SB Nation - Vondrell McGee

If College Football Had a Playoff: #15 East Carolina Pirates @ #2 Texas Longhorns

Jeremy Mauss — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:02:43 -0000

More photos » by Harry Cabluck - AP

Before we get to game four the previous matchup of #13 LSU against #4 TCU was a back in forth matchup with LSU leading by as many as 60 votes early this morning, but then the TCU fans came out and won by 150 votes. This matchup has the most votes with just under 800.

For the previous results go check out the section "If College Football had a playoff."

This should be as simple as the Troy vs. Alabama matchup with Texas mopping the floor with the Pirates. Had Houston won C-USA then they would at least make this game interesting.

Who knows maybe East Carolina could get a good pass rush on Colt McCoy and make this game interesting for a half. I would expect Colt McCoy to have a field day over ECU.

Now for the somewhat scientific view by using What if Sports to simulate this fine matchup. As expected What if Sports predicts a 43-14 blowout in favor of Texas. Texas was able to run and throw all over ECU with a balanced attack with 304 passing yards and 273 rushing yards.

Stop by to vote and comment on this matchup. Light hearted trash talk is highly encouraged.

Texas Stats

Passing

		Passing									Rushing					Sacks
	G	Rating	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	Y/G	Y/A	TD	INT	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Sack	YdsL
Garrett Gilbert	8	60.0	15	26	57.7	124	15.5	4.8	0	0	6	11	1.4	1.8	1	-	-
Colt McCoy	13	103.0	330	468	70.5	3512	270.2	7.5	27	12	128	348	26.8	2.7	3	-	-

Rushing

		Rushing					Receiving
	G	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Rec	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD
John Chiles	11	7	29	2.6	4.1	0	34	319	29	9.4	3
Antwan Cobb	2	1	3	1.5	3	0	0	0	0	0	0
Garrett Gilbert	8	6	11	1.4	1.8	1	0	0	0	0	0
Marquise Goodwin	11	2	8	.700	4	0	25	209	19	8.4	1
Sherrod Harris	1	1	4	4	4	0	0	0	0	0	0
Jeremy Hills	2	9	86	43	9.6	0	0	0	0	0	0
Cody Johnson	13	84	333	25.6	4	12	7	42	3.2	6	0
Colt McCoy	13	128	348	26.8	2.7	3	0	0	0	0	0
Vondrell McGee	9	56	300	33.3	5.4	2	8	37	4.1	4.6	0
D.J. Monroe	9	20	110	12.2	5.5	0	0	0	0	0	0
Tre' Newton	11	102	513	46.6	5	6	12	106	9.6	8.8	0
Jordan Shipley	13	1	0	0	0	0	106	1363	104.8	12.9	11
Foswhitt Whittaker	10	52	207	20.7	4	4	13	51	5.1	3.9	0

Receiving

		Receiving
	G	Rec	Yds	Y/G	AVG	TD
Dan Buckner	12	44	445	37.1	10.1	4
John Chiles	11	34	319	29	9.4	3
Marquise Goodwin	11	25	209	19	8.4	1
DeSean Hales	1	1	2	2	2	0
Cody Johnson	13	7	42	3.2	6	0
James Kirkendoll	12	48	461	38.4	9.6	6
Vondrell McGee	9	8	37	4.1	4.6	0
Tre' Newton	11	12	106	9.6	8.8	0
Philip Payne	1	1	7	7	7	0
Jordan Shipley	13	106	1363	104.8	12.9	11
Foswhitt Whittaker	10	13	51	5.1	3.9	0
Malcolm Williams	12	38	546	45.5	14.4	2

Kicking

		Field Goals								PAT
	G	0-19	20-29	30-39	40-49	50+	FGM	FGA	PCT	XPM	XPA	PCT	pts
Hunter Lawrence	13	-	-	-	-	-	22	25	90.0%	62	63	100.0%	128

East Carolina Stats

Passing

		Passing									Rushing					Sacks
	G	Rating	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	Y/G	Y/A	TD	INT	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Sack	YdsL
Josh Jordan	3	70.0	5	7	71.4	61	20.3	8.7	0	0	4	6	2	1.5	0	-	-
Rob Kass	3	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	-
Patrick Pinkney	13	60.0	242	407	59.5	2738	210.6	6.7	14	10	41	101	7.8	2.5	3	-	-

Rushing

		Rushing					Receiving
	G	Rush	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD	Rec	Yds	Y/G	Avg	TD
Darnell Ballard	2	2	4	2	2	1	2	18	9	9	0
Justin Brockmeyer	2	2	23	11.5	11.5	0	0	0	0	0	0
Darryl Freeney	10	2	2	.200	1	0	42	622	62.2	14.8	3
Dwayne Harris	13	31	149	11.5	4.8	5	79	914	70.3	11.6	6
Brandon Jackson	8	84	316	39.5	3.8	3	6	75	9.4	12.5	0
Josh Jordan	3	4	6	2	1.5	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dominique Lindsay	11	206	1029	93.5	5	5	18	138	12.5	7.7	1
Patrick Pinkney	13	41	101	7.8	2.5	3	0	0	0	0	0
J.R. Rogers	1	5	6	6	1.2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Justin Ruffin	2	15	95	47.5	6.3	1	0	0	0	0	0
Giavanni Ruffin	10	56	169	16.9	3	4	5	26	2.6	5.2	0
Norman Whitley	2	3	2	1	.700	0	1	9	4.5	9	0
Jonathan Williams	5	14	38	7.6	2.7	0	3	7	1.4	2.3	0

Receiving

		Receiving
	G	Rec	Yds	Y/G	AVG	TD
Darnell Ballard	2	2	18	9	9	0
Andrew Bodenheimer	3	4	72	24	18	0
Jamar Bryant	7	21	200	28.6	9.5	2
Darryl Freeney	10	42	622	62.2	14.8	3
Dwayne Harris	13	79	914	70.3	11.6	6
Brandon Jackson	8	6	75	9.4	12.5	0
Jacobi Jenkins	2	2	12	6	6	0
Dominique Lindsay	11	18	138	12.5	7.7	1
Korey Reynolds	1	1	12	12	12	0
Giavanni Ruffin	10	5	26	2.6	5.2	0
Alex Taylor	11	35	367	33.4	10.5	0
Norman Whitley	2	1	9	4.5	9	0
Jonathan Williams	5	3	7	1.4	2.3	0
Reyn Willis	6	6	107	17.8	17.8	1
Joe Womack	6	12	141	23.5	11.8	0

Kicking

		Field Goals								PAT
	G	0-19	20-29	30-39	40-49	50+	FGM	FGA	PCT	XPM	XPA	PCT	pts
Ben Ryan	3	-	-	-	-	-	0	2	0	4	4	100.0%	4
Ben Hartman	12	-	-	-	-	-	19	25	80.0%	32	32	100.0%	89

Poll

Who wins?

Texas Longhorns

37 votes

East Carolina Pirates

11 votes

48 votes | Poll has closed

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.

texas Preview

Beergut — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:09:48 -0000

Here we are again, with the annual A&M-texas game back on Thanksgiving night, where it belongs. The 6-5 Aggies will face the 11-0 longhorns Thursday night; the longhorns are playing for an undefeated regular season, and to keep their national championship dreams intact; the Aggies are playing for their third win over texas in the last four years, and to guarantee an overall winning season by defeating their archrival.

texas leads the Big 12 in scoring offense (42.5 points per game), and is second in scoring defese (13.3 ppg), while A&M is third (33.5) and last (31.2), respectively. Where texas is really outstanding is on run defense, giving up only 55.1 yards per game. That will make anyone one-dimensional on offense, but texas is also outstanding in pass defense, giving up only 188.6 yds per game. Will Muschamp has done a phenomenal job with his defense in Austin.

Offensively, the star of this team is WR/PR Jordan Shipley. I know the media loves to fawn all over quarterback Colt McCoy, but Shipley is really the player who makes this texas offense go. He is McCoy's security blanket on offense, and normally his first option on most pass plays. (Coincidentally, they are also roommates and best friends who like to go fishing together. Their fathers were also roommates when they played together at Abilene Christian years ago. ROOMMATES!!! Bet you didn't know that.) Shipley has 91 receptions for 1204 yards and 9 TDs on the season so far, and he still has at least three more games to play. Shipley also leads the Big 12 in punt returns, averaging 13.3 yards per return, with two taken back for a TD. If we hope to contain texas' offense on Thursday, we need to find a way to control Shipley.

QB Colt McCoy has had a solid but not spectacular season, completing 286 of 392 passes for 3024 yards, 23 TDs, and 9 interceptions. After leading texas in rushing a season ago, McCoy has only 193 yards rushing on 93 carries and 1 TD. Because our defense is so mediocre as stopping the run, I expect texas to call the zone read quite often, and also call designed QB runs for McCoy to hopefully boost his Heisman candidacy. We need to force the give to the RB on every zone read and punish McCoy, because the RB is the lesser threat of the two when carrying the ball. McCoy can scramble to avoid pressure, run to the LOS to bring the cornerbacks and safeties up, and then pass over them for a big gain. We need to get pressure on McCoy and force some turnovers; he averages over a turnover a game, and we need to keep him on track and get him frustrated. If Von Miller, Matt Moss, Spencer Nealy & Co can rattle his cage a little, that would help immensely.

Running the ball has been something of a mixed bag for texas; they don't have a single rusher ranked among the Big 12's top 12 runners, and they rank 5th in the Big 12 in rushing, averaging 152.2 yards per game. Part of texas' problem running the ball seems to be their offensive line, which has been average at best this season, failing to become the dominant unit many expected. texas doesn't have a single back who has rushed for over 400 yards this season, but they have three at 300 yards or more (Vondrell McGee, Tre Newton, Cody Johnson). Their leading rusher, Tre Newton, who should start against us Thursday, has carried the ball 67 times for 370 yards (5.5 ypc average), and 5 TDs. Newton is a solid back with good balance and decent speed; the reason he doesn't have better numbers has to do with texas' running-back-by-committee approach, a mild concussion he had earlier this year that cause him to miss some playing time, and poor execution by the offensive line. Newton should get the bulk of the carries on Thursday, with Cody Johnson coming in for short yardage situations. When texas goes to their 21 or 22 personnel for short yardage or inside the red zone, you will see fullback Antwan Cobb enter the game. Cobb rarely carries the ball (1 carry for 3 yards on the season so far), but he is a very dependable blocker, and does his job well. If any texas running back is close to 100 yards rushng by the end of the third quarter, you'll know we are in trouble.

