Some personnel questions answered

[sushihorn 3,233]

There were some genuine concerns entering the season about manning at several positions.

How to replace LJ Humphrey's production at H-WR?  Why with Devin Duvernay of course!  #6 showed reliability and toughness in spades.  Those are the two most important qualities at that position for Texas.  He got tremendous production and made plays in key situations.  Along with some snaps for Jake Smith, this position is in good hands.

Who fills the vacated spot a Z-WR?  Brennan Eagles obviously.  He has the speed and the size to win a lot of 1-on-1 matchups outside.  Probably an even better fit here than Duvernay was.  More importantly allowed DD to move inside.  Eagles had some big plays last night.

How do you replace Beck's blocking presence at TE?  Mostly with Cade Brewer.  He was solid overall and very good at times.  Doesn't blow people off the ball like Beck but Brewer created plenty of lanes leading in Power, blocking back on inside zone and getting out and engaging on the swing screen.  Minor contributions from Beck and Leitao as receivers.  Question adequately answered: quicker to the outside though a step down as run blockers.

OMG, only one scholarship RB!  Hello Roschon Johnson.  That's Mr. Johnson to you.  This kid was all effort and often outplayed RB1.  Tough, no quit runner.  Showed hands and blocking ability too.  Are we SURE he hasn't played RB since 5th grade?  QB3, RB2: Mr. Johnson doesn't care.

Right side of the OL: Angilau and Kerstetter more than held their own.  Protection broke down a few times but nothing too bad from the right side (one overload blitz and one stunt where Braun and Shack missed the switch).  Could not consistently move the oversized DL early on but got good push later.  Better than just decent but the strength is obviously still to the left.

 

There are still 2 questions unanswered IMO.  Field CB was a mess lass night.  Kobe Boyce is not the answer, not right now.  Not sure why J. Thompson and-or Watson didn't get an opportunity.

Can Orlando replace Omenihu's ability to generate in-line pass rush?  Coburn frequently got push up the middle while drawing double teams.  There was not enough edge pressure to force the QB to step up into that push most of the time.  Ossai would be a good bet at Buck LB.  He was very effective as a pass rusher - a sack and a QBH while only rushing a few times.  Coaches have made the decision he's more needed playing 5 yds off at Rover. 

 

[Shaggy3.0 1,695]

Offensive line was outstanding.  Whatever Herb Hand is doing, keep doing it.  OL manned up and will take us far this year.

[TrashMaster G 17,395]

Duvernay has tremendous hands and balance.  Our receivers corps is damn solid.  The offense, overall, will keep up with anybody.

Just need the D to grow up.  Quickly.

[Funk Doctor Spock 11,952]

Dev Duv and Eagles are ballers. Our o-line is outstanding. We're young, but we're damn good. We just need our young DB's to step it up. 

 

Anyway, always appreciate your insights, Sushi.

[jimmyjazz 45,604]

It sure would be nice to see Orlando draw up some help for Green & Boyce.  They're just not ready for prime time on an island, especially Boyce.

[GabrielsHorn 2,142]

9 minutes ago, Shaggy3.0 said:

Offensive line was outstanding.  Whatever Herb Hand is doing, keep doing it.  OL manned up and will take us far this year.

He's definitely done a great job with the OL. Seems that the poor OL play at PSU and Auburn was more due to the scheme and recruiting than the coaching itself. 

[sushihorn 3,233]

1 hour ago, TrashMaster G said:

Duvernay has tremendous hands and balance.  Our receivers corps is damn solid.  The offense, overall, will keep up with anybody.

Just need the D to grow up.  Quickly.

Texas did that against a pre-season All American CB (Fulton) and a returning consensus A-A safety (Delpit).  Let that sink in for a moment.  The running game was decent against an enormous D Line and big, fast LBs even with limited use of misdirection.

As you point out, the defense on the other hand needs work.  This may be the first time I've ever seen homer fans' magical transformation wishful thinking become even a half-truth.

