 -0000

More photos » by Harry Cabluck - AP

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...And, Rashad Bobino is the Most Successful Ball Carrier in Texas History?

No, I haven't gone crazy. You just really have to click and read after the jump on this one...It's a real leap.

Talkin' special teams: kickoff returns. The two kickoff returns for touchdowns by DJ Monroe and Jordan Shipley's punt return against Texas Tech have brought a lot of attention to Texas special teams, prompting a nearly-weekl spot in my Tuesday Morning Coffee post. That attention, in turn, has brought up concerns about the punt protection against Wyoming and kickoff coverage the last several weeks. On Wednesday, Mack Brown addressed the special teams units:

We are also trying to figure out how we keep speed on the field for the kicking teams. We are proud of our punt return team. We are proud of what D.J. [Monroe] has been able to accomplish with our kickoff return team, but we need to get Marquise [Goodwin] in there and do a better job of getting him more looks because there was a poor decision between he and Eddie Jones where we had a ball hit the ground the other day, which could have cost us in a much tighter ball game.

To play to which Brown referred occurred coming out of halftime for UTEP's second kick off and first after Monroe's touchdown return -- to keep the ball away from Monroe, UTEP kicked high and short to Goodwin's side of the field and Eddie Jones took a good long look at it before finally letting it go over his head, but Goodwin, watching Jones, hadn't gotten in position to catch the football and had to retreat to inside the five yardline to retrieve the live ball, picking it up and advancing it only three yards before being tackled viciously around the neck. Yeah, not so good there and the Longhorns no doubt spent a lot of time working with Goodwin fielding that play this week and deciding if they want to put Malcolm Williams back with Monroe again -- Williams is averaging 30 yards on his three kickoff returns and has more collegiate game experience fielding kicks.

However, Brown wants to get as much speed on the field as possible but knows not every speedster can return kicks, meaning that Goodwin will indeed get a long look before the Colorado game:

You don't know [who is good at it], it's like who can block kicks. You have to try them. Some fast guys don't get it, they'll run into piles, they're not patient, but D.J. [Monroe] has a great knack for doing it and we hope Marquise [Goodwin] does the same. We don't know that yet. He hasn't done it long enough for us to find out for sure and that's something that we really have to find out in the next 10 days.

After relating the story of a sky kick gone wrong against Ted Ginn and Ohio State, Brown returned to the busted return with Goodwin and Jones:

The other day I thought we had the perfect situation for Marquise because if Eddie [Jones] goes up (to block) and Marquise catches it, that's at the 30-yard line and we've got room, so we are working so hard right now.

Brown also noted that the poor return on that play significantly brought down the team average on kickoff returns and it would increase the average by about four yards per kick, but still keep the Longhorns second in the country behind Stanford, the only team in the country with three kickoff returns for touchdowns this season.

The Shipley conundrum. Or, the Cosby conundrum, no redux. As for seeing Jordan Shipley back returning kicks and reprising his starring role from the Cotton Bowl last season, Brown said, "Not so fast, my friends:"

We know Jordan can do it, so that's easy. The thing that we have to do, we felt like we lost Quan (Cosby) for the Texas Tech game last year and we felt like it was because we had him doing too many things. Jordan is playing the position that Quan played last year, and he's touching the ball 10, 11 times a game outside of the kicking game...But we do feel like that we've got to be smart with Jordan because he's playing so well and if we can get somebody else to help D.J. on kickoff returns, we'd rather not have Jordan in there.

Were Monroe not having such unqualified success at the position, there might be more talk about needing Shipley's explosiveness at the position, but those two touchdown returns have silenced any talk in that direction. As Brown said, there's no reason to risk injury to Shipley and not learn from a prior mistake. Shipley will take more than enough hits as it is, even on punt returns, as evidenced Saturday by an illegal hit before the ball arrived by Max Stephenson II, who then promptly picked off McCoy's subsequent pass and took it to the house.

Talkin' special teams: kickoff coverage. On Tuesday I wondered about the squib kicks Texas employed for much of the game and Brown provided an explanation:

We experimented a lot the other day in kickoff coverage because kickoff coverage with the rule change is one of the more difficult things right now for college football. We are trying to look at squibs. We are looking at sky kicks. We are trying not to kick the ball to the same place two times in a row because if you do and the kickoff return team gets a beat on your coverage, then that is a very, very dangerous thing to have happen during a ballgame.

It makes sense to work on covering different styles of kicks in a game situation given the historical struggles by the Longhorns in that department and practicing those different kicks helps the Texas kickoff return team work against sky kicks and squibs after the miscommunication by Goodwin and Jones. In terms of facing dangerous return teams, however, Brown may be looking ahead to Florida, ranked fourth nationally in that department. The teams the Longhorns will face during the tough three-game stretch? Missouri is the highest ranked at no. 60, while Oklahoma and Oklahoma State bring up the pack at numbers 87 and 112, not so respectively. The highest-ranked team Texas will face during the regular season is already in the rear-view mirror -- the good Pirates of the Red Raider at 29th in the country.

As much as everyone would like to see Justin Tucker kick the ball out of bounds every time, even against UTEP, that's just not a reality:

When the game got out of control, we really just wanted to try stuff. I know fans get frustrated sometimes with things that come up in a ballgame that's a blow out, but it's really a learning experience for us. We can experiment, kick it around, and we find out that a squib kick that's kicked properly is really hard to pick up and it was hard for them to pick it up. They averaged only 19 yards per return, but we still had a couple that were out to the 40 and that's what we're trying to keep from happening. If you could kick it out every time, you would.

The nature of the squib kicks makes the raw field position numbers look bad for the coverage teams against UTEP, but it may be a strategy that the Longhorns need to employ this season, most likely against Florida if both teams make it through the season unscathed.