Defensively, it all starts up front for texas, where they are led by DT Lamarr Houston and DE Sam Acho. Houstn has 43 tackles on the season, 19 tackles for loss, 7 sacks, and 2 fumbles recoveries. Acho has 41 tackles, 11 TFL, 7 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, and 4 fumble recoveries. These two are a deadly inside-outside combination up front, and do a good job wreaking havoc on opposing offensive lines. Acho and Houston are backed up by a very capable linebacking corps in Roddrick Muckelroy (72 tackles, 9 TFL, 2 sacks), Keenan Robinson (51 tackles, 3 TFL, 1 sack), and Emmanuel Acho (43 tackles, 10 TFL, 3 sacks); if you get past the defensive line, those three are waiting to clean up. texas' secondary is led by safety Earl Thomas, who has 57 tackles, 4 TFL, and a ridiculous 7 interceptions on the season. Blake Gideon is solid, but unspectacular (49 tackles, 1 TFL, 4 PBU), while CB Aaron Williams is a playmaker (33 tackles, 6 TFL, 2 sacks, 2 interceptions, 2 forced fumbles). Against good defenses, you run right at them, and I think we would be most effective running Power right at WDE Sergio Kindle, who has been a disappointment this season when you look at the preseason predictions. In the passing game, I would try to attack Blake Gideon as much as possible, and try use the short passing game a lot, dinking and dunking our way down the field. If we can be balanced on offense, running and passing the ball effectively, we have a chance to control the tempo of the game, and give ourselves a chance to win. If we can have a good game on the ground, add around 20 yards or more to their season average of per game rushing, we'll win the game.

Texas: Beyond the Box Score Preview

Bill C. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:30:15 -0000

Saturday night Missouri plays in what could possibly be the last game of the regular season in which they are the underdog (unless Kansas avoids a tailspin). What kind of upset chances do the Tigers have? What do the stats tell us are possible opportunities (and serious threats) for our most losable Homecoming game in quite some time? To the numbers!

Offense

Texas: 2009 Beyond the Box Score Preseason Offensive Preview

As you'll see, I've made the switch from raw Sack Rate figures to the schedule-adjusted Sack Rate+ ratings. These numbers still have a bit of a small sample size issue, meaning that the highs and lows for each category are more extreme than in other categories. For instance, Auburn is #1 in Offensive Sack Rate+ with a rating of over 400--rarely will you see a rating of over 200-250 in most categories. Keep that in mind when you see Missouri's really low Defensive Standard Downs Sack Rate+--it's bad, but it's not quite as bad as the number you see.

Texas Offense vs Missouri Defense
Category	UT Offense	MU Defense
Close S&P+ (Rk)	120.5 (21)	121.6 (25)
Close Success Rate+ (Rk)	119.7 (12)	107.6 (39)
Close PPP+ (Rk)	122.4 (31)	143.1 (16)

Rushing S&P+	124.2 (18)	101.3 (66)
Passing S&P+	116.3 (36)	143.4 (15)

Standard Downs S&P+	129.0 (7)	116.3 (26)
Passing Downs S&P+	124.4 (29)	115.7 (34)

Red Zone S&P+	117.2 (44)	94.0 (77)

Q1 S&P+	131.4 (23)	100.5 (63)
Q2 S&P+	126.7 (25)	154.0 (8)
Q3 S&P+	151.3 (6)	100.7 (56)
Q4 S&P+	118.7 (30)	120.4 (23)

1st Down S&P+	143.4 (5)	116.0 (31)
2nd Down S&P+	121.7 (26)	113.8 (35)
3rd Down S&P+	120.5 (29)	111.0 (40)

Line Yards+	99.3 (72)	104.5 (54)
Close Sack Rate+	147.3 (27)	85.7 (84)
Standard Downs / Passing Downs Sack Rate+	164.7 (27) / 137.0 (38)	49.3 (106) / 91.0 (70)

Analysis after the jump.

Let's start with where Missouri has the rankings advantage:

Close PPP+
Passing S&P+
Q2 S&P+
Q4 S&P+
Line Yards+

To win this game, Missouri must defend those rankings, first and foremost. They have been one of the better teams in the country in terms of not giving up big plays (PPP+), and that must continue. Their "allow the short passes and tackle well" approach has worked for the most part, and that must continue. They get stronger as the half moves on, and that must continue. Texas simply has not run-blocked very well this year, and Missouri must take advantage of that.

Other thoughts:

Here are the categories where Texas holds the biggest advantage: Rushing S&P+, Red Zone S&P+, Q1 S&P+, Q3 S&P+, 1st Down S&P+, Standard Downs S&P+. While Missouri must maintain the advantages they do have, they also need to minimize the damage done here. Early-half stops. Big-time run support from the likes of Sean Weatherspoon, Will Ebner, Aldon Smith, etc. Figuring out some way, any way, to get pressure on Colt McCoy on 1st Downs and not allow him to get off quick pass after quick pass.

Quarterback

Can Colt McCoy possibly approach his 2008 numbers in 2008? I say no, and I have one major reason why: Texas actually did better on Passing Downs (1.01 S&P) than Standard Downs (0.97 S&P) in 2008. Think about that. They were a better offense on 3rd-and-7 than 2nd-and-4. That makes no sense, and while I don't have enough year-to-year data to show what happens to teams with disproportional success like that, how in the world can you maintain that?

In a lot of ways, this disproportionality reminds me a lot of a baseball measure that has significantly grown in popularity recently: BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play). Over time, most players and pitchers produce roughly the same BABIP. It can vary depending on the ratio of ground balls to line drives and fly balls, but over time, most BABIP will regress to the mean of around .290. When a pitcher gives up a BABIP of .350 or .220 one year, it's probably pretty quickly going to revert back toward .290. Therefore it can be used to spot flukes, seasons that were particularly good or bad depending on whether ground balls tended to sneak between 3B and SS or go straight at a defender.

To me, disproportional success on Passing Downs might end up being a lot like BABIP in picking up on some amount of fluky success. Texas certainly had a good offense no matter what in 2008, but I think it may have been a little too good to maintain in 2009. Especially considering McCoy will be playing without two major third-down bailout options, Chris Ogbonnaya and Quan Cosby, I'm thinking Colt may end up having a year where Texas struggles at times, and there's no clear explanation why (kind of like when you're hitting a ball hard, but right at the shortstop). A few more 3rd-and-7 passes fall incomplete, and the Texas offense could slow down in a hurry.

Colt McCoy: 156-for-223 passing (70.0%), 1,537 yards (6.9/pass), 11 TD, 7 INT; 48 rushes, 91 yards (1.9/carry), 1 TD

Last season, Texas ranked 24th in Standard Downs S&P+ and 2nd in Passing Downs S&P+. So far this year, they are up to 7th in Standard Downs S&P+, but only 29th in Passing Downs S&P+. Has McCoy regressed? Did he somehow become less "clutch"? Doubtful. Granted, Texas' offensive line probably isn't the best in the conference, but I still think Texas' struggles (and "struggles" is used loosely here--29th in Passing Downs S&P+ is nothing to scoff at, though McCoy's already thrown 7 interceptions this year after only throwing 8 last year) are most explained by simple regression to the mean. All in all, McCoy's numbers are absolutely respectable--70% completion rate, almost seven yards per pass, etc.--but human. Regression to the mean was the single biggest reason I didn't think McCoy had a chance at this year's Heisman (his chance was last year, when almost everything went right), and so far I've been proven correct on that one. Of course, he could complete 80% of his passes and throw for 350 yards and 4 TDs a game from here on out, and he could still win the big trophy...but I doubt it.

Running Back

The Longhorns have a host of talented-yet-flawed athletes in the backfield. Cody Johnson is an awesome short-yardage back, but can he see every-down success? Can Fozzy Whitaker stay healthy enough to live up to the massive promise seen by Burnt Orange Nation readers over the last couple of years? Can Vondrell McGee, UT's most well-rounded overall back, assert himself a bit more in 2009? Can any number of other highly-recruited options break into the rotation?

Vondrell McGee: 46 carries, 260 yards (5.7/carry), 2 TD; 8 receptions, 37 yards (4.6/catch)
Tre' Newton: 41 carries, 203 yards (5.0/carry), 3 TD; 3 receptions, 21 yards (7.0/catch)
Fozzy Whittaker: 23 carries, 121 yards (5.3/carry), 2 TD; 6 receptions, 24 yards (4.0/catch)
Cody Johnson: 29 carries, 104 yards (3.6/carry), 5 TD; 2 receptions, 13 yards (6.5/catch)
D.J. Monroe: 17 carries, 91 yards (5.4/carry)

Gosh, what torture Mack Brown must go through trying to figure out ways to find carries for five different running backs. Makes you feel sorry for him, huh? Right now, the amalgamation of Texas' five main backs, "Vozztre' Monson," has put together a workmanlike 156 carries for 779 yards and 12 TDs. That's 5.0 yards per carry and 130 yards per game...for the season, that would be roughly what LeSean McCoy produced for Pittsburgh last year. Plus, Vozztre Monson has one luxury that McCoy did not--extra limbs. In case a shoulder or ankle or knee gets injured, he has plenty of other sets upon which to fall back.

Texas' running game will lull you to sleep--nobody here averages over six yards per carry (for comparison, Alabama's Mark Ingram is currently averaging 6.7 per carry, Virginia Tech's Ryan Williams 6.0), but they are quite efficient, and even though they've gotten little contribution from McCoy so far, the run game ranks in the nation's top 20. They're doing something right, even if they don't have any one guy as good as someone like Jamaal Charles.

Wide Receivers / Tight Ends

If Texas can replace Quan Cosby's reliability (and Brandon Collins--10 of 12 third-down catches moved the chains--looks like he could be up for the challenge), then this receiving corps could be one of the best in the country. Jordan Shipley returns for his 17th year (what? only his 6th?), and the rest of the depth chart is simply littered with big-time recruits. Malcolm Williams awed everybody in the country with his 91-yard touchdown catch at a key moment against Texas Tech, but he only caught 19 passes all season. Dan Buckner passes the eyeball test...but only caught five passes. With Cosby gone, it is time for at least a couple of these guys to become reliable, every-down receivers.

