Bodacious Bevo

I don't know the best place to put this so it's going here. A&M was hellbent on taking away our screen game and they did so very effectively. Not without cost, though. They really sold out and it contributed to our success on the ground. Here's a breakdown of our first TD drive. I haven't gotten to rewatch the rest so it may not hold later in the game. [22:20] 1st and 10: #21 keys on the RB pass immediately and blows it up for a loss. Well played. [22:53] 2nd and 13: Look at how 18 stays on Helm. He almost looks like a QB spy. Helm was clearly one of their keys, which is smart. [23:36] 3rd and 10: #21, #26 and the nickel immediately chase the flats. They actually blew their coverage completely and Moore was open if we pick up the stunt. Instead, Quinn runs for 25 on a bum ankle because half their defense is in the opposite flat. [26:00] 1st and 10: #3 is the one assigned to Helm. He and the rest of the defense are ready for that screen. Well done. [26:35] 2nd and 14: #18 creates a massive hole for Wisner off counter by taking bad steps to the flat. [27:02] 1st and 10: Inside zone goes for 11 instead of 4 because the nickel completely bites on some very basic eye candy in the flat. [27:25] 1st and 10: 1 yard loss and Scourton plays it well so there's probably nothing there even if it's a good throw and catch. But again, Sark is trying to punish overpursuit of the RB with a tunnel screen off RB motion. The rest of the drive is pretty standard but I thought this was some good cat-and-mouse between Elko and Sark. I think it's important to acknowledge the space the screen game gets us even when the screens themselves aren't working. The two passes to the flats went for -7 yards but you could argue A&M's overpursuit contributed to 50 yards via vacated space on Quinn's scramble and the two Wisner runs.

Their offense is a lot different than it was in September so I think we can copy/paste Notre Dame One of the big elements to me is that our DEs are so athletic. Simmons and Sorrell have both made plays this year where they crash down on a zone-read but recover to bring down the QB. Moore and Burke aren’t the same level of athlete Moore is showing great football IQ and Burke is long and seemed to learn how to play the option live in Tuscaloosa last year. We’re not a team that should lose to options plays. LBs still have some issues with run fits but not enough to really cost us

Lol Pate said almost nothing from your first two paragraphs. He used the call reversal from our game as an example of a bad reffing system. The only comment he made on the game itself was that the refs changing the call didn’t impact the outcome. So, really the opposite of what you’re saying he said Also, he issued a correction - the OU/Bama refs were not the same crew as our game against UGA

Can’t speak to other schools but we did it in 95-96 when we won the last SWC championship and the first B12 conference championship.

Man, I fucking hate the ‘meaningless games’ talk we see all across college football. Setting aside the rivalry aspect and playoff talk - this game is for a spot in the conference championship game. How does that not matter? How do we watch this team use conference championship elimination as a motivator for six weeks in a row then decide it doesn’t really matter before the biggest game of the year? Soft

“Longhorns are throwing a lot more NIL his way, and it happened (timing-wise) right after we named him a five star.” Now I’m waiting on all their subscribers to turn on them every time they name an LSU commit a five star

It’s too early to see meaningful draft data points except from a select few people (I like Dane Brugler) and even those are limited to the first couple rounds. That database has 200+ team specific mock drafts included in its consensus. A bunch of Browns, Raiders, and Jaguars fans that have already given up on their seasons and are comforting themselves with November mock drafts provide provide no value lol. Hence Sorrell being labeled a UDFA and Majors not even being listed We’re much better served giving our own opinions than listening to most draft talk at this point

He was definitely less heralded among Texas fans, though part of that was collateral damage as people puffed their chests and yelled that he was better than Evan Stewart My memory of Moore’s recruitment was that it was us vs. Louisville

“I just don’t think you are going to get NFL talent at receiver our of the portal” My god, some of those folks are so detached from reality. Like just a complete lack of understanding of the current CFB world.

The thing I’m most interested to see is Sark’s opening script It’s traditionally horizontal to get the defense thinking and tired. UGA’s LB discipline issues would encourage that. Last week, Sark switched up that tendency. He dialed up intermediate throws and deep shots for Quinn early, and they all worked. Quinn hesitated on some and missed on others. If he wants to go after their corners, he could go back to this (side note: I don’t want to bag on Quinn, but it’s a shame that Sark won’t get his due for pantsing Venables in their head-to-head). I can also see the logic in testing their run defense early with stretch zone and counter. It’s possible we just straight up win in the trenches, and I think it’s game over if that is the case and we figure it out early.

Criticizing Sark’s handling of the QB room is astonishingly dumb A) We have the best QB room in the country. Ewers played like relative shit for one quarter last week. He’s still among the small group that can claim to be the best QB in the country. And that’s due to Sark’s faith in him. Sark’s decision to develop his QB is a feature, not a bug/blind spot. It’s hilarious that you’re still clinging to Casey Thompson and Hudson Card as saviors (if only Sark had the balls to put them in!) There’s an entire discussion to be had about defensive evolution over the last couple years killing off elite QB play as we knew it for a decade, and how we should adjust expectations accordingly, but I don’t think it’s worth the time or effort to have that discussion with people that are proactively readying themselves to call for Arch at the first sign of struggle from Quinn. B) Let’s look at how some other freshmen across the B10/SEC are fairing in their first year starting Dylan Raiola: Great against UTEP, Colorado, UNI, bad to mediocre since Nico Iamaleava: Great against UTC, NC State, Kent, bad to mediocre since Other guys like Aidan Chiles and Jackson Arnold have just been bad to mediocre. Arch is now 2.5 games in. Right at the sweet spot for defenses to have film showing what he’s good at and what Sark wants to do with him, but before he’s learned how defenses will counter and how to handle that. He’s going to have growing pains and struggles soon. Personally, I’d rather give him garbage time snaps and another offseason to develop and minimize them, especially when the alternative is throwing him in front of Kirby Smart, a renowned defensive mind who showed off his ability to adjust and shut down a Heisman contender only 20 days ago. C) Sark knows how to adjust to Quinn’s struggles Quinn already went through the young QB pains. When Quinn struggles, Sark knows how to change the offense to lower our reliance on Quinn while still taking advantage of the things he does well. After the 1Q against OU, Sark took the game out of Quinn’s hands. Lots of runs and short passes, but also some of Quinn’s best intermediate concepts to keep the defense honest. He knows what to fall back on if needed (hint: it’s not Arch

Quinn did have to sling it around against Michigan. We were in several third and longs early and he converted for us. Quinn’s mechanics and accuracy were the difference between the starts in that game and OU.