Talkin' special teams: punts and fakes. Punt coverage hasn't been a problem, but the Longhorns could be looking at developing their ability to run fakes out of their punt formation:

We are look at punting with our left foot, with our right foot, we are looking at what fakes are available because this is a relatively new thing for us and for college football. Those are all things that we are trying to look at and figure out.

After Tucker's disastrous decision, the odds might seem small that Tucker would try another fake this season, but I think Texas has to look at it and against put some hope in Tucker's decision-making abilities in the regard. The other aspect to fakes in the punting game involves Antwan Cobb's position as the personal protector on the punt protection unit, the position Rashad Bobino occupied throughout his entire career at Texas and the position at which he may in fact have provided his most significant contributions to the team.

Gratuitous Bobino digression. It was Bobino who carried the ball on fakes six times for 28 yards in his career, each time for a first down:

Two yards on 4th and 2 against Ohio State to keep a touchdown-scoring drive alive out of halftime last season.
Seven yards for a first down in the third quarter of a close 10-7 game against Baylor in 2007. The Longhorns scored a touchdown and helped stave off the incredible ignominy of losing to friggin' Baylor in football -- the type of thing that earns walking papers for Texas head football coaches.
Three yards for a first down on 4th and 1 early in the game against Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl. Colt McCoy ran for a touchdown on that drive to put the Longhorns up three touchdowns in the second quarter.
Six yards for a first down in the second quarter against North Texas in Colt McCoy's first game. Texas scored a touchdown on that drive.
Five yards for a first down against Oklahoma State up 3-0 in the second quarter in Stillwater. The Longhorns scored a touchdown on that drive and never looked back in the only lopsided and relatively boring game recently in that series.
Six yards for a first down against Texas A&M his freshman season to help the Longhorns score a critical touchdown to take a 28-22 lead in the closest game of the national championship season.

So not only did Bobino pick up a first down each time he carried the football, but the Longhorns scored a touchdown on every single one of the drives that he kept alive, several times providing a turning point in close games. Let me amend my previous statement by saying that Rashad Bobino's most significant contributions by far came in picking up first downs in big situations to help win football games. Yes, Rashad Bobino actually helped win some football games at Texas. I know I now find myself glad that I spent 25 minutes researching each of those runs. Big ups, Rashad -- my feelings of appreciation for you may be newfound, but they are heartfelt. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and call him the most successful ball carrier in the history of Texas football -- what other back can claim a first down on each carry and that each drive in which he participated ended in a touchdown? None, I suspect.

Back to special teams. In other words, Cobb has big shoes to fill at that position and didn't get off to a great start by allowing one blocked kick and nearly another. If the Longhorns did to pick up a big first down this season and want to do so with a fake punt, will Cobb be able to execute the play with Bobino's consistency and results?

Running back situation still fluid. When Vondrell McGee rushed for over 100 yards against UTEP, he not only earned the coveted honor of Flavor of the Week at running back, he also threw a wrench into Mack Brown's plan of narrowing the running back rotation, especially with the Mythical Fozzy Creature making the most of a rare appearance on the field. Of course, the offensive line also didn't help out Tre' Newton much and neither did a sore neck, as Nate's son picked up only 25 yards on nine carries.

So what's new with Fozzy and the guys, Mack?

[Fozzy]'s only had the one game, but he's doing well. He came back and he has confidence now, so we feel like he's right back in the mix. Cody Johnson looked really good on the one carry he had Saturday for a touchdown and he's at 242 pounds and 13 percent body fat, so he's really gotten in great shape and we're back to having a good mix of four guys there to compete. What we think we will do is we'll put the guys in the game and if a guy gets a hot hand like Vondrell [McGee] did Saturday, we'll leave him in.

In other words, back to square one, especially the comment about Johnson, who appeared to have been relegated to short-yardage duties after the Wyoming game. What, you expected resolution here?

Defensive tackles playing well. Neurotic Texas fans have moved their attention away from the defensive tackle situation only four games into the season, which is good news all around. Brown weighed in on their performance:

Right now, it's really strong. We still need to continue to develop depth at defensive tackle, but we're really proud of Ben Alexander, Kheeston Randall and Lamarr Houston. Lamarr is playing at such a higher level than ever before, Kheeston is so much improved from last year, and Ben's a five-year senior and it's time for him to play. He's excited about playing every down. So, those three guys have given us a good base to start from. We've been able to work Sam Acho in there some and Sam's improved so much and Eddie Jones now. He was concerned a little bit about his shoulder the first couple of weeks, but the last two weeks, he's played lights out. Then you continue to try and get the young guys like Calvin Howell to come on, but we're in better shape right now than we thought we'd be at this time.

The extra practice will undoubtedly benefit the young players, as did the game against UTEP. The idea, no doubt, is for players like Howell, Acho, and Jones to get some more time against Colorado, with the two defensive ends perhaps even getter a look inside on running downs to see if they can do more than just rush the passer from that position.

Anatomy of Stagnation: Settling For Field Goals Against UTEP

GhostofBigRoy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:36:29 -0000

More photos » by Harry Cabluck - AP

John Chiles continues to excel in the screen game (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

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The Big Picture

It probably seems rather picky to focus in on the two possessions that ended in field goals for the Longhorns on a day when the offense scored seven touchdowns and absolutely blew UTEP out of the water. However, the fact is that the home team probably should have scored 80 and could have had even more than that had Mack Brown not completely shut down the offense for the last 20 minutes or so of the game. The reason for the tough-love focus in this post is exactly the same reason that Texas won so easily -- UTEP provided so little resistance, there's really no excuse for the first-team offense not to have scored a touchdown every time they got the ball. High standards, for sure, but nothing unattainable for this offense as it gains momentum with every passing game.