WR Jordan Shipley: 51 catches, 605 yards (11.9/catch), 3 TD
WR Dan Buckner: 29 carries, 333 yards (11.5/catch), 4 TD
WR John Chiles: 22 catches, 177 yards (8.0/catch), 2 TD
WR James Kirkendoll: 20 catches, 198 yards (9.9/catch), 1 TD
WR Marquise Goodwin: 14 catches, 127 yards (9.1/catch), 1 TD
WR Malcolm Williams: 8 catches, 84 yards (10.5/catch)

TE Greg Smith: 3 catches, 22 yards (7.3/catch)

Where would this team be without Jordan Shipley? He's the only main Texas receiver averaging over 11.5 yards per catch, and he has caught as many passes as the Longhorns' #2 and #3 receivers combined. No offense to the guy (hey, did you hear he roomed with Colt McCoy?), but I kind of wish the NCAA hadn't given him an extra year of eligibility after his 17 career injuries. Kinda wish they'd inflicted the John Dausman "Yeah, you tore up your knee twice and missed 1.9 full seasons, but your team just isn't important enough for us to care about you too much...but you better not do anything illegal, because we need to throw the book at somebody for USC's violations" ruling at him*.

(* Yeah, that was a little bitter. I need to get better at letting things go. Dausman was a senior in 2000, and he really wasn't even that great. Shipley is exactly who the sixth-year exception is made for, and just ignore me because I'm a bitter person.)

Anyway, there has been a bit of a revolving door at WR for Texas, with plenty of people getting an opportunity at the "McCoy's #2 guy" role and nobody completely accepting it. For this game, it appears that the main shots will go to speedy Marquise Goodwin and huge Malcolm Williams. Goodwin scored UT's only touchdown against OU, and Williams has the single highest fear-induced-to-actual-production ratio in the country. Opposing fans are petrified of this guy, and justifiably so (I mean, did you see the catches he made against Missouri and Texas Tech last year??)...but in his first season and a half on the depth chart, Williams has caught a total of 25 passes, or six fewer than Missouri's Jared Perry has caught this year alone. But somehow, he really is terrifying, and you just hope he waits until next week to wake up.

Offensive Line

So here's something interesting: while Texas is known for signing as many four-star recruits as they can stomach, of the four returning starters on the offensive line, three--Hall, Ulatoski, Tanner--were 3-star recruits. Now, Missouri has proven that there's nothing wrong with loading up on 3-stars, but there isn't quite as much high-end talent here as in most units for the Longhorns, and it possibly showed last year. While Colt McCoy was one of the nation's best QBs, and the UT receiving corps was Top 15, the line struggled, both in run-blocking (64th in Line Yards+) and pass protection (59th in Adjusted Sack Rate). For those who follow recruiting rankings, there is a silver lining for the 'Horns, as Michael Huey, Tray Allen, David Snow, and Mark Buchanan were all given at least four stars by Rivals (Allen was a 5-star), so there is decent depth of talent here, and if this unit can do its job a little better, maybe McCoy won't have to come through on nearly as many Passing Down situations.

Compared to last year, Texas' sack rates have improved quite a bit...and their run-blocking has gotten worse. With the line yardage figures, a line is punished if backs dance too much or are not aggressive enough hitting holes, so as I do when talking about Missouri's own line yardage figures, I wanted to make sure that disclaimer was mentioned. That said, this does appear to be one area where Missouri matches up well. We can talk about how disappointed we are that the athletic end trio of Aldon Smith, Jacquies Smith, and Brian Coulter haven't gotten to the quarterback more, but they have been stout in run support, and Missouri's front seven might be able to stand up pretty well to the Texas running game, especially if Will Ebner is anywhere near 100%. Love that guy.

Overall, the key to stopping McCoy will be doing whatever you can to force mistakes out of him. Missouri has not been great at forcing turnovers, but that will need to change, and if you can leverage a team into enough Passing Downs, the turnovers seem to flow out a lot easier. That means stopping the run, that means batting passes down, and that means tackling well after short passes (and if the receivers' per-catch totals mean anything, they will absolutely throw short).

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Defense

Texas: 2009 Beyond the Box Score Preseason Defensive Preview

Texas Defense vs Missouri Offense
Category	UT Defense	MU Offense
Close S&P+ (Rk)	138.9 (11)	98.1 (75)
Close Success Rate+	128.6 (9)	98.2 (78)
Close PPP+	154.6 (12)	98.9 (78)

Rushing S&P+	187.1 (1)	87.0 (101)
Passing S&P+	122.6 (26)	106.9 (64)

Standard Downs S&P+	139.4 (6)	102.3 (68)
Passing Downs S&P+	157.8 (6)	97.5 (75)

Red Zone S&P+	164.6 (7)	61.9 (119)

Q1 S&P+	144.9 (13)	102.6 (71)
Q2 S&P+	171.5 (3)	93.9 (84)
Q3 S&P+	123.5 (24)	114.9 (42)
Q4 S&P+	158.0 (5)	101.7 (72)

1st Down S&P+	132.4 (17)	101.9 (68)
2nd Down S&P+	147.1 (11)	107.2 (59)
3rd Down S&P+	199.4 (1)	92.5 (88)

Line Yards+	252.4 (1)	91.9 (94)
Close Sack Rate+	100.2 (60)	170.1 (17)
Standard Downs / Passing Downs Sack Rate+	88.9 (75) / 133.3 (30)	171.3 (24) / 138.5 (37)

Let's once again start by looking at where Missouri holds the statistical advantage:

Close Sack Rate+
Standard Downs Sack Rate+

Aaaaaaaaand that's about it. So in the name of maintaining the advantages they have, Missouri must make sure that Blaine Gabbert does not face much pressure. Sergio Kindle becomes an extremely scary presence on Passing Downs (just ask Taylor Potts), but before Missouri can worry about that, they have to protect and make sure that Gabbert sees as little pressure as possible on the downs in which running and passing are of equal likelihood.

Other thoughts:

If Missouri can get ANYTHING WHATSOEVER out of the running game, I will be thrilled. That is the single biggest difference in rankings between the two teams (that, and the heavily-related Line Yards+). If Missouri is going to win this game, Derrick Washington absolutely has to find the fifth gear he misplaced sometime early last year. We know what D-Wash can do, but he hasn't done it in quite a while.
Texas gets better with each progressive down, from 17th on 1st downs, to 11th on 2nd, to 1st on 3rd. That puts significant pressure on Missouri to get yards on first down. If it doesn't come from the running game, it has to come with short passing. Andrew Jones needs to pretty quickly find a cure for invisibility because he could be very useful here.
As I've mentioned before, the truest signal of a young team is lack of success on third downs and Passing Downs. Missouri has predictably struggled here, and it will be quite a task to suddenly improve against the best defense they will face this year. Here's where Missouri's play-calling and effort will need to be at their A+ level. The coaches will need to deftly put players in the position to succeed, and the players will have to take advantage of it. Rocket science, I know.

Defensive Line

The main man in making sure UT's QB pressure doesn't drop in 2009 isn't even on the list above. That, of course, would be hybrid LB/DE Sergio Kindle (14 TFL, 10 sacks), listed below in the LBs list. He will be the main rush end, I think, in passing situations. Along with Kindle, it's probably time for former 5-star recruit Eddie Jones to make his move. In 13 games last year, he managed only eight tackles in backup time, though five went for loss (he also added 5 QBH, but I'm starting to think that Texas statisticians were VERY liberal in their interpretation of what constitutes a "hurry"). If he can become a reliable force alongside Kindle and Sam Acho, Texas should be just fine. If he doesn't, defensive coordinator Will Muschamp will be looking toward Dravannti Johnson and maybe stud true freshman Alex Okafor to provide the lacking pressure.

DE(ish) Sergio Kindle: 20.0 tackles, 7.0 TFL/sacks, 2 FF, 1 PBR
DE Sam Acho: 19.5 tackles, 7.0 TFL/sacks, 4 FR, 8 QBH, 2 PBR
DT Lamarr Houston: 17.0 tackles, 6.0 TFL/sacks, 2 FR, 17 QBH, 2 PBR
DT Ben Alexander: 13.5 tackles, 4.0 TFL/sacks, 1 QBH

If this team had nobody named Kindle or Acho, it would be much less intimidating. Kindle (DE/LB), Sam Acho (DE), and Emmanuel Acho (DE) have combined for 22 TFL/sacks, five forced fumbles and six fumble recoveries. They are the disruptive force in Will Muschamp's defense. Meanwhile, Lamarr Houston and Ben Alexander have both made a strong number of plays for DTs--not the Ndamukong Suh level of plays, but a lot. Man for man, this is probably a better line than what Missouri faced against Nebraska, which is a scary thought...though the field should be dry, which can't hurt.

Linebackers

Whereas the D-line had headliners and great stats, the Texas linebackers (sans Kindle) were probably a bit overshadowed in 2008. But when a defense is equally great at stopping the run and the pass, some of that is going to be because of a good LB corps, and that reflected well in my LB rankings. Kindle and fellow 2009 seniors Roddrick Muckelroy and Jared Norton were extremely steady in 2008, and there's no reason to expect otherwise in 2009. Muckelroy only had four TFLs and didn't really play a role in forcing many turnovers, but he was UT's main tackler, racking up 112 (71 solo). There is little experience behind this trio of seniors, but Keenan Robinson and Tariq Allen were both 4-star recruits--they'll probably be alright in 2010...or at least 2011.

Roddrick Muckelroy: 30.5 tackles, 6.0 TFL/sacks, 7 QBH, 5 PBR
Keenan Robinson: 20.0 tackles, 1.0 TFL/sacks, 3 PBR
Emmanuel Acho: 20.0 tackles, 8.0 TFL/sacks, 3 FF, 2 FR, 3 QBH
Dustin Earnest: 9.5 tackles, 1.0 TFL/sacks, 1 QBH

Aside from Kindle and the Achos, this front seven is steady and fast...and that's all they need to be. It seems like Roddrick Muckelroy has been playing for the Longhorns for nine years now, and he brings a nice, steadying force to the UT defense, allowing others to take more chances.

