2019 Texas Longhorns fall practice thread

[Machinator 32102]

 

[sith_horn 2486]

 Game theory and the spread offense

 

[Thetexashammer 1062]

2 hours ago, hookem48 said:

It's fucking OU, they'll replace the 4 olineman they lost with 4 more future NFLers, it's what those fuckers do.

At some point, the luck ends. People said that shit about Nebraska too and now they're irrelevant.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Thetexashammer

[hookem48 4808]

2 hours ago, Machinator said:

 

wonder how many players from  aggy's only championship team come to practices

[hookem48 4808]

1 hour ago, Thetexashammer said:

At some point, the luck ends. People said that shit about Nebraska too and now they're irrelevant.

OU didn't join the Big 10 and fuck up their recruiting

[nunna yo bizness 1690]

39 minutes ago, hookem48 said:

OU didn't join the Big 10 and fuck up their recruiting

Nebraska was on the downturn well before the Big10 move.

[Nowhichski 32]

3 hours ago, Machinator said:

 

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Tom Herman has had strong relationships with his quarterbacks in the past but his partnership with Sam Ehlinger could be one of the most meaningful yet. After two years working with Ehlinger as a spot or full-time starter, Herman and his junior QB have been through some fires while attempting to rebuild the Texas football program and put together the first elite offense in Austin since Colt McCoy was on the 40 Acres.

“We respect the heck out of each other, I would want that guy in my foxhole, any day of the week, whatever cliche you want to use, you know? In a bar fight, whatever it is, I want that guy by my side in times of adversity. We do butt heads at times, but I think that’s a testament to how much I trust him and how much I believe in his maturity level that we can quite literally argue on the headset during the game then we’re hugging after the game.”
-Tom Herman

Now the Longhorns are looking at an enormously consequential 2019 season in which they’ll be taking center stage with a schedule that matches them up against championship contender LSU and then features a wide open Big 12 Conference. On top of that, Sam Ehlinger chose to announce that Texas was “back” after their 28-21 upset victory over Georgia, heaping extra attention on the upcoming year. The Longhorns always have plenty of bullseyes on them, but the pressure on this season is greater. If Texas can’t put something special together in year three with Herman and Ehlinger under these favorable circumstances, they’ll face an increasingly uphill climb to seize control of the Big 12 and regional recruiting in coming seasons..

Fortunately for Herman and the Longhorns, while the roster is stocked largely with young, up and coming talent on offense and defense, they’ll have an upperclassman Ehlinger to help put it all together. Tom Herman and his staff have a vision for the signal caller’s third year in which he distributes the ball to a unit that can isolate and overpower opponents with their skill talent on normal downs before taking over to put them over the top in situational football. If it all comes together like it should, the Longhorns will field their most effective offense of the decade, perhaps even the century.

Joining the RPO spread revolution

One of the big questions for every spread offense is how they’re going to run the football on a nickel front. If the defense is in a two-high quarters concept with a sturdy front six that knows how to play your favorite run concepts, can you force the issue somehow and still generate chain-moving gains on the ground?

On the chalkboard you have five OL for blocking all but one of those six defenders, but how do you stop the sixth from making a tackle near the line of scrimmage? There are three popular options, one is to deploy a FB/TE like Texas likes to do with their “Y-back” TE player, who offers a sixth blocker. Another is to leave a defender unblocked and have the QB read him on the option to determine whether to keep the ball or hand off to the RB. Finally there’s the RPO...

“I think the appeal of the RPO is that instead of what I grew up learning, spread zone-read that was a run-run option, right, which obviously exposes your quarterback a little more when he did keep the football, where now it’s a run-pass option. So if the defense does something to make you pull the ball out of the running back’s belly it’s not the quarterback running with it anymore it’s the quarterback throwing it. And it’s a way to get more yards because those yards are a little more down the field…”
-Tom Herman

Texas ran some RPOs in 2018, but they were mostly limited to bubble screens, swing passes to the RBs or TE, and the occasional hitch to Collin Johnson or Devin Duvernay. Texas could account for all six nickel defenders with Andrew Beck blocking a DE or LB and then they could control the nickel back with a quick bubble screen or an Ehlinger keeper. If the safeties got nosy they’d dial up a play-action toss to Collin Johnson.