Situation #1 -- Context

With Texas up 13-7 roughly halfway through the first quarter, UTEP's third possession actually included a completed pass after a fumble and three-and-out on their first two drives, but an illegal formation penalty, a run for a loss of a yard, and an incomplete pass halted the drive for the Miners and led to a punt. Unfortunately for Mike Price's team, the long snapper sent the ball over the head of the punter and into the UTEP end zone, where Malcolm Williams absolutely flattened the punter as he attempted to pick the ball up and kick it away:

Word to the wise, Greg Hiett -- what you're about to try to do is not a good idea.

So yeah, that didn't work out too well. To Hiett's credit, he did get the ball out of the end zone...

Another angle, just for fun.

The ball eventually made its way to the six yardlilne, where the Longhorns took over after UTEP recovered the ball.

1st and Goal UTEP 6

Texas comes out in 11 personnel with EBS on the line of scrimmage and Tre' Newton in the backfield on Colt McCoy's left, with John Chiles at the flanker position and James Kirkendoll as the sub-B receiver:

The Longhorns run a zone play right behind Michael Huey and Kyle Hix, the more productive side of the line early in the season, but Huey misses his block and Newton gets taken down in the backfield for a three-yard loss, another example of how one player not executing on the offensive line brings down a whole play, even if all the other players execute well. It's not even clear what Huey was doing on the play -- he has a lineman right in front of him, but starts turning right at the start of the play, even though the opposing player is coming across his left shoulder and because he is facing the wrong direction, the defender gets by him easily. Huey's footwork should have been reversed -- he should have turned his body left to pin the defender inside. It's also worth pointing out that the Longhorns faked the screen pass on this play to freeze the defenders on the back side of the play.

2nd and Goal UTEP 9

Texas stays in 11 personnel, but this time with Newton on McCoy's right side:

McCoy tries to fit the ball into Chiles, who is running a slant on the play, but a defender at the line of scrimmage tips the ball and the coverage is good by the UTEP defender -- the pass falls incomplete. Had McCoy waited another split second -- and he could have because the protection, he would have had Tre' Newton in the flat on his right and Newton might have scored a touchdown because there were not any defenders within 10 yards of him and Jordan Shipley took the cornerback (and possibly the safety) into the end zone in man coverage, meaning the UTEP player had his back turned to the play:

3rd and Goal UTEP 9

Greg Davis sends Dan Buckner into the game, replacing EBS, leaving the Longhorns in their best version of 11 personnel, with Buckner at the flex position and Tre' Newton lined up on McCoy's right:

James Kirkendoll runs a slant and McCoy hits him short of the goalline, forcing the Longhorns to attempt a field goal. Just like the last play, Tre' Newton was open coming out of the backfield, but the best play was to a wide open Dan Buckner running a post behind the defender who eventually came up to tackle Kirkendoll short of the goalline:

Final Totals

Three plays for three yards, 1:25 expired. One of two passing for McCoy for six yards. One catch for six yards for James Kirkendoll. One carry for negative three yards for Tre' Newton. One missed block by Michael Huey.

The Verdict

Against a completely overmatched UTEP team, not being able to score from the six yardline is unacceptable. The missed block by Michael Huey epitomizes the work of the offensive line through four games -- mental and physical breakdowns happen by individual players way too often. Comparing the second and third plays shows just how big of a difference there is between EBS and Dan Buckner -- EBS can't create separation on his route, but Dan Buckner easily gets open in the back of the end zone. If the Longhorns are going to throw the football -- and there was little doubt they would do so with second and goal from the nine yardline -- Buckner must be in the football game.

This drive also demonstrates that Newton should be catching a few more balls out of the backfield because he was open on his relase on the second and third plays. It could be that McCoy doesn't totally trust him catching the ball because of his drop against Wyoming and a busted play on a hand off last week against Texas Tech. As well as McCoy played on Saturday, and he played extremely well, there is still some room for improvement in going through his reads, particularly in looking for Buckner up the seam because teams are really have a difficult time defending him on those plays.

Situation #2 -- Context

Up 23-7 with the clock under three minutes in the first quarter, the Longhorn defense gave up a rare first down, but then defended a screen well for a two-yard loss, forced an incomplete pass, and stopped another completed pass short of the first-down marker to force a punt. A 35-yard punt by Greg Hiett gives the Longhorns the ball at their own 23 yardline after a one-yard return by Jordan Shipley.

1st and 10 Texas 23

The Longhorns start the drive in 11 personnel, with EBS on the line of scrimmage and Tre' Newton in the backfield on the right of Colt McCoy:

McCoy drops back to pass and receives good protection, but can't find anyone open down field. Stepping up in the pocket, he does an excellent job of keeping his eyes downfield looking for a big play, but finally pulls the ball down and runs left and picks up nine yards before making a smart decision and sliding just short of the first down.

2nd and 1 Texas 32

The Longhorns go into their jet tempo and under center (I believe) after the run by McCoy, but the cameras don't catch the start of the play. Jordan Shipley, Adam Ulatoski, and Charlie Tanner all get excellent blocks on the play, as Tre' Newton picks up seven yards running behind the left side of the line.

1st and 10 Texas 39

Going no huddle, Greg Davis sends Dan Buckner, Marquise Goodwin, and DJ Monroe onto the field in an 11 personnel, empty set:

McCoy fakes the screen right to Goodwin to freeze the backside pursuit, then throws the screen left to John Chiles. Jordan Shipley blocks the cornerback defending Chiles and Charlie Tanner and David Snow get out in front of Chiles to lead him downfield for a 27-yard gain:

Excellent play design and excellent execution by the Longhorns.