Secondary

If there's an area of aimed-for improvement in this unit, it comes in the form of interceptions--they only snagged six in 2008. In landing the #3 ranking, they benefited from the fact that my rankings don't place heavy emphasis on turnovers. They covered and tackled well, but one thing that can help out the Texas offense--one that I'm still saying might struggle more than expected thanks to their disproportionate success on Passing Downs--is by setting up some short fields and easy points. These are mostly 3- and 4-star recruits with a growing amount of experience, so it wouldn't be shocking to see a secondary that was a liability just a couple of years ago, suddenly forcing quiet a few turnovers and turning into the single best unit on the team.

S Earl Thomas: 22.5 tackles, 2.0 TFL/sacks, 5 INT, 1 FF, 9 PBR
CB Curtis Brown: 21.5 tackles, 1 FF, 10 PBR
CB Aaron Williams: 19.5 tackles, 4.0 TFL/sacks, 1 INT, 2 FF, 2 QBH, 2 PBR
S Blake Gideon: 19.5 tackles, 2 INT, 2 PBR
CB Chykie Brown: 15.0 tackles, 1.0 TFL/sacks, 1 FF, 1 QBH, 7 PBR

When you've got such a good defensive line and scary front-seven athletes, your secondary is almost guaranteed to look good as well--QBs will be making more hurried throws, RBs won't be breaking wide open into the secondary, etc. That said, it really is starting to appear that the Longhorns secondary that was a liability a couple of years ago has rounded into a helluva unit, at least in terms of playmaking ability. They rank only 26th against the pass, compared to Missouri's 15th-ranked pass defense, but they have also intercepted ten passes, eight more than Missouri. In a game which Missouri cannot win without winning the turnover battle, it does appear that Texas has the edge here.

Special Teams

Hunter Lawrence wasn't asked to do a ton last year--less than one FG attempt per game--but he did well in the limited opportunities, missing just two kicks all year. He and John Gold form a pretty damn solid kicking unit, even if neither was needed much in 2008. Jordan Shipley had a clutch kickoff return touchdown against Oklahoma, just as it looked like OU was about seize control of the game (UT had just gone down 14-3 when he broke loose), but the rest of the year he was only solid at KR's, not spectacular. Same with punt returns, where he ripped off a 45-yard touchdown in one return and managed only 19 yards in five others. It wouldn't surprise me to see Malcolm Williams become a force in kickoff returns, but overall this is a solid unit either way. Not as good as OSU's, but definitely in the upper half of the Big 12.

Punt Returns Rank: 15th (Jordan Shipley: 16 returns, 16.4 average, 2 TD)
Net Punting Rank: 74th (Justin Tucker: 21 returns, 39.5 average)
Kickoff Returns Rank: 2nd (D.J. Monroe: 9 returns, 42.7 average, 2 TD)
Opponents' Kickoff Returns Rank: 77th (22.1 yards/return)

Field Goals: 12-for-14 (Hunter Lawrence)
PATs: 30-for-31

Hunter Lawrence is a strong kicker, and Justin Tucker is a decent enough punter, but they don't really matter. For Missouri to win, they will also have to win the special teams battle, and that is a tall task thanks to UT's return game, which has produced four return touchdowns in six games. Jordan Shipley's punt return TD against Texas Tech gave the Longhorns some breathing room while their offense struggled, and Texas only led Colorado by ten when another Shipley return iced the game away. Knowing Missouri's past strategies against strong kick returners, expect a lot of short, pop-up kicks. Hopefully Tanner Mills is pretty good at them...assuming Missouri has quite a few opportunities to kick off, ahem. And after a down week in Stillwater, Jake Harry IV will need to go back to being Missouri's secret weapon. His rugby kicks and epic rolls have been key to Missouri winning field position battles this year, and while there's no way Missouri intentionally kicks directly to Shipley, the rolls still have to go in our favor...they had all year until the OSU game.

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Three Keys to the Game

The Bomb

Missouri has enough to worry about already--they simply must prevent big plays on defense. Texas hasn't generated too many of them this year, and they are still leading the country in scoring offense (granted, a lot of that has come against bad defenses, and a lot of points have been scored via the return game, but still). If Malcolm Williams catches a bomb, or if Fozzy Whittaker suddenly lives up to the hype and love Burnt Orange Nation has showered upon him for a while now, Missouri is dead meat. Despite all I said above about how the front seven must perform, really the safeties--Jasper Simmons, Kenji Jackson, Jarrell Harrison, Hardy Ricks--could be the most important players on the field for Mizzou on Saturday.

First-and-10

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for the Missouri offense to generate yardage on first downs, and for the Missouri defense to prevent them. That's it. Chart the first downs on Saturday night--whoever does better will win the game.

The Turnover

Again, not rocket science. Missouri outgained Oklahoma State last week, in terms of both yards and EqPts. And yet they lost by a comfortable margin because of the -4 turnover differential and -19.4 turnover points margin. Colt McCoy has proven willing to throw at least a pick or two, and while I love how well this defense has reacted to the play at hand and prevented big plays, you do figure they might have to both take some risks to force some turnovers. Overall, despite McCoy's seven picks, Texas is still +5 on the year in turnover margin. Missouri is -2. They will need to flip that around to have a chance. Sean Weatherspoon was Missouri's "Go force a turnover" guy last year, and now would be a pretty good time to make his presence felt, no?

Prediction

As I've mentioned multiple times this week, the monsoon game seems to have skewed both Missouri's and Nebraska's numbers, and due to that, the numbers project a nailbiter, Texas by 0.3. Being that I always go with the numbers, we'll say that means Texas 24, Missouri 23. That said, I'm pretty queasy about that. There is absolutely a path toward Mizzou winning this game--protect the ball and pick off a couple of passes, move the ball on first down (via air or ground, don't care which), punt well, tackle well, don't get burned deep. It's the recipe for winning any game, really, but with Blaine Gabbert's ankle not at 100%, and with Missouri's most-defined weakness (offensive line) meshing perfectly with Texas' biggest strength (defensive line), there's plenty of reason for pessimism here.

Texas is far from unbeatable--in my opinion, they're pretty far from the team they were just last year. But in a graduation- and injury-depleted Big 12, the road ahead of them is still quite maneuverable, and if Missouri or Oklahoma State doesn't knock them off, I don't know who will. I've been pretty down about Missouri's chances in this game--like I've said before, my main goals here are to not get anybody else hurt and make sure all the moving pieces start to come together for a five-game winning streak after this game--but this is college football, and anything can happen. Missouri is a fast, strong, super-young team, and teams like that experience pretty disparate highs and lows. Hit a high-note on Saturday night, and they can claim Gary Pinkel's first win over OU or Texas. If not, make sure not to lose your spot on the bandwagon. It will start filling up again when the team gets hot later on.

Missouri Depth Chart

GhostofBigRoy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:54:23 -0000

More photos » by Donna McWilliam - AP

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OFFENSE
Position	No.	Player	\|	No.	Player	\|	No.	Player
Flanker (Z)	8	Jordan Shipley	\|	11	James Kirkendoll		6	DeSean Hales
Sub B	84	Marquise Goodwin	OR	7	John Chiles	\|
Tight End (Y)	83	Greg Smith	\|	13	Ahmard Howard	OR	89	Barrett Matthews
	Flex TE: Dan Buckner
Right Tackle	64	Kyle Hix	\|	72	Britt Mitchell
Right Guard	63	Michael Huey	OR	56	Tray Allen	\|	54	Mark Buchanan
Center	71	Chris Hall	\|	78	David Snow	\|	75	Steve Moore
Left Guard	52	Charlie Tanner	\|	56	Tray Allen
Left Tackle	74	Adam Ulatoski	\|	77	Luke Poehlmann
Split End (X)	9	Malcolm Williams	\|	4	Dan Buckner
Tailback	28	Fozzy Whittaker	OR	31 2	Cody Johnson Vondrell McGee	OR	23	Tre' Newton
	Specialty Back: D.J. Monroe
Fullback	24	Antwann Cobb	\|	31	Cody Johnson
	Short Yardage/Goal-Line: Lamarr Houston
Quarterback	12	Colt McCoy	\|	3	Garrett Gilbert	\|	17	Sherrod Harris
Place-Kicker	15	Hunter Lawrence	\|	39	Ryan Bailey	\|	19	Justin Tucker

DEFENSE
Position	No.	Player	\|	No.	Player	\|	No.	Player
Buck	2	Sergio Kindle	\|	80	Alex Okafor
Tackle (Nose)	92	Ben Alexander	OR	91	Kheeston Randall
Tackle	33	Lamarr Houston	\|	96	Calvin Howell	\|	93	Tyrell Higgins
End	81	Sam Acho	\|	32	Eddie Jones	\|	95	Tevin Mims
Strongside LB	18	Emmanuel Acho	\|	1	Keenan Robinson
Middle LB	38	Roddrick Muckelroy	\|	42	Dustin Earnest
Weakside LB	1	Keenan Robinson	\|	18	Emmannuel Acho
Right CB	3	Curtis Brown	OR	8	Chykie Brown
Right Safety	21	Blake Gideon	\|	27	Nolan Brewster	\|	5	Ben Wells
Left Safety	12	Earl Thomas	\|	27	Nolan Brewster
Left CB	4	Aaron Williams	\|	3	Curtis Brown
Nickel	4	Aaron Williams	\|	12	Earl Thomas
Punter	19	Justin Tucker	\|	47	John Gold	\|	17	Trevor Gerland

SPECIAL TEAMS
Punt Returns	8	Jordan Shipley	\|	12	Earl Thomas	\|	3	Curtis Brown
Kickoff Returns	26 8	D.J. Monroe Jordan Shipley	\| \|	84 4	Marquise Goodwin Aaron Williams	\|	9	Malcolm Williams
Kickoffs	19	Justin Tucker	\|	15	Hunter Lawrence
Holder	8	Jordan Shipley	\|	17	Sherrod Harris
Deep Snapper (PAT/FG)	83	Greg Smith	\|	72	Britt Mitchell
Deep Snapper (Punts)	58	William Harvey	\|	48	Alex Zumberge

Follow after the jump for some analysis of the changes this week...