In 2019 Texas may not have a TE that they want to play as much as Beck played but they can explore other options anyways with Ehlinger now entering his junior year. In particular, vertical pass options on run plays that push the ball down the field and force off ball defenders to hang back rather than playing the run. A great RPO attack can force off ball defenders to play hesitantly against the run even when they see the OL coming downhill on inside zone or GT counter, or else risk getting taken apart. For instance…

The 2018 Alabama Crimson Tide made RPOs the main thrust of their offense with Tua Tagovailoa returning after his championship performance against Georgia and shredded defenses like Oklahoma’s that tried to crash hard to stop the run only to yield throwing lanes for slants and glance routes. Now a similar embrace of RPOs is in the works for Texas for 2019.

Ian Boyd:
Sam, coach has been talking about the increased role of RPOs in the offense next year, that puts a lot more on your shoulders, how’s that been going? What is that looking like for you guys so far in the offseason?

Sam Ehlinger:
It’s been awesome. I love it because it’s going to be hard for teams to try and take away the run without adding guys in because of how physical and athletic we are going to be up front and the skill we’re gonna have at the running back position, without having guys that are running 4.5s cutting behind them. We saw that a lot in the spring, I really enjoyed it, I think there’s a lot of teams around the country that do it really well…

Ian Boyd:
Like your friend Tua...

Sam Ehlinger:
(nodding)…yeah, man, Tua is really, really good at it. And it’s a little bit different, now instead of reading the backside we’re reading the frontside or maybe we’re reading both sides. It’s just more of a full field type deal and it really puts defenses in a bind.

What we’re talking about here is Texas having multiple pre and post snap options in the offense for Ehlinger to take based both on how defenses are aligned and how they respond to pre and post snap movement. Those could include the fade ball to Collin Johnson, quick slants to the slot receivers, and all sorts of adjustments that can allow Ehlinger to turn any given play into an opportunity to land a knockout punch throwing to a “4.5 guy cutting behind” LBs.

Ehlinger noted his growth in executing this style of offense over the offseason,

“One of the bigger things for me is understanding defenses and understanding what really hurts them, now that I have a great grasp on our offense and what college football is like [now] really transitioning into understanding pre-snap what defenses are in, what to expect post snap. And once I can really grasp that we’ll always be in the right play offensively and we’ll always have a chance.”
-Sam Ehlinger

Here’s one of dozens of possible examples of how that could look from the offense with a flexed out TE or good blocking slot and then a burner like Jordan Whittington, Josh Moore, or Jake Smith at the H.

Texas can quick motion the H to the perimeter before the snap so that Ehlinger can key the middle linebacker. If he stays in the box and doesn’t chase the H, it’s a simple pitch on the swing pass and the strong safety has to be able to come down and make an open field tackle or else the nickel or corner needs to beat a block. With guys like Whittington or Smith as the target this is an easy recipe for picking up chunk yards.

If the middle linebacker chases the H then the typical means by which modern defenses like to replace him in the box is to drop a safety down to join the run fit, so the free safety becomes the post-snap key. If Ehlinger sees him dropping into the box or drifting to the middle of the field so that the strong safety can drop down, he can pull the ball from the RB and throw the fade (or another route) to Collin Johnson who’s now matched up 1-on-1 vs a cornerback.

If both read-key defenders hang back to maintain a conservative pass defense, then they’re allowing Keaontay Ingram and Texas’ five OL to go up against five defenders in the box. That’s the true objective and the means by which Texas can look to protect their star QB, isolate their improving OL on a league not known for having size and depth up front on defense, and loosing their talented young RBs into space.

Clemson ran their offense this way in 2018 and star RB Travis Etienne turned 204 carries into 1658 yards at 8.1 ypc. Using these schemes to prevent safeties and even linebackers from closing quickly on Keaontay Ingram and the RBs could be a shockingly effective way to turn a steady rushing attack into an explosive one.