1st and 10 UTEP 34

Hustling downfield and going under center in the jet tempo, the Longhorns hike the ball quickly out of their 11 personnel set with Tre' Newton back on the field, who picks up six yards running behind the left side of the Texas line and excellent blocks from Adam Ulatoski, Charlie Tanner, and Jordan Shipley. Tanner did a nice job of holding the defender long enough to let Newton get by, but released the defender quickly enough that no flags were thrown on the play, while Ulatoski showed good feet by getting to the second level and allowing Newton to pick up yardage unmolested.

2nd and 4 UTEP 28

With the Longhorns in the WildHorn formation, a UTEP defender gets a little too excited and jumps across the line of scrimmage, contacting Kyle Hix. Five-yard penalty, first down.

1st and 10 UTEP 23

Texas comes back with their best personnel package -- 11, with Buckner in the flex position and Tre' Newton on McCoy's left:

McCoy sees Shipley with one-on-one coverage with only one safety back in the middle of the field and probably makes up his mind to throw the pass to his roommate before the snap. The throw does indeed go to Shipley at the pylon and falls incomplete, but the UTEP cornerback gets flagged for pass interference -- 15 yards for Texas, first down.

1st and Goal UTEP 7

In a somewhat unusual move, Texas stays with Dan Buckner in the flex instead of bringing in EBS inside the 10 yardline, as they often do:

With McCoy rolling right at the snap, John Chiles runs a slant in an attempt to pick off the defender trying to chase Dan Buckner into the flat, where McCoy finds him for a three-yard gain. A good thought on the play call, but Buckner couldn't outrun the defensive back to the corner of the end zone and Chiles didn't quite get in that defender's way well enough.

2nd and Goal UTEP 4

Starting the second quarter, the Longhorns go WildHorn with John Chiles behind center:

Chiles runs the quarterback counter play that picked up big yardage last week and might have scored a touchdown, except Charlie Tanner blocks the safety farther away from the ball, instead of the linebacker closer to the play and that player eventually tackles Chiles for a one-yard gain:

3rd and Goal UTEP 3

Texas goes back to 11 personnel with Buckner in the flex and Newton on McCoy's right:

Kirkendoll runs a nice route, taking several steps out into the flat, then pivoting and running a slant across the goalline, creating enough separation for McCoy to throw him the ball, but Kirkendoll drops it after having it hit his hands. Once again, Buckner is open in the back of the end zone, but McCoy made the easy throw to Kirkendoll, who should have caught the ball.

Final Totals

Seven plays, 74 yards, 3:01 expired. Two of three passing for McCoy for 30 yards. One rush for nine yards by McCoy. One rush for one yard by Chiles. Two carries for 13 yards by Newton. Two penalties for 20 yards on UTEP. Three good blocks by Jordan Shipley and two good blocks by Adam Ulatoski and Charlie Tanner, who made a poor decision on the WildHorn play and picked the wrong defender to block. One dropped pass by James Kirkendoll that should have resulted in a touchdown.

The Verdict

For the most part, this was an excellent drive by the Longhorns, who marched right down the field until stalling inside the 10 yardline before the missed block by Tanner and the dropped pass derailed the drive. The good news is that the Longhorns conintued to run the football well in their jet tempo offense and the left side of the Texas ilne blocked much better on this drive than they did in the first two games of the season. No longer is there a sharp difference between running right and running left, due in large part to more consistent play by Charlie Tanner and much, much better run blocking by Adam Ulatoski. The screen passing game to Chiles continues to work well and the fake screen to the other side of hte field probably helped Chiles pick up an extra 5-10 yards by slowing down the backside pursuit, a nice wrinkle.

Five Things to Watch Against UTEP

GhostofBigRoy — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:37:19 -0000

More photos » by Eric Gay - AP

Fragile Fozzy may actually carry more than the flag today. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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Can the Longhorns stop All-World running back Buckram? In the latest installment of ____ is the greatest team/player ever, UTEP running back Donald Buckram apparently scares Mack Brown to death. He's from Copperas Cove, you know. So that means he's good. Like, really, really good. Not only is he good, he's probably better than Jahvid Best.

All this because the Texas run defense hasn't yet faced a serious challenge after games against ULM, Wyoming, and Texas Tech. In all seriousness, the Miners did rack up 145 yards on the ground last season and the run defense will be a concern until proven otherwise. Can the Longhorns hold Buckram in check and keep the Miner offense off the field? How will Kheeston Randall hold up against the run? This may be a game for Ben Alexander to play early and often.

Can the offense get off to a fast start? After three consecutive sluggish performances in the first half, the Longhorns are hoping to jump on the Miners early and put the game out of reach. In particular, the offensive coaches hope that they can get Colt McCoy settled into the game early and will probably accelerate the tempo early and often to do so. Can the Longhorns run the ball effectively from the jet tempo?

Keep an eye on Colt McCoy's mechanics. Chris Brown had his take on the problems earlier this week:

It's true that in the first half McCoy just flat missed some open receivers; his footwork was off; and he was not helped by pressure in his face. From a quarterback coaching perspective, he's missing receivers high, which tends to be a mechanics flaw as simple as locking out your front knee when you throw or possibly taking too long of strides on the throw -- it's too hard to pinpoint exactly and I'm not sure. But that's something Colt can work on and will be fine with. Sometimes they just get away from you; he clearly has put a lot of pressure on himself.

While watching McCoy's front knee and stride length, keep an eye on how well he transfers weight to his front foot: Kafka reports in the comments of Brown's piece that Rich Gannon says quarterbacks throwing high are often throwing off their back foot, not on the front foot. McCoy doesn't need to complete more than 80% of his throws for this offense to find early success -- he just needs to relax and throw the football like he's capable of throwing the football.