In perhaps the biggest shake-up to the depth chart this season, it's clear that the coaching staff is intent on making major personnel changes on the offensive side of the football, most notably in the receiving corps. Listed at split end all season, Jordan Shipley has now returned to his more natural flanker position at struggling against Oklahoma to get open at the X position, pushing James Kirkendoll into a back-up position after two terrible performances in a row. After leading the team in receptions and receiving yards on Saturday, as well as scoring the only Longhorn touchdown of the day, Marquise Goodwin is now listed as the co-starter with John Chiles at the sub-B position, but is listed first, portending a sharp increase in snaps for the all-world athlete. And, making the week for many Texas fans, it finally appears that Malcolm Williams will get a chance at Shipley's vacated X position.

On the offensive line, Tray Allen moves into a co-starter relationship with Michael Huey, though Huey is still listed first, while David Snow is now solely the back up at the center position. Early in the season, Snow was listed as backing up each of three interior positions. The Longhorns need to find an effective interior combination and need to do it soon -- only Charlie Tanner appears entrenched at his left guard position.

At running back, Fozzy Whittaker and Cody Johnson remain the co-starters, with Vondrell McGee and Tre' Newton backing them up, along with DJ Monroe listed as the specialty back. Mack Brown says there is no way that he can get reps for all five, so expect McGee and Newton to see only limited action this week. Does Tre' Newton see some time as the third-down back or is he effectively buried now after injuring his neck?

On the defensive side of the ball, the status quo reigns, fitting after the dominant performance put on by Will Muschamp's charges. About the only thing worth noting is that Nolan Brewster is backing up both safety positions, ahead of Ben Wells.

Snap Shots: Good Colt, Shipley's Double Move

GhostofBigRoy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:48:24 -0000

More photos » by Harry Cabluck - AP

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The Big Picture

The first several offensive iterations of this series have mostly focused on Colt McCoy's poor decisions and reads, and particularly on his frustrating tendency to at times lock in on his roommate and close friend, Jordan Shipley. Since teams are playing more zone defense against the Longhorns this season, it means that the defensive backs can do a better job of reading McCoy's eyes and anticipating his passes, they don't have to turn their backs to run with the receivers.

Furthermore, teams at this point in the season are willing to keep two safeties deep most of the time and play the cornerbacks off the Longhorn receivers, daring McCoy to complete short passes in front of them. Then, in instances like the pick six against UTEP, a cornerback may be able to jump a hitch if he times it correctly and get a big play out of it. Baiting McCoy, essentially, knowing that the two will make a sight adjustment to a hitch route or another shorter pattern.

The Context

Throughout the first half of the game against Colorado, the only really successful aspect of the offense was McCoy throwing to Shipley, whom the Buffaloes decided to single cover for much of the period. Bad idea. Prior to the following play, McCoy and Shipley had hooked up six times for 66 yards. After two long drives that resulted in only three points for Texas, the situation was becoming a litle bit more desperate late in the first half, having just given up a touchdown to stretch the Colorado lead to 14-3, shocking considering the pre-game expectations.

Just like the game against Wyoming, the Longhorns needed a momentum-changing drive before halftime. Eschewing the ineffective running game in the one-minute drill, Texas moved the ball steadily, hitting passes underneath for short gains, but keeping the chains moving. After a first-down completion to Shipley, the Longhorns called a timeout with just over a minute left in the half.

According to the Statesman, that's when McCoy mentioned to Greg Davis that he thought Shipley could beat the Colorado coverage with a double move, as he noticed the defender sitting on the shorter routes. Davis concurred. After a screen pass to Marquise Goodwin that could have gone for big yardage had the pulling linemen been able to make their blocks, it was time for the big play, one the Longhorns don't use often, but usually to great effect.

The Play

The Colorado defensive calls sets up perfectly for Shipley's double move -- CU calls a zone blitz on the play, bringing the linebacker in the middle of the field and the nickel back. Since the double move takes time to develop, Davis calls for maximum protection, keeping Vondrell McGee in the backfield and inserting EBS, as, well, an extra blocking surface. In his pre-snap read, McCoy sees the nickel back walking towards the line of scrimmage and should recognize zone coverage, but it doesn't even really matter, because the important thing is that even though there are two safeties deep, the blitzing nickel back forces them both to cover the strong side of the field.

McCoy isn't concerned about the strong side of the field, because this play is for Shipley on the weak side all the way. The weakside defensive end bails out into the flat to cover a slant or crossing route, while the cornerback covers the zone behind him. However, the important thing to note here is that the cornerback has no help over the top.

McGee crosses in front of McCoy to pick up the blitzing nickel back, while the left guard focuses in on the blitzing linebacker. The weakside cornerback has his eyes on McCoy.

On this play, there's no concern about McCoy locking in on Shipley -- that's going to help make the cornerback bite on the inside fake. Let's take a look from the end zone view:

As Shipley approaches the cornerback, there are at least four routes he could be running -- if it's an option route, he could go inside or outside depending on the coverage, he could run the post, and he could stop and run the curl.

Shipley fakes the post and the cornerback plants and bites on the inside fake. Notice that Shipley turns his shoulders and head to fake looking back for the ball, a subtle but key aspect of selling the route inside.

Shipley plants his foot hard to begin accelerating to the outside and this is where Shipley is so sensational -- his ability to change direction on a dime and then quickly get up to speed. The defender knows now he's made a big mistake:

The defender is off balance and heading in the wrong direction. Now, Shipley just has to create the separation and wait for the football:

Meanwhile, McGee has pretty much whiffs on his block, but McCoy is ready to unload the football:

Back with Shipley, he's still got that separation:

The Verdict

Defensive backs will continue to sit back in coverage and try to keep what the Longhorns are doing in front of them. In addition, Shipley will see bracket coverage most of the year -- Colorado made a pretty big mistake by trying to defend him with one player early in the game, the Longhorns just didn't make them pay until this play. With a safety over the top, it might become harder to hit the double move over the top, but Shipley also runs excellent double moves on short routes like the crossing route or other more intermediate routes, like the play that sealed the game against Oklahoma State last season.

In the Cotton Bowl this weekend, Shipley will need to be a major factor for Texas and expect Greg Davis to move him around a bit more than he has so far this season if Oklahoma puts more than one defender on Shipley's side of the field. If the Oklahoma defensive backs start jumping the shorter routes, expect a double move from Shipley, which could prove to be a major turning point in the game.

The best aspect of it all? McCoy staring down Shipley only helps these types of moves. Roommates!

Snap Shots: Bad Colt Directs Opening Drive of Second Half

Peter Bean — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:10:29 -0000

There have been many words spent castigating Greg Davis, the offensive line, James Kirkendoll, Cody Johnson, Chris Jesse... pretty much everyone in the stadium except for Jordan Shipley and Colt McCoy. Most of it's fair, but I've now re-watched the game, and I regret to say that McCoy deserves some share of the blame. Below, the opening drive of the second half, directed by Bad Colt.

As always, click any image to enlarge.

1st and 10: Texas is in its base 11-personnel, with Shipley split solo on the weakside at the top of the screen, Vondrell McGee at tailback alongside Colt. The Buffs are in their base 4-2-5, safeties 10 yards deep. As McCoy receives the snap, the linebackers are statues because, dude, why not? It's not like Texas is gonna run it.

Checking ~~his reads~~ Shipley: As McCoy scans the situation, this is what he sees. Shipley is smothered by a triangulation of Buffaloes: press coverage from the corner, safety help over top, and a Will linebacker breaking towards the sideline.

Real teams run screens: Obviously, McCoy is still locked in on Shipley here, but this frame is presented to highlight a different point. Imagine for a moment we had a better offensive coordinator. He'd look at situations like this and conclude, "Gee, we could easily run some successful screens here." It's pretty easy to see what a good situation Texas would be in if LT Ulatoski (#74) and LG Tanner (just below him) released their blockers to McCoy. As Shipley dragged the corner and safety down the line, McGee (#2) would be wide open for the dump screen, with Ulatoski and Tanner paving the way in front, with only the linebacker to block. Sigh.

Still. Checking. Shipley. C'mon Colt. For crying out loud, he's just not open. Can't get open. Smothered, like you like your hash browns at the Waffle House in Abilene. MOVE ON.

Lack of options: To be fair, McCoy's options on the other side of the field are miserable. Dan Buckner has "run" a... well, a nothing. He's standing at the line of scrimmage, threatening exactly no one. Not pictured at the bottom of the screen, Texas' other wide outs are comfortably covered by two corners with safety help. Why do they have safety help? Because Greg Davis has sent Buckner on a stand and watch route and can be covered by a linebacker. McCoy's best option was probably to swing it out to McGee in the flat, where he'd have a chance to make a linebacker miss.

Completions are misleading: McCoy completed 33 of 39 passes on Saturday, but more than a few were like this one to Buckner -- good for nothing. This one's not so much a manifestation of Bad Colt as it is an example of the mediocrity of Davis's design in the passing game.

2nd and 7: Exact same set as 1st and 10.

QB draw holler! As soon as Chris Hall snaps to McCoy you can see him start to release upfield.

Hey, this looks promising: Looks pretty good at this point, don't it? If Hall can engage the linebacker, McCoy's just gotta dart through the nice hole between Tanner and Ulatoski and let his receivers wipe out the safety.

WRONG WAY! Colt! You're going the wrong way!!! I've highlighted where you need to go! Nooooooo!

Gone to the dark side: This could've been a nice QB draw. But Colt's gone to the dark side...

Army of white: No gain, Texas.

3rd and 6: Empty set with Fozzy Whittaker in as a fifth receiver at the very top of the screen, flanked by Kirkendoll and, upright on the line, Buckner. Shipley's in the near slot, with John Chiles split beneath him at the bottom of the screen.

Bringing six: As McCoy receives the snap, Colorado sends the linebackers -- it's a max rush, with 6 guys headed at 5 blockers. Colt McCoy, senior Heisman candidate, has seen this many times and knows where the ball needs to go. Right?

Maybe not: Christ almighty, Colt's looking to the near side, where his options are comparatively terrible considering the open space Texas is working with on the strongside of the play.