There are other benefits as well, which Herman noted when explaining the thought process behind ramping up their RPO game for the 2019 season...

“...we made it a priority to try and take some of those hits off of Sam, I think in an ideal world, obviously Sam is going to scramble right? So you can’t avoid that. There’s going to be times when he’s pressured on a pass play and he’s going to scramble but then there’s going to be times when we call his number on fourth and one, but if we can eliminate the times that he’s actually keeping it on a read scheme then that’s 2-5 tackles a game that we’re taking off his body.”
-Tom Herman

Ehlinger will still be lowering his shoulder into opponents at times, it’s hard to see that changing, but every tackle you eliminate decreases the chances of an injury like the one against Baylor when he strained his shoulder cutting upfield into a linebacker on a zone-read play.

Mastering this kind of RPO offense requires quite a bit from the QB. He needs to understand how defenses like to match up to Texas’ various run schemes, where they send help and how, and how the pass options manipulate the defense. Then he needs to be ready to throw accurate balls to spots with lightning footwork because the OL isn’t in a pass protection set aiming to buy him time and the officials will also throw a flag if they get more than three yards down the field before the ball comes out.

But Ehlinger performed well in the RPO game in 2018 and should be ready to wield a fuller arsenal of option schemes for 2019 after an offseason of emphasis.

Situational domination

If Texas can hit the pass options consistently then defenses will have to take their chances against the OL and running game while hoping to limit explosive plays so they can make their stand on third down or in the red zone. The last time Texas went all-in on this approach to offensive football was the 2016 season, with Sterlin Gilbert coaching the “veer and shoot” offense and asking Shane Buechele to throw quick pass options to receivers in extra wide splits to keep the alley clear for D’Onta Foreman.

With an OL that had some run blocking strength (though it was inferior to the prospective 2019 Texas unit) the Longhorns opened up the alleys for D’Onta Foreman to turn 323 carries into 2028 yards in 11 games. He picked up 6.3 ypc and 15 TDs on the season and was basically the only strong suit for that entire team. But while Foreman was dominant that season, Texas didn’t play terribly effective offense overall because they struggled with situational football.

The “18-wheeler” short-yardage package for Tyrone Swoopes was initially highly effective but limited in scope and the coaches started to move away from it later in the year as they felt the building pressure for their jobs and began to focus even more on Foreman. The passing down package was nearly hopeless due to weak protection, Buechele’s lack of pocket presence, and an undeveloped WR corps.

The 2019 Longhorns are very different and are coming off a season in which their standard down offense was steady but decidedly non-explosive but their short-yardage and third and long execution were well above average. The Sam Ehlinger Texas offense has the potential to be lethal in the sorts of situations where even Alabama found difficulties. The red zone...

Ian Boyd:
Some people may see the carries he gets, and maybe the yards per carry aren’t always high cause he’s in short yardage, but how huge is it for your offense that you can run RPOs or whatever between the 20s but when you get into those tough yardage (scenarios) like that Alabama struggled to get against Clemson with their RPO game, that Ehlinger can finish plays?

Tom Herman:
Yeah, him running the football is never going to leave our offense (chuckling) um, he’s too good at it and he’s too tough. But you’re right, I do think that as the field condenses in the red zone that you need some different answers other than RPOs and that’s where then maybe your read game comes in, your called quarterback runs, although again we’d like to think that we’re good enough up front to get some movement and get four yards with our tailbacks inside the red zone even.

The issue in the red zone for RPOs is that everything turns into man coverage as space becomes more limited and the safeties pack in tighter. The quick pass options aren't open and the more vertical throws face a lot of arms and traffic so you can’t use pass options to create space for the run game. The offense has to be able to force the issue, beating tight man coverage or running through set defenders.