Will the WildHorn remain productive? Besides another slow start against Texas Tech, the topic of conversation this week was the debut of the WildHorn package with John Chiles that picked up 33 yards on the first play. Comparisons to the failed Q package emerged during the week, but Mack Brown explained the differences on Wednesday:

We don't change up any personnel, D.J. would be in the game, or we'd hope he would be in the game. One of the things we feel like that's so much better that we've learned from last year is that if we can be quick tempo with that personnel and not substitute, then the defense will not have time to substitute because if you substitute, the official stands over the ball and the defense has a chance to match what you're doing. If you do not substitute, you've got the 40-second clock and normally a defensive coordinator has to make the call so you could actually have a defensive coordinator make a call, you could change your formation and he's got to make another call, which gets very difficult for a defense, so we do feel like that it's much more of an advantage for us and it's because we've worked against people using it and in talking to our defensive staff, we feel like it's much more successful for us when we can keep the same people on the field.

Last season, teams keyed on Chiles when he came into the game, knowing that he was going to get the ball virtually every time the Longhorns used a play in the Q package. With the WildHorn, as Brown mentioned, teams don't have a chance to substitute, giving the Longhorns an advantage they didn't have last season.

The question is whether teams will run one or both safeties up to the line of scrimmage when the Longhorns use the package and if the Longhorns can respond in such a situation. Are there more plays like the reverse pass McCoy threw last week to James Kirkendoll? Are there any plays for Chiles to throw the football and do the coaches trust him with a play like that? Furthermore, are there any wrinkles in the package that can get DJ Monroe the ball in space? Will the Longhorns even use the package with more important games looming on the schedule?

Will Garrett Gilbert get a chance to play? Longhorn fans expected to see quite a bit of Garrett Gilbert early in the season, but the slow starts in the first half have allowed him only two possessions so far in the season. Back in the spring, I floated the idea of giving Gilbert several possessions early in the game to get more meaningful snaps, but Brown shot that down this week:

We feel like right now that we're not going to put Garrett in early in the game. That's what we've done because we're starting slow and we don't want to put more pressure on him, so we need to get what we're doing worked out. In certain games we've played the second-team offense the third series of each game, and right now we're not playing well enough with the first team to start looking at the second team, and we've challenged the second-team players to play better in practice so we can gain more depth.

No argument from me on that, as the first team clearly needs to play better and more consistently, but scoring early and often will help guarantee one or two needed possessions for Gilbert late in the game to plan for next season and in case of an injury to McCoy.

Will two running backs emerge for the Longhorns? Running back by committee. Dirty words now, judging by statements from Brown over the last several weeks. He wants several running backs to step up:

We're trying to get people healthy and we're trying to get the ones that are healthiest and the ones that are playing the best in the game. It's hard to play four backs, and right now we've played four with Fozzy getting well and that's a tough thing to do, so we've got to start narrowing it down. We've got to get a better identity in our running game and we feel like part of the running back situation will do that.

I'd rather have two guys getting a lot of carries, and I'm not counting short-yardage and goal line, not counting the four-minute drill at the end of the game, but we're counting in the every-down situation.

People have played with three. You can do that and keep the hot hand in the game. Normally when people use running back by committee, what they do is keep the hot hand in the game, and that's what we did with Tre' the other night. He started the second half, did really well and we let him have it.

With Cody Johnson no longer getting carries in the middle of the field, that leaves Tre' Newton, Fozzy Whittaker, and Vondrell McGee fighting for carries. McGee may not play much with his ankle injury and though Whittaker practiced this week and is expected to play, it's always hard to say with Fragile Fozzy. The obvious key here is Newton, who will likely receive the first carry of the game and may help the Longhorns establish a running game early, a major key if the Miners decide to keep two safeties deep. If that's the case, Texas absolutely has to run the ball well in the first and second quarters. If the Longhorns manage to gain separation early, it's possible that Jeremy Hills could get his first look of the season or even that Chris Whaley could lose his redshirt, though that seems less likely.

Anatomy of Success: Out of Halftime Against Tech

GhostofBigRoy — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:55:32 -0000

More photos » by Eric Gay - AP

Take notes Dan Buckner -- this is what happens when you don't execute blocks for your quarterback on bootlegs. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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The Context

After a first half that saw the Texas offense only manage a single solitary field goal, the Longhorns found themselves going into halftime with a 10-3 lead thanks to stout defense and Jordan Shipley's punt return for a touchdown. With passes sailing on Colt McCoy throughout the first half, the Texas quarterback headed into halftime still feeling ill from a bout with the flu earlier in the week. The solution? A PB&J sandwich and some Pedialyte. The result? Well, just read on to find out. DJ Monroe took the kickoff 33 yards out to the Texas 34 yardline with a nice burst up a wide seam before being brought down to give the Longhorns good starting field position.

1st and 10 Texas 34

Texas opens up the second half with their best personnel group -- 11 personnel with Buckner as a flex tight end and Tre' Newton as the running back, with John Chiles, Jordan Shipley, and James Kirkendoll as the receivers. Even though Texas Tech only has six players in the box with two deep safeties, the Longhorns elect to throw the football. Despite Dan Buckner being open in the flat on McCoy's right, he checks down to Newton in the flat for a three-yard gain after the Tech cornerback passed Shipley off to the safety over the top and closed on the ball to make the stop.

2nd and 7 Texas 37

Texas goes into "jet" tempo and under center after hurrying to the line of scrimmage. Everyone in the stadium knows it's going to be a running play -- the Texas tendency is virtually 100% in that direction. Perfect time for a play-action pass? One would think. Well, apparently Tre' Newton was the one person in the stadium who didn't know it was a run and McCoy ends up throwing the ball out of bounds on the busted play -- probably Newton's first major mistake as a Longhorn.