Locked in: Colt apparently made up his mind before the snap. He's looking to Chiles on a slant. Period. For all the complaining about the offensive line, they've given McCoy a beautiful pocket to take a moment to make a read here. He's not interested, though.

Gross: One other note as Colt releases the pass to Chiles -- check out the routes Kirkendoll and Buckner have been sent on. I hope one of them got it wrong...

Behind the receiver: Nevermind the question of whether John Chiles is the guy you want throwing a slant to on 3rd and 6, even if he is McCoy's pass is crap -- well behind the well-covered Chiles. Incomplete and it's time to rugby punt it six yards down the field.

Morning Coffee Is Still Irritated and OU Still Sucks

GhostofBigRoy — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:44:50 -0000

More photos » by Eric Gay - AP

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Flavor of the Week at running back: Fozzy Whittaker. Given the performance of the Texas running backs on Saturday, it might make sense to put this feature to rest for the week. Although, as Scipio Tex would remind us all, the running backs aren't the problem with the Texas running game.

Part of the problem is that the two running backs who received most of the carries against Colorado have little in the way of tools to make something out of nothing. There is at least one running back on the team, however, who does have the ability to make the most out of broken plays and has the vision and quickness to find the cutback lanes -- the Mythical Fozzy creature his own self. Last week, I wasn't really drinking the Kool-Aid along with PB about Fozzy, but I'm starting to re-assess a little bit after the cutback run for a touchdown on Saturday on his only carry. At 12 yards, it was more than twice as long as the longest runs by Cody Johnson and Vondrell McGee of five yards.

The question is, why did it take so long for him to get his first carry after McGee and Johnson were so clearly ineffective? It's not that he wasn't on the field prior to receiving that first opportunity running the football -- he played at least 10 plays on offense prior to that, several times lined up at wide receiver. He's been healthy for two weeks, but he could take a helmet to a knee in practice and then could find himself out again extremely easily. It's happened three times already in barely more than a year. Davis would be well served by using him more when he's available.

It's not clear how much McCoy trusts him in the passing game, but he is known as one of the better receivers at the position on the Longhorn team, so it's not like he's a liability in that aspect of the game. Picking up blitzes has supposedly been a problem for him at his size, but he definitely looks jacked this year and as able to handle it physically as he ever has. It's something the coaches see in practice, so it's hard to speculate on.

Since McGee and Newton may be out for the Oklahoma game this weekend, could this be the time for the Mythical Fozzy creature to break out and take on legendary status? Coul he earn repeat status as the Flavor of the Week, an unheard of honor?

Bipolar special teams return. Much like the Wyoming game, the special teams were both good and bad on Saturday. First, the bad. The kickoff coverage is increasingly becoming worrisome and Justin Tucker isn't helping much by failing to get the ball into the end zone when given the opportunity, but the major issue is the coverage, which allowed kick returns of 34 and 48 yards against Colorado, the latter of which by Darrell Scott was way too easy, as he just ran up the sideline unobstructed until he was tackled without ever having to change direction. For the game, Colorado averaged 24 yards per return, a number brought down by returns on sky kicks by a linebacker and the fullback. Texas now ranks 75th in the country, behind Ball State, Central Michigan, and Florida Atlantic. As much as Mack Brown wants to talk about how difficult it is to cover kicks, there are still 74 teams in the country that do it better than Texas, which is inexcusable given that Brown allows Duane Akina to select any player on the roster besides Colt McCoy to use on special teams.

One of the other bad aspects of special teams was the work by Justin Tucker with his rugby punt. His attempt with the right foot was fine, as it went for 40 yards, but the second kick, from the Texas 32 no less, was a bit of a shank and only traveled 25 yards before going out of bounds. It was difficult to tell exactly what happened on the play, but there was a bit of pressure and he may simply have been trying to be too fine with it and put it right down the sideline. His second left-footed attempt went for 45 yards, with the only potential issue with it being that he may have kicked it too far, as the Colorado return man was able to field it on the fly. The third attempt presented the biggest issue, however, as Tucker really shanked it out of bounds only five yards past the line of scrimmage.

The bottom line is that it's great that he can kick with both feet, but if it happens again, then the coaching staff needs to seriously re-evaluating using the left-footed punts, which means they should really evaluate the use of the rugby punt at all, since teams can now hit the punters outside the tackle box and can also use two return men to make it less effective if Tucker only kicks right footed.

It appears that the coaching staff did re-evaluate this weekend, as John Gold is now listed first with an 'or' on the new depth chart. The coaching staff shouldn't forget that Gold is an excellent punter in his own right and it probably makes more sense to use him when Texas is in their own territory because he has the ability to kick it 50 or more yards.

The final bad aspect was the blocked field goal, clearly the fault of Ahmard Howard, as described here. It's likely his first year on the unit, so he may not have realized how important it was with the ball on the left hash to block the edge rusher, but it should be an easy fix in practice this week and shouldn't happen again.

With the bad out of the way, there were some excellent aspects to the special teams play once again this week. The Longhorns brought pressure on three punts by Colorado, with Marquise Goodwin finally getting his hands on the third punt early in the third quarter and after Ben Wells scooped it up and took it three yards for the touchdown, Texas took a 17-14 lead that it would not relinquish. Give credit to Duane Akina for using Goodwin on the unit -- the remarkable thing about it was that Goodwin came unblocked on two prior punts and nearly blocked them, but Colorado never adjusted and tried to block the guy who was clearly the fastest player on the field. Expect OU to make that adjustment next week.

Of course, the punt block can't be on all the time, especially with a returner like Jordan Shipley back there. Impressively, Goodwin did just as well blocking, according to Brown:

For him [Akina] to be able to take a guy like Marquise Goodwin, who is a freshman, who has not played defense, who was not around in the spring, not around in the summer, and to have him be part of two great plays Saturday, one, blocking the punt, but number two, he had the best block on Jordan's punt return because he took his guy, he knocked him to the ground, and as the guy got up, he stays on him. If you go back and review that, it is one of the great plays of the year, and I am really really happy for Marquise because he is getting involved in the kicking game in a lot of ways.

Blake Gideon also threw a nice block on the play to help Jordan Shipley return the punt for a touchdown, taking it back 74 yards, by far the longest of his three career punt returns for touchdowns. It also made four out of five games that Texas has scored a touchdown on special teams.

It did not appear likely last week, but Shipley is now back with Monroe on kick returns and will will get some chances against Oklahoma, particularly since Colorado kicked away from Monroe with the exception of a ball kicked into the end zone and most teams will probably follow that formula for the rest of the season. Two returns for 38 yards is far from exceptional, but it's unlikely that anyone needs to be reminded about what happened last year in the Cotton Bowl with Shipley. Brown mentioned that there was a little bit of confusion on Saturday, with Monroe trailing Shipley on one of the returns, so they should continue to get a better feel for each other as they work in practice this week and have more opportunities in the game against Oklahoma.

Tracking: playmaking defense. For the third game in a row, the Longhorns brought their playmaking ability on defense, as Earl Thomas finally got the pick six that seems to have been coming with him ever since he jumped a route in the spring game and took it to the house. Midway through the third quarter, Shipley had failed to haul in a pass from McCoy and it turned into an interception deep in Texas territory. Reading Cody Hawkins all the way, Thomas jumped in front of the pass and went 92 yards untouched to stretch the Texas lead to 24-14.

For the second game in a row, Blake Gideon got in on the action, intercepting the second pass of his career deep down the middle with an extremely athletic catch, battling the receiver for the football, then managing to secure it after it hit his stomach as he fell. His limitations are still painfully apparent, especially on the first CU touchdown when he was too late to react to the throw and failed to make a play on the ball when he got there, as well as taking three bad angles and completely whiffing on two tackles. Gideon probably simply is who he is at this point, but he's going to need to consistently force turnovers to help the team because he's a liability tackling in the open field, a huge problem for a free safety -- and that's a massive understatement.

On the negative side, Roddrick Muckelroy missed a sure interception, as Cody Hawkins pretty much threw him the ball and all he had to do was jump a little bit and bring it in, about the easiest interception a linebacker will ever get. After the play, it occurred to me that Muckelroy hasn't forced many turnovers at Texas and looking back through his stats, that has been the case. Only in 2007 did Muckelroy make an interception or force any fumbles, hauling in one of the former and causing two of the latter. As excellent as he has been at Texas, it's clear that he's just not going to cause many turnovers and Brown specifically mentioned the lack of a forced fumble on Saturday as distressing.

All of the defense deserves a great deal of credit for another dominating performance, but several players deserve individual recognition. Despite a shaky start to the season, Chykie Brown has settled down and played excellently with the exception of several plays against Texas Tech, allowing only one completed pass against Colorado before immediately tackling the offensive player. Opposite Brown, Curtis Brown only allowed two completed passes on the night, both of which were for minimal gains.

On the defensive line, Ben Alexander also had an exceptional game, registering five tackles, including splitting a double team on one play before making the tackle at the line of scrimmage. Simply calling him a space eater at this point may be selling him short. The two starting defensive ends also had strong performances, as Sergio Kindle made seven tackles, including two behind the line of scrimmage. So much more than just a speed rusher, Kindle almost never takes himself upfield out of plays and continues to read and react to plays with incredible speed and accuracy. After doing so, he gets to the football with alacrity and evil intentions and finishes plays.

On the other end of the line of scrimmage, Sam Acho had another strong effort, with three of his five tackles going for loss and a sack as well. One of the tackles for loss came as Rodney Stewart escaped from a group of Longhorn tacklers and reversed field, nearly breaking free for a big gain, except that Acho used his speed to get a hand on Stewart's foot, just enough to get him down for an 11-yard loss.

Time for replacements. James Kirkendoll had a poor game Saturday. He was terrible in the blocking game, picking up a penalty for holding that shouldn't have been called, but resulted from him whiffing on a block, dropped a pass, and cost the Longhorns a touchdown because he went the wrong direction on an option route. At the flanker position, John Chiles has not shown an ability to make plays besides in the screen game. Over at Barking Carnival ~~Trips Right~~ EyesofTX was even more critical in his recap:

I have never witnessed so much pouting, loafing and general cluelessness from a set of WRs than I saw last night. I'm not going call anyone out by name, but a couple of guys whose numbers correspond to the name of a popular chain of convenience stores need to pull their heads out of their asses pretty quick, of their lack of effort is going to cost this team down the road. And seriously, a physical freak like Malcolm Williams can't get on the field for more than a handful of plays when the guys ahead of him are pulling this kind of nonsense? What are the criteria for determining who plays and who doesn't on this team? They're obviously not performance based.