One dimension that made the 2018 Texas offense extra deadly in short-yardage/red zone situations was that they could get into a variety of brutal, two-back QB run schemes very quickly without substituting personnel. If they don’t have a TE on the field that becomes trickier, but the main principles are still there for Texas to do real damage. They can either draw up some ways to attack in short-yardage with QB run RPOs from spread sets (like the two-point play that West Virginia used to defeat Texas) or they can sub in some bigger bodies knowing that doing likewise won’t save the defense. The plus one advantage Texas gets from direct snapping the ball to the ballcarrier (the QB) and then the particular knack Ehlinger has for pounding defenses in short yardage is simply difficult to overcome.

Texas' success on third and long in 2018 was achieved largely by the offense’s ability to move Lil’Jordan Humphrey around and have him run option routes, quick hitters vs linebackers, or tunnel screens. The solutions here for 2019 aren’t clear yet, perhaps they’ll move Collin Johnson around and bring in Malcolm Epps on the edge, or perhaps they’ll develop some other young wideouts.

Whatever they do there, Herman and his staff have now evolved the offense so that they can leverage Sam Ehlinger’s abilities in the passing game and in executing the chess games on the live action chalkboard to boost the explosiveness of the offense and free up his talented backfield mates. This approach also keeps him fresh to go be a fullback on third and goal to go and to use the scramble fearlessly on third and long. If Ehlinger is ready to wield this system as a junior then the Longhorns could once again shock the nation with the scope of their improvement and break through even further on offense.

 

Tua making really timely, accurate throws in those RPO passes. Hopefully, Sam can have the same touch and accuracy. It's the one thing I worry about with him. A bit raw in terms of accuracy and occasionally throws wobblers. Looks like you need some precision for the RPO, unless Duvernay et al are getting 1-2 yards of separation off the LOS. 

[TheFlyingBoat 913]

15 minutes ago, nunna yo bizness said:

Nebraska was on the downturn well before the Big10 move.

They were less than field goal from winning the Big 12 each of their last two years in the conference. They weren't Nebraska of yore, but they were a solid team before they left.

[pacman 7495]

16 minutes ago, Nowhichski said:

unless Duvernay et al are getting 1-2 yards of separation off the LOS. 

Or, you have an unreal catch radius like Johnson and Epps.

[Machinator 32102]

 

[Nowhichski 32]

18 minutes ago, pacman said:

Or, you have an unreal catch radius like Johnson and Epps.

Yep, that too. Will be interesting to see how Sam comes out tossing it this year. 

[speed817 19854]

20 minutes ago, Machinator said:

 

where can we get those shirts they are wearing???

[Eggo 4026]

4 minutes ago, speed817 said:

where can we get those shirts they are wearing???

Send your Hudl to the recruiting office.

[vtaenz 603]

Tua making really timely, accurate throws in those RPO passes. Hopefully, Sam can have the same touch and accuracy. It's the one thing I worry about with him. A bit raw in terms of accuracy and occasionally throws wobblers. Looks like you need some precision for the RPO, unless Duvernay et al are getting 1-2 yards of separation off the LOS. 

If you look at Sam last year between Maryland and Tulsa? you can see how much he improved in just simple swing passes and screens. He was awful at those simple passes in the first game and it could have been nerves. He has been pretty crisp since then. I'd like to think we see continued improvement but who knows.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11856]

1 hour ago, speed817 said:

where can we get those shirts they are wearing???

Out of stock but you can find them on eBay.

https://shop.texassports.com/mens-nike-charcoal-texas-longhorns-player-breathe-performance-t-shirt/p-24947695637014+z-9089-220752711

 

[futureman 22672]

6 hours ago, Machinator said:

 

popeyes?  that’s not championship level eating.  why aren’t they eating boiled chicken breast and green vegetables?  herman is letting these kids get soft. 

[mdleast 8491]

But it shows them that Herman has the cloUT to get them the most sought after chicken sandwich in town...

[jdhorn92 1590]

On 8/25/2019 at 2:17 PM, Bobby_Batronic said:

They were quite good. How good were UTEP and UAB’s defense? I would say his day against LSU balances with that against MSU  not so much with the other two teams  

 

 

good point