3rd and 7 Texas 37

The Longhorns go empty in their 11 personnel grouping and McCoy hits Chiles on a slant in front of the safety for a first down and an 11-yard gain, taking advantage of the attention paid to Jordan Shipley, lined up just inside Chiles at the top of the formation.

1st and 10 Texas 48

For the second time in the game, the Longhorns go to the WildHorn formation with John Chiles lined up behind center and DJ Monroe in the backfield with him. McCoy splits out to the top of the screen with Greg Smith lined up at tight end on the short side of the field with McCoy. Shipley and Kirkendoll split out to the right of the formation. Chiles hands off to Monroe on the counter and the speedy running back manages to the take the edge on the linebacker Ulatoski was supposed to block but couldn't get to. Monroe picks up five yards on the play even though the timing was a bit off -- Monroe didn't take a counter step and that kept Ulatoski from having the time to get to the playside linebacker who eventually made the stop -- a perfect example of how the Texas running game often lacks proper timing. If Ulatoski can make his block, the play is set up perfectly for a huge gain, as both Texas receivers on the playside executed their blocks perfectly.

2nd and 5 Texas Tech 47

Texas keeps the same personnel package, but McCoy returns under center. Monroe takes the handoff on the counter once again and Ulatoski whiffs on his block against a linebacker in the hole and Monroe goes down for a one-yard gain. Tech had six players in the box on the Longhorns can't gain more than a yard despite being able to account for every Tech player who could make a stop near the line of scrimmage. Pathetic.

3rd and 4 Texas Tech 46

Thankfully, Davis decides to remove the Extra Blocking Surface from the game on third down and returns to the 11 personnel package, though it's difficult to tell which running back is on the field as the Longhorns go empty -- it looks like DJ Monroe. Shipley runs an out route against a linebacker and McCoy delivers the ball on time and on target for a first down and nine-yard gain. McCoy has been staring down Shipley way too much this season, but when Shipley is up against a linebacker the play will almost certainly end in success.

1st and 10 Texas Tech 37

It must have been Newton on the field on the previous play because the Longhorns go jet and hike the ball from under center. This time everyone in the stadium does know what's happening, as Newton takes the carry up the middle for a four-yard gain. Well blocked by the Longhorn offensive line, but the Tech safety came up from his deep position to stop Newton before he could gain big yardage. The offensive line looked good drive blocking, as they managed to move the line of scrimmage about two yards down the field.

2nd and 6 Texas Tech 33

Newton comes out of the game and Cody Johnson enters, with the Longhorns staying in their jet tempo and under center. Play-action pass! Holy Toledo, it's in the playbook. McCoy bootlegs to his left, but Dan Buckner, who stayed in to protect for McCoy on the bootlet, looks at the linebacker, then turns back towards the line of scrimmage, ostensibly to deal with a defensive lineman who read the play. And yes, the linebacker that Buckner was supposed to block made the play. One yard loss for McCoy. If the play design has Buckner going out in the pattern, he probably pulls the linebacker with him, leaving only a defensive lineman chasing McCoy, leaving plenty of room for him to complete a pass or pull the ball down to pick up yardage. Not sure why the play is designed that way, but it didn't work.

3rd and 7 Texas Tech 34

Texas lines up in 11 personnel with Newton in the backfield once again while Ruffin McNeil, forgetting the lessons from last season and early in the game, decides to go with a three-man front and blitz two linebackers from the weakside of the formation. The Texas offensive line picks up the blitz well and McCoy, looking to the vacated side of the field, finds Shipley on a slant in front of the cornerback, who had provided a significant cushion. Another strange aspect of the play -- the Tech blitz comes against the left side of the Texas line, but Colby Whitlock, lined up as the nose tackle directly in front of Chris Hall, attacks the right guard, leaving Hall and Tanner to easily pick up the two blitzers. Strange call by McNeill and had Whitlock engaged Hall, the play might still have worked because McCoy got rid of the ball so quickly due to the cushion provided by the cornerback, but shouldn't Whitlock engage Hall there to leave two blitzers against Charlie Tanner? And shouldn't the cornerback play press coverage to take away the quick throw? Perhaps McNeil was afraid of Shipley getting behind the cornerback for a big play, but that still doesn't explain Whitlock.

1st and 10 Texas Tech 26

The Longhorns get to the line of scrimmage quickly, forcing a timeout by Texas Tech, which could have been critical had the game been within one score late. Texas comes out after the timeout in 11 personnel with Newton in the backfield and Buckner in the flex. Texas runs the counter to the left side, with Huey and Hix pulling. Newton had a nice hole that closed quickly because Hix missed his block in the hole on the Tech linebacker on what looked like simply a poor effort. Newton picks up seven yards, but it could have been a substantially bigger gain.

2nd and 3 Texas Tech 19

Staying with the "jet" tempo, the Longhorns get to the line of scrimmage quickly and good God, Greg Davis, don't call another horrible play-action pass. Those clearly never work. (Note the sarcasm.) In all seriousness, Davis dials up the perfect call, with the Texas offensive line blasting a tired Tech defense off the ball, as Charlie Tanner and Michael Huey both getting good blocks downfield and Newton made a nice cutback behind Huey's block, as the right guard left his feet and got another good block from Jordan Shipley on one safety as the other took a terrible angle and barely got a finger on Newton's ankle on his way by for the 19-yard touchdown run.

Final Totals

Eleven plays for 66 yards, 3:36 expired. Three carries for 12 yards by DJ Monroe. Three carries for 30 yards by Tre' Newton. One carry for a loss of a yard by Colt McCoy, who completed four of five passes for 41 yards, with the only incompletion coming on the throwaway after the busted play with Newton. Three third-down conversions on the drive, with two catches by Shipley and one by Chiles. One missed block for Ulatoski and another for Kyle Hix. Excellent blocks by Hall, Tanner, Huey, and Shipley on the touchdown run by Newton.