Even after re-watching the game looking for specific instances to support his claim, I'm not sure that I saw the same thing. The bottom line, however, is that the performance between the whistles was not good enough. Whatever problems he may have catching the football, Malcolm Williams can block and would help the running game in the WildHorn or on any other outside running plays.

Marquise Goodwin may also receive more playing time in an attempt to feature his incredible speed more prominently -- he's listed as the co-starter at the sub-B position this week, although he probably won't have much more success blocking there than Kirkendoll. Something to watch though is that Chiles is now listed as the co-starter at that position, while Kirkendoll has moved out to flanker. It could be for blocking purposes, but it might be that the Longhorns are trying to get Kirkendoll more time at the position that he played for most of last season and at which he might feel more comfortable. Beyond those thoughts, it's hard to see how the changes will impact what happens at the Cotton Bowl this weekend, but it is safe to say the coaches weren't happy with what they saw on Saturday from the two receiver positions other than Shipley.

Tracking: the WildHorn. After spending an inordinate amount of time last week hyper-analyzing the formation, it's only fitting that I talk about it some more this week. Most fans are frustrated with the formation and probably about ready to ditch it after two weeks of poor results with it and ~~Trips Right~~ Eyes surely fits into that category:

The Wild Horn, or as we will refer to it from here on out in the GBU for no apparent reason, the Crazy Ivan. We continue to just throw away downs on this thing, and the only apparent reason for doing this is to placate #7. Isn't it kind of time to quit worrying about placating #7, given that his insistence upon keeping the ball each and every time this play is run robs it of any smidgen of hope of distracting or fooling the opposing defense? This play is worthless, it is a waste of downs and energy. It destroys whatever continuity this offense has managed to accumulate, and every time #7 keeps the ball and fails to produce any yardage, he goes into a sulk for several plays afterwards. Stop the damn insanity, please.

Yes, the performance has been disappointing, but ~~Trips~~ Eyes misses several key points in his "hard-hitting" and "in-depth" analysis. The main point above is that the WildHorn is an attempt to "placate" Chiles and that he always keeps the ball. While I can't speak to what happens behind the schemes, I personally can't see him sulking and he has made the correct read on each counter read play -- the problem is that defenses are intentionally taking away the outside to keep Chies inside where they have more defenders to deal with him.

On the only counter read play run against Colorado, the defensive end went hard upfield and another defender scraped behind him to make it an easy read for Chiles. No selfishness on that play and it didn't work because Adam Ulatoski failed to come up into the hole to block the linebacker who eventually made the play while Charlie Tanner did his falling-down act on the play. It may have been an attempt to block someone -- the BON investigative team is now looking into it. So far, the two pulling linemen have not been successful getting blocks after pulling, so the power play makes so much more sense.

Besides the obvious lack of success, the most disappointing aspect of the WildHorn is that the only new wrinkle this week was the WildHorn version of the aforementioned power play. Yes, it's a play that they need to run, but there are several problems with it, One, there's no compliment to the play -- the outside run Dan Lee calls the stealer. Two, if the Longhorns want a lead blocker, take out McCoy, whose chief concern is running out of bounds as quickly as possible on the WildHorn plays and put in another blocker like Antwan Cobb or my personal choice, Barrett Matthews, a kid who has a big-time nasty streak in the blocking game. Two, the play needs motion to make it is as effective as it can be. With that being said, the benefit of the power play is that the pulling player actually heads into the hole to ostensibly block a defender, rather than falling down on the perimeter and generally being of little use.

The other problem is the complete lack of commitment to the play. Greg Davis told color guy Todd Blackledge that the Longhorns want to use the formation 6-7 times a day. Seriously? Was he just lying or does he really intend to do that? Actually doing it has been a complete failure. Through three games, the Longhorns have only used the formation nine times, far short of Davis' supposed desires. In the Wildcat series, some plays won't work at times, but there is always an easy solution -- take what the defense is giving you. Having already missed the window of opportunity for installing the Wildcat series, its extremely unlikely that it will happen and after two failed plays against Oklahoma, the coaches will probably abandon it without every really committing to it. Probably without ever having Chiles throw a pass. And the running game will continue to struggle. And people will wonder about solutions. And it will end up being a wasted opportunity by the coaching staff.

After the Q package, is it any surprise that the WildHorn has been approached in a completely clueless manner with no understanding of what makes the Wildcat work? The answer to that would be a resounding no.

Now let me go bang my head against the wall for 10 straight minutes so I can feel better.

It's 8:45 in Austin and the good news is that at least OU still sucks.

Anatomy of Stagnation: Settling For Field Goals, Again

GhostofBigRoy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:12:59 -0000

More photos » by Harry Cabluck - AP

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The Big Picture

Two weeks ago, it seemed like over analysis to focus on two stalled drives hidden within the trashing of UTEP. The Longhorns led the nation by converting each of their opportunities inside the red zone. Problem was, and is, that the Texas coaching staff has no idea how to run the football in the red zone, leading to using the WildHorn there against UTEP, with poor results even though Mack Brown admitted that the plays were set up for failure. In fact, the whole offense inside the red zone is still searching for an identity. Which running back should play? Should it be Cody Johnson, who has the strength to pick up some yardage after contact? Should EBS play? Can the Longhorns throw the ball effectively with EBS in the game?

Against Colorado, the Longhorns experienced the same problems, as the first two drives of the game stalled deep on Colorado territory and the Buffaloes blocked the kick on the second drive, destroying red zone perfection for Texas on the season. What's going on here?

First Drive -- The Context

Shockingly and unbelievably, Colorado marched down the field on their first drive, going 66 yards and converting 3rd and 21 with a 25-yard touchdown pass from rag-armed Cody Hawkins to tight end Patrick Devenny. Ask Hawkins to throw the ball any further and his arm might fall off. In fact, judging by the velocity, or complete lack thereof, on the throw that Earl Thomas took to the house and that lofted throw to Devenny might have sapped lil Hawk's arm strength for the night. Note the sarcasm.

Attempting to respond, the Longhorns moved the ball methodically down the field as McCoy targeted Shipley three times for 47 yards. The drive even included Vondrell McGee's longest run of the night -- five yards on his first carry. The jumbo package took two plays to pick up two yards, but eventually got the job done and the beautiful 3rd and 12 throw by McCoy down the sideline to Shipley moved the Longhorns to the Colorado 19 yardline.

1st and 10 CU 19

The Longhorns line up in the WildHorn formation for the first time on the evening, but using Vondrell McGee as the running back for the first time:

Notice that the linebackers are all shaded over to the short side of the field. Even though the Longhorns haven't shown this specific variation of the WildHorn, the defenders seem to suspect something or flat out aren't concerned about McGee's speed to the outside.

Nor should they be, as the play will show. Texas runs a variation of the power play that is a staple of the Wildcat series, but instead of even faking the handoff with McGee, Davis uses him as the lead blocker on the play. In other words, instead of forcing the linebackers to move, they simply have to play downhill. Guess what? It doesn't work as well that way, as the outside linebacker on the wide side of the field, who would be responsible for McGee if he comes in motion, slices into the play and hits Chiles at the line of scrimmage. The play picks up three yards, which ties it for the most successful WildHorn play run in the last two games. At least Hall manages to snap the ball well.

2nd and 7 CU

Texas keeps the same 11 personnel grouping on the field, with EBS moving to the strong side of the field:

At the snap of the ball, Colorado run blitzes all three linebackers and the nickel corner lined up over James Kirkendoll in the slot:

The Colorado defensive coordinator guesses correctly, so the Longhorns don't have the numbers to pick up all the blitzers. It might be a zone read play, as McCoy pulls the ball back from McGee, but it's hard to say because it gets blown up so quickly. McCoy loses three yards on the play and takes a nice pop for his efforts, as well.

3rd and 10 CU 19

On third down, Greg Davis sends Dan Buckner onto the field, replacing EBS. He also calls for the relatively-new bunch formation that Texas debuted several weeks ago:

Will he break tendency and not throw a screen pass out of it?

It turns out that he will, but Colorado drops seven into coverage, including the middle linebacker showing blitz at the line of scrimmage in the above shot. Since the camera angle is terrible, it's impossible to know the routes Texas was running on the play except that John Chiles is the outlet receiver standing at the line of scrimmage. McCoy has solid protection, but can't find any of this three primary receivers on the play, though McGee is open in the right flat just as McCoy tucks the ball to run, picking up three yards. Given the quick reaction of Colorado defenders to McCoy's run, they were probably in zone coverage.

Texas settles for a 32-yard field goal from Hunter Lawrence.

Final Totals

Fourteen plays for 64 yards, 5:58 expired. Five of six passing for 50 yards by McCoy, as well as two carries for zero yards. Two rushes for eight yards for McGee, as well as one catch for negative two yards. Two rushes for three yards for Cody Johnson. One rush for three yards by Chiles, as well as one catch for five yards. Three catches for 47 yards for Shipley. One dropped pass by James Kirkendoll. One missed block for Dan Buckner on the failed shovel pass to McGee.

The Verdict

For the most part, the Texas offense responded well to the Colorado touchdown, converting the 3rd and 12 and the fourth down with Cody Johnson running, but stalled inside the red zone once again.

The new WildHorn power play with McGee blocking did not exactly fail, but it did demonstrate that Davis and Mack Brown fail to understand a key concept of the Wildcat series -- the plays must compliment each other. They must be run more than once or twice a game to take advantage of whatever the defense is giving. If the defense goes with the man in motion every time, the power play or the counter is open. If the defense sells out to stop the power play, the stealer is open to the outside. So simple a caveman can do it. But apparently not Greg Davis.

On the play, the outside was open, but McGee doesn't have the speed to exploit it, a fact the Colorado defense took advantage of to shade all three linebacker towards the short side of the field. In the true Wildcat series, the next play would be the stealer and it would probably work, even with McGee.