I generally don’t like the idea of a guy reclassifying to enroll in August, but I’ll absolutely take it over having to hold on for a year

A forgotten part of his and Byron Murphy’s legacies will be that they came in 2021 and were immediately the best conditioned DL on the team. Oof.

Dunlop’s Deep Dig (talking about the switch to Lefau as the starter and how that unleashed Ant Hill)

To further contextualize it: OU could have had 1st and 10 at their own 25, down 7-3, with 2:21 to go in the second quarter Instead, they had 1st and 10 at their own 25, down 14-3, with 2:21 to go in the second quarter Bolden put 7 on the board through pure hustle/heart/etc. He took away OU’s opportunity to go into the half with the lead. Without his play, does Hawkins feel as much pressure to make a play and cough up the ball scrambling? Does Sark trust Wisner enough to give it to him on the next offensive snap? Does Wisner keep his confidence and score? OU received the ball to start the third. The lead or small deficit completely changes the dynamics on both sides in their favor (though we probably still win handedly). Legend

FWIW this isn’t a paper. I wrote it to share one tool for understanding culture. It’s a surlyhorns exclusive 😎

I agree with all this. To your first point, college football has some pretty brutal feedback loops that can sometimes bury coaches before they really have a fair chance. That why, imo, first recruiting classes are so important. Sark also stayed consistent in his message To your point on Sark sharing his life, Brene Brown is an academic that has a bunch of bestselling books centered around her research on vulnerability. Part of her work is on the connection between vulnerability and leadership - that is, that leadership requires a certain amount of vulnerability and that the best leaders lean into it. There's also a concept called leader-member exchange that focuses on the quality of connection between leaders and followers as a primary driver for follower performance. There's quite a bit of research to support it. I personally consider Sark's 2023 offseason commitment to the team (he only took off July 4th weekend) the most admirable part of his tenure here. I'm aiming more for clarification than distinction. And this is only one way too look at the program. There are many approaches to culture/authority/performance/etc that will bring insight and value.

I'm a PhD student in a social science. I've mentioned before that I might do some write-ups on organizational culture and there was some interest in that. Sark made some comments during his Hail State presser that perfectly fit with one of the topics I've been thinking about: authority. So, I finally took some time to put some words down. I hope y'all enjoy it. Player-led teams are great. Old guys telling the new guys how things are done. Leadership councils. Colt McCoy driving around in his truck to pick up teammates for players-only practices in the summer. It's something we yearned for during our decade of wandering the college football desert. In this post I'd like to look at the idea of player-led teams a little bit more critically. Specifically, I want to look at the reason why it's a good thing for a bunch of 18-22 year olds to be leading a team. Because that's not a great idea at face value. Sark's comments All social theory starts with a 19th century german guy Back to Texas Being Back Let's summarize and bring this back to the present. It's year 4. Texas is the reigning Big 12 champ, undefeated, and ranked #2. Sark showed the players that his leadership is good for their interests. If they follow him, they'll develop and win games. Individual players bought in, then most of the team, and now the team as a collective has voluntarily accepted Sark's authority. They believe in his vision and created social dynamics that enforce it. Individual players feel an obligation that requires them to accept his judgement above their own. Player leadership has coalesced around him. I said at the beginning of this post that I wanted to critically examine player-led teams and to ask why it is good for 18-22 year olds to lead a team. My answer is that player-led teams are a misnomer (or a myth, for clickbait title purposes). When someone says a team is player-led, what they mean is that the players have accepted the coach's authority and player leadership is aligned in enforcing it. The true benefit of player-led teams is how well they follow their coach.

It seemed to me like they prefer Johnson but are warming up to taking McCutcheon

Thompson is the safety that couldn't close on Michael Hawkins on his long TD run (coming from the top of the screen). I don't miss that. Alex Dunlap's defensive deep dig. The defense strikes me as a top 25-ish unit so far (stats are better than that, obviously). Which is good, of course. And, importantly, they fit really well with an offense that will put up points, thus forcing the opponent to play from behind and letting our pass rush do its thing. I just want to see us play against a competent passing offense, preferably with Derek Williams back, and get more consistent with run fits and compressing space.

Do you think Arch and his family would feel more disrespected if Quinn struggled and Arch doesn't get a chance, or if Quinn plays well and Arch doesn't get garbage time snaps?

The wheel route on Saturday seemed like a definite throw away to me. There was an unblocked blitzer and Blue wasn't open. The swing pass to Wingo was probably his worst throw of the day. Backwards laterals are a huge no-no. Like that thing was two yards off where it should have been. He was actually really good at those throws in high school so I'm a bit surprised that's where his struggles are now. He'll get it figured out though.

Sark did say Ant Hill looked like a RB on his interception return against ULM...

Just to add to this, I recommend watching his third and longhorn interview for those that haven't seen it. He talks about his bag of rush moves and goes into some detail with Alex Okafor. I think he's a pretty advanced rusher. There's only so much to show in five games.