The Verdict

There's a reason that Mack Brown always defers to the second half and this is why. Mike Leach wanted the ball first and it cost him, as the Longhorns marched down the field, running 11 plays really quickly and wearing out the Texas Tech defense, as well as firmly securing second-half momentum by going up two touchdowns. While Tre' Newton did not have to do anything spectacular on the drive and made a major mistake on the busted play, he did show his ability to quickly hit the hole -- the Texas running game will continue to be about the ability of the offensive line to make blocks. The bad news is that Monroe isn't a great fit for the counter play because the lack of a counter step and his pure speed makes it difficult to set up the blocks.

What would be a great fit would be the jet sweep for Monroe out of the Wild Horn formation. Still, the formation proved effective on the drive, with Monroe picking up five yards on the only play and giving the Tech defense something to think about. The formation is already much more successful than the Q Package of last year and Texas should be able to consistently pick up yards using it.

McCoy looked much more comfortable after his PB&J and Pedialyte, making accurate throws on each of the third-down conversions and only staring Shipley down when he knew that he had a match up to exploit. That's a major improvement over the second half of the Wyoming game, when nearly all of his incomplete passes came after staring down Shipley.

Overall, this possession illustrates the value of increasing the tempo and keeping a specific set of defensive personnel on the field -- it makes properly executing blocks much easier and pays dividends later in the game. If the Longhorns can get the safeties to bite on the run under center in the jet tempo, the play action pass might become much more effective. The drive also illustrates that the Longhorn coaching staff is still trying to figure out how to properly use DJ Monroe in the running game -- the counters take too long to develop for someone with Monroe's speed -- he needs to get the ball more quickly and in space. Texas doesn't pass much with Monroe in the game due to his protection issues, but if they can complete a pass, get to the line of scrimmage, and install a rocket pitch play to him, that might be one of the more effective ways of getting him the football. Stay tuned.

Five Things to Watch Against Texas Tech

GhostofBigRoy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:48:52 -0000

More photos » by Harry Cabluck - AP

The eyes of a nation are upon you, Blake Gideon. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

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Will the Longhorns commit fewer penalties? In his Monday press conference, Mack Brown didn't waste much time before bringing up the issue of penalties and the MWC officiating crew that did the game against Wyoming. In fact, it was the first thing he mentioned after talking about the impact of the altitude on the players (emphasis mine):

It was a Mountain West crew, so you have to take into account that you are working with officials that don't normally do your games. Some things came up that are probably officiated differently here, but at the same time, we need to go back and do a better job of not having penalties because we have had them for two weeks and a game this weekend that will be a much more difficult game, you can't have a lot of penalties to stop what you're doing.

Yes, the officials don't normally do Texas games. Apparently, they haven't even heard of Vince Young, the last guy who will ever wear the no. 10 uniform for the Longhorns -- the crew announced a holding call on no. 5, Ben Wells, as a holding call on Vince Young. A penalty in absentee.

The color guy on Versus after the call: "Mack Brown says I don't even have that guy on my team."

Indeed. Not any more. Unfortunately, that guy's football career ending a couple years ago after winning the national frickin' championship. On the final play. Which was a fourth down. Ending arguably the greatest college football game ever played. So yeah, like I said, there's a reason the penalty couldn't have been on no. 10 -- no one will ever wear it again at Texas. So, fine officials of the MWC, maybe you've heard of him.

That's not even to mention the unsportsmanlike penalty on Chykie Brown for doing something Longhorn defensive backs have done just about every time they've broken up a pass in the last several years. Upwards of 20 for sure, I might even guess closer to 30 times. The fine officials from the MWC just aren't having that kind of nonsense, even though Brown did the gesture towards the Texas sideline and away from his opponent.

Will the "You Can't See" hand gesture return this season? Maybe Mack needs to go check with the crew on Saturday before the game about it. Or maybe the defensive backs just need to give a rest, because, you know the fine officials of the MWC put their stamp of disapproval on it.

Can I get another "That's not even to mention..."? Sure. That's not even to mention the whole debacle after Brown's penalty when Wyoming called a run on what they thought was a first down inside the Texas 10 yardline. Oops. Turns out it shouldn't have been a first down and Wyoming basically wasted a play. Dave Christensen was not happy.

This lengthy digression (call it a rant if you must) is meant to reach the ultimate truth that the Longhorns did hurt themselves a great deal with penalties during the game that any good officiating crew should make. The holding calls on the Longhorns were certainly holds in most of football. In the Big 12?

Well, Brian Orakpo might disagree, but they were dumb holds.

That's no hold! The Big 12 says, "Great pass protection, Rylan Reed!"

Then there were false starts and offsides on experienced members of the offensive and defensive lines, including one on Chris Hall. Yes, the center. Two of those holding calls brought back first downs. Point being, the Longhorns can't afford to commit those penalties in a more closely-matched game.

How much does Colt McCoy run? Last season in Lubbock, Colt McCoy was beat up, with bruises all over his body acquired throughout the season, particularly during the three tough games directly preceding the trip to the Llano Escatado. This season, Mack Brown and staff wanted to avoid calling running plays for their quarterback throughout the first two games, mostly succeeding after only calling three running plays for McCoy against Wyoming. McCoy's struggles during most of 2007 put in stark relief just how much better the Texas offense is when McCoy runs the ball effectively -- after he came out of the game for one play against Nebraska, everything seemed to click into place for him running the zone read with Jamaal Charles, the offense took off, and has hardly looked back since.