If the Longhorns insist on keeping McCoy and two other receivers on the field in the WildHorn, there is no ability to use an h-back in the formation as a lead blocker. Instead of accepting that fact or taking a wide receiver off the field, Davis instead chose to use the running back as a lead blocker. Once again, the problem there is that the defense doesn't have to worry at all about anything going outside to the wide side of the field. Misdirection is quite possibly the key to the Wildcat series and this power play has absolutely none.

The other issue is that Chiles himself said last week that because the defense is keying on him the offense needs to utilize DJ Monroe more to the outside. Instead, Davis put McGee in the game as a lead blocker. Great. The WildHorn could work for the Longhorns but the coaching staff is going about it completely the wrong way.

On the second play featured above, it looked like the Colorado defensive coordinator had read Davis' offensive script before the game, run blitzing into a running play. However, responsbility for the failed play rests on McCoy, who did not check out of it when he saw the blitz. With the nickel corner blitzing, the safety is seven yards off of Kirkendoll, giving McCoy an easy hot read if he checks the play at the line of scrimmage. Even if Colorado then switches out of their blitz, at least the play has a chance.

The third play illustrates several things. First of all, the Longhorns have struggled this season against zone defenses, possibly because the receivers didn't get a lot of game reps last season finding holes in the zone. Secondly, McCoy has not done as good of a job this season of finding his running backs out of the backfield, perhaps as a result of having less trust for McGee and Newton than McCoy had with Chris Ogbonnaya. Finally, the zone defenses help limit McCoy's scrambling ability because the defenders don't have their backs turned to the quarterback. Whatever the case, the Longhorns need to figure it out because defenses are going to continue playing zone defense until McCoy and company make them pay.

Second Drive -- The Context

After the poor start to the game, the Texas defense responded by forcing a three and out on Colorado's second possession. Offensively, the Longhorns dinked and dunked their way down the field to once again get inside the red zone against a statistically-poor Colorado defense. Following his eight yards on two carries on the first drive, McGee struggled to find any room behind the Texas offensive line, picking up three yards on three carries. A second offsides penalty on the drive against Colorado on 3rd and 2 puts Texas inside the CU 10 yardline.

1st and Goal CU 8

Greg Davis calls in for 11 personnel on first down, with Cody Johnson staying in the game after entering the play before to run the ball on third down. Notice EBS on the short side of the field, indicating to me pre snap that the Longhorns are going to run the sorta counter to the left, about the only running play that the coaching staff uses with Johnson:

Unbelievably, it is indeed a counter play behind the left side of the line, which gets good blocks on the play. On the other side, Kyle Hix decides to take out the knees of defensive end Nick Kasa given the problems the Longhorns have had during the game of unblocked players on the backside of plays making tackles. Michael Huey comes through the hole and seemingly has trouble deciding which of the two linebackers to block and barely gets a piece of the playside linebacker as they combine to make the stop, limiting Johnson to a three-yard gain.

2nd and Goal CU 5

Desperately seeking solutions, Davis calls for an empty set with Fozzy Whittacker entering the game at the bottom of the screen with Dan Buckner and James Kirkendoll on the wide side of the field and John Chiles and Jordan Shipley on the short side:

Notice that Colorado is in man-to-man press coverage against all the receivers except for Whittacker, who is played to take away the inside release. The Buffaloes have only one linebacker and one safety in the middle of the field.

The man coverage takes away any quick throws for McCoy and a stunt by the strongside defensive end Marquez Herrod beats the right tackle Hix and eventually results in a sack and a loss of eight yards. It looked like there was some miscommunication between Hix and Huey because Huey left his man to try to slow down Herrod, allowing his original assignment, defensive tackle Curtis Cunningham, to get to McCoy at roughly the same time as Herrod.

3rd and Goal CU 13

The Longhorns stay with the same personnel grouping, but put Whittaker in the backfield and once again use the bunch formation to the bottom of the screen.

Judging by the pass, Kirkendoll was supposed to run an option route, going inside if the defender shades him outside and going outside if the defender shades him inside. Kirkendoll goes inside, while McCoy throws the ball outside, leading to an incompletion.

4th and Goal CU 13

The punt team comes onto the field to attempt the field goal. Notice that the kick is from the left hash, meaning that Lawrence has to angle the kick to the right, making Ahmard Howard's protection on the right side of the line more important than if the ball were in the middle of the field or on the right hash.

Howard has a decision to make. Should he help Alex Okafor with the man coming across his right shoulder or should he block the man coming to the outside? Given the position of ball, Howard needs to block the outside man because the placement of the ball means the kick will be directed into the edge rusher:

Howard makes the wrong decision and the edge rusher blocks the kick, costing the Longhorns three points.

Final Totals

Thirteen plays for 46 yards, 5:09 expired. Five of six passing for 28 yards and two carries for one yard by McCoy. Two catches for 13 yards by Shipley. Two catches for 11 yards by Chiles. One catch for five yards by Dan Buckner. Three carries for one yard by McGee. One carry for three yards by Johnson. Two offsides penalties for 10 yards by Colorado. One miscommunication between Kirkendoll and McCoy. One poor decision in field goal protection by Ahmard Howard.

The Verdict

Once again, the Longhorns move the ball well before stalling close to the goalline. Once again, the drive stalls following a similar pattern -- a run for three yards, a terrible play resulting in a loss, and then McCoy unable to connect with a receiver.

The counter play to Johnson works reasonably well, but the problem is that Hix had to stay home blocking the defensive end because of the problems with backside players making tackles. The point of the counter play is that it uses misdirection to get the defense flowing in the wrong direction because of the counter step. Well, as well documented in these parts, there is no counter step. Hix staying at home left a linebacker unblocked and Huey did a poor job of blocking the other linebacker, giving Johnson little to no chance of picking up any more yards than he did.

On the second play, the right side of the Texas line failed to pick up the stunt by the defensive end, a tactic they will see often this season if it continues to work for opponents. Given the state of the running game, the Longhorns will have to throw the ball upwards of 35 times to beat Oklahoma and correctly this problem will be necessary to sustain drives, because even one sack will almost certainly derail a drive.

The third play illustrates the trust issues that McCoy seems to have with his receivers other than Buckner and Shipley. Mccoy must throw the ball on the option route before the receiver makes the break, so he has to trust that the receiver will make the same read. Kirkendoll did not and the play should have resulted in a touchdown. Throughout the season, McCoy and Kirkendoll have struggled to connect close to the goalline. Until a third receiver steps up and earns the trust of McCoy, the Texas offense will continue to struggle scoring touchdowns. On top of that, Kirkendoll's poor read was representative of a bad game that saw him drop a pass, get called for holding, and generally fail completely in the blocking game. What happened to the step forward he was supposed to take after making that critical catch against Ohio State?

Final Thoughts

The offense is clearly casting about relatively aimlessly trying to find solutions for the problems punching the ball into the end zone. In the last two games, nothing has worked well, not the WildHorn, not Cody Johnson running, not spreading the field. Eventually, settling for field goals instead of scoring touchdowns will prove to be a major issue and the main hope is that Davis finds something that works. The bad news is that the Longhorns are now entering the toughest part of their schedule and don't have any more time to experiment against overmatched teams. They will have to figure it out on fly.

46 Yards On 25 Carries – Has Texas Become One Dimensional On Offense?

ccmachine — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:00:22 -0000

More photos » by Eric Gay - AP

Can Colt McCoy beat Oklahoma without the support of a Texas rushing attack? (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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Oklahoma had their shares of struggles against Baylor but nothing like what Texas experienced against Colorado. The Buffaloes went to Austin giving up over 200 yards per game on the ground and then held the Longhorn rushing to a pathetic 46 yards on 25 carries. Of course the counter argument here is going to be that starter Vondrell McGee went down with an injury subsequently hurting the rushing attack. McGee wasn't necessarily off to a great start though. Before his injury he had carried the ball seven times for 14 yards. Cody Johnson wasn't much better either in relief. He carried the ball nine times for 20 yards and at the end of the Colorado had held the Longhorns to a team average of 1.8 yards per carry.

Its not like Texas didn't try to run the ball, 25 rushing attempts is an effort, they did try and failed. Colorado was boosted all the way up to 10^th in the conference in rushing defense after that performance. The Texas offensive performance was so bad Saturday night that had the Longhorns relied solely on their offensive points to they would have won 17-14 at home against one of the worst teams in the Big 12 conference.

As an outsider looking in the problem seems to be a combination of a few things. First, the offensive line doesn't seem to be up to par. For all the threats we've heard from the Longhorns regarding the Texas defense feasting on a struggling Oklahoma offensive line it should be noted that Colt McCoy was sacked twice by Colorado and has been dropped a total of 6 times this season. In comparison, Oklahoma quarterbacks have been sacked 5 times against better competition. Oklahoma also passes a lot more than the Longhorns do and if you average it out McCoy is dropped once every 23 passing attempts while Sooner quarterbacks go down once every 35 passing attempts and they haven't seen anything like Jeremy Beal yet. The Texas offensive line isn't creating holes for the running backs and it isn't doing a great job at protecting McCoy either.

The second issue with the Texas running is that Colt McCoy is not running the ball either. He's trying but like the running backs he just isn't finding success. Last year it was McCoy's ability to tuck and run that should have given him an advantage over Bradford in the Heisman race according to Texas fans. This year he's averaging 1.7 yards per carry after running the ball 34 times.

Finally there's the issue of the Texas running backs. They just don't appear to be that good. The Longhorns haven't had great backs the last couple of seasons but they did have some guys who were role players and did a good job at keeping defenses honest. Now Texas is faced with the possibility of going into the Red River Shootout with their top two rushers on the sideline watching. That certainly doesn't help matters as their number three guy is D.J. Monroe who has only carried the ball 16 times this season.

Currently Texas is 7^th in the Big 12 in rushing offense and Oklahoma is 2^nd in rushing defense (ironically behind Texas). This is a match-up that could be a game decider on Saturday. If Oklahoma can keep the Texas rushing attack in check it's doubtful that the Longhorns are going to return an punt, an interception and a blocked kick for touchdowns against the Sooners. As I was walking out of the stadium on Saturday I heard fan after fan say that we couldn't drop this many passes against Texas and expect to win. While I completely agree with that I would also add that I don't think that Texas can average less than two yards per carry and expect to win either.