[LTtxfan 49,014]

1 hour ago, sushihorn said:

There were some genuine concerns entering the season about manning at several positions.

How to replace LJ Humphrey's production at H-WR?  Why with Devin Duvernay of course!  #6 showed reliability and toughness in spades.  Those are the two most important qualities at that position for Texas.  He got tremendous production and made plays in key situations.  Along with some snaps for Jake Smith, this position is in good hands.

Who fills the vacated spot a Z-WR?  Brennan Eagles obviously.  He has the speed and the size to win a lot of 1-on-1 matchups outside.  Probably an even better fit here than Duvernay was.  More importantly allowed DD to move inside.  Eagles had some big plays last night.

How do you replace Beck's blocking presence at TE?  Mostly with Cade Brewer.  He was solid overall and very good at times.  Doesn't blow people off the ball like Beck but Brewer created plenty of lanes leading in Power, blocking back on inside zone and getting out and engaging on the swing screen.  Minor contributions from Beck and Leitao as receivers.  Question adequately answered: quicker to the outside though a step down as run blockers.

OMG, only one scholarship RB!  Hello Roschon Johnson.  That's Mr. Johnson to you.  This kid was all effort and often outplayed RB1.  Tough, no quit runner.  Showed hands and blocking ability too.  Are we SURE he hasn't played RB since 5th grade?  QB3, RB2: Mr. Johnson doesn't care.

Right side of the OL: Angilau and Kerstetter more than held their own.  Protection broke down a few times but nothing too bad from the right side (one overload blitz and one stunt where Braun and Shack missed the switch).  Could not consistently move the oversized DL early on but got good push later.  Better than just decent but the strength is obviously still to the left.

 

There are still 2 questions unanswered IMO.  Field CB was a mess lass night.  Kobe Boyce is not the answer, not right now.  Not sure why J. Thompson and-or Watson didn't get an opportunity.

Can Orlando replace Omenihu's ability to generate in-line pass rush?  Coburn frequently got push up the middle while drawing double teams.  There was not enough edge pressure to force the QB to step up into that push most of the time.  Ossai would be a good bet at Buck LB.  He was very effective as a pass rusher - a sack and a QBH while only rushing a few times.  Coaches have made the decision he's more needed playing 5 yds off at Rover. 

 

• What did you see at Safety??
• How was Overshown used last night?
• How did BJ Foster look?

For me, it seemed like Caden was off... Not a good game from him.  

[westexhorn 2,008]

Would love to see more help to the secondary by having effective QB pressure without needing too many extra to blitz

[HtownHorn 14,503]

Texas needs Ringo. He's a day one starter the same as Stingley is for LSU.

[Leanderman 2,271]

We played our toughest game we shall play this year. We lost a bunch off defense from last year. We played lights out on offense. We did not quit. I am damn proud of this team. I still hurt over the 1st quarter, but will survive through good English Ale.

[torre 1,284]

 

1 hour ago, sushihorn said:

There were some genuine concerns entering the season about manning at several positions.

 

 

 

 

@sushi -  Please address the safety play for us which I thought was horrendous.   Michael Griffin commented that BJones appears to be having difficulty adjusting to PJ Locke's role playing close to the los.    Sterns was very, very tentative - I had rather see him overrun a play that sit back and do nothing.    May be Orlando's scheme  ?

[Burt Macklin 19,000]

1 hour ago, sushihorn said:

There were some genuine concerns entering the season about manning at several positions.

How to replace LJ Humphrey's production at H-WR?  Why with Devin Duvernay of course!  #6 showed reliability and toughness in spades.  Those are the two most important qualities at that position for Texas.  He got tremendous production and made plays in key situations.  Along with some snaps for Jake Smith, this position is in good hands.

Who fills the vacated spot a Z-WR?  Brennan Eagles obviously.  He has the speed and the size to win a lot of 1-on-1 matchups outside.  Probably an even better fit here than Duvernay was.  More importantly allowed DD to move inside.  Eagles had some big plays last night.

How do you replace Beck's blocking presence at