Brown understands the need to run McCoy as well as anyone ($):

We're a better offense when we run him some. So we'll be smart with it, but we're going to put him back in the offense as a runner and that will stop some of the blitzing. We were going to try to get to the third game without doing that to protect him. But he needed to do that some on Saturday, and we're glad he did. We're going to be smart with Colt on the runs, but that's who we are, and we're going to do a better job with it.

One of the major stories this week has been the conversation that Mack Brown had with McCoy after the Wyoming game about having more fun, relaxing, and not pressing so much early in games. McCoy acknowledged to Chip Brown that running the ball may help him establish a rhythm early on and better integrate him into the flow of the game:

I do feel a little bit more in control of the game when I run a little bit because it helps our offense and we're moving the chains.

Look for the Longhorns to call more zone reads and several quarterback draws during the game to help take pressure off of the running backs and keep the Texas Tech defense honest. Texas Tech may be surprised at just how difficult it is to stop a healthy, fresh Colt McCoy running the football.

How much does Tre' Newton play? Throughout each of the first two games, redshirt freshman running back Tre' Newton has been a bright spot for the Texas running game, particularly against Wyoming, gashing the Cowboys in the second half and hitting his holes decisively and at speed. However, the concern is that Newton did his damage against two overmatched teams in the second half when they were all but worn down. Can he remain as effective if he plays in the first half against Texas Tech?

It's certainly a legitimate question, but this may be the week to find out. Vondrell McGee tweaked his ankle last week and practiced, but won't be at full speed on Saturday and neither will Fozzy Whittaker, who is practicing but still recovering from his knee problem. Despite a dropped pass, Newton seems to have the trust of the coaching staff:

He's just a guy that does what he's supposed to every day. I think he's 195 pounds, he's bigger than people think he is and the things that he brings to the table is that he gets from here to there real fast, and he's got very good vision, so he's got great patience. I don't know how fast he is if people just time him in the 40, but his football time's really fast.

Newton threw an excellent block on the draw play for McCoy Texas ran last week and it's a play that the Longhorns will probably use once or twice this week and Newton will probably be the lead blocker on the play. With his ability as a receiver, he will also probably see the field when the Longhorns get in their "jet" tempo, one of the major bright spots offensively through the first two weeks. Texas Tech doesn't have a particularly deep defensive line, so tiring them out early could help Texas immensely in the second half. Newton also blocked well downfield as a receiver, throwing a key block to spring Dan Buckner's touchdown catch and run that effectively put the game out of reach.

If Newton does find the end zone, fans certainly don't have to worry about him picking up any taunting penalties. After the Southlake Carroll product scored his first career touchdown, he tossed the ball to the official and headed straight for the sidelines. Mack Brown said his teammates gave him some grief about that during the week:

He's a very settled kid, and he's been this way since he's been here. He's very smart, he makes great grades, he's a guy that never says anything and he smiles. I think the players were kidding with him after the touchdown the other day, because he ran to the official and handed him the ball and they were making fun of him for not celebrating, and he said, "I'm supposed to give the ball to the official. That's what I'm told."

Too true, Tre'. But here's a hint though, for the next time: Toss that ball to the official quickly, by all means, but pause a second and give some love to the big uglies who cleared the way for you. You might need their help again.

How much pressure can Texas put on the quarterback? First of all, people need to chill out about Sergio Kindle. He's not hurt, he's not slow, he's not a disappointment. He hasn't played nearly as much as he will throughout the conference season as Muschamp has worked to bulid depth through the first two games. He hasn't been deployed as he will against Texas Tech because Muschamp doesn't have any desire to reveal the more exotic elements of his defensive schemes.

All that will change this week. Kindle will be moving from gap to gap before the snap this week and will get pressure on Taylor Potts, just like he got pressure on Robert Benjamin early last week. In fact, Kindle played so well against Wyoming that Muschamp graded him as the top defensive performer on the team, even above Lamarr Houston, who won the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week award. When the play went away from Kindle, he did an excellent job of playing contain and keeping the mobile quarterback in the pocket. He's doing what Muschamp wants him to do so far.

Kindle is only part of the equation in terms of getting pressure on the quarterback. If Texas Tech doesn't keep the defensive interior honest by running the ball some or throwing some screens to the running back, Lamarr Houston, and possibly Sam Acho at an interior position, will start shooting gaps into the backfield. Alex Okafor will also have a chance to play at the Buck position, as will Emmanuel Acho when he's on the field. The sack numbers will probably not be gaudy, as Potts gets rid of the ball quickly like every Tech quarterback, but the Longhorns should be able to pressure him into some quick throws.

Just how much has the secondary grown? It's understandable that Blake Gideon and Earl Thomas have received a lot of attention this week, for reasons that don't even merit much discussion at this point. Though they have said all the right things, it's hard to believe that this is just like any other game for them. The question is how much they have really improved. Thomas has almost picked off several passes this season, including one late against Wyoming that should have gone back for a touchdown. Gideon dropped another interception against Wyoming as well on a play that could have found the end zone had he held onto the football. Whether they will come up with those plays against Tech remains to be seen, but they will put themselves in a better position to make plays than last year.

While Thomas and Gideon have gotten all the attention, the play of Aaron Williams and Curtis and Chykie Brown will be just as important. Williams will have the task of occasionally rushing from his nickel spot and blowing up screen passes, something Deon Beasley did extremely poorly last year. Besides Thomas, Williams appears to have the most playmaking ability in the secondary, standing up the Wyoming running back last week before ripping the ball out, a truly beautiful play. Even Curtis Brown laid the wood last week, destroying an intended receiver on a screen pass. Last season, Chykie Brown didn't even play against Tech with his ankle sprain.

Thomas and Gideon have the most demons to exorcise in front of the entire country on Saturday night, but the rest of the secondary will have just as much of an impact on whether the Longhorns win the game or not. And if the early season is any indication, they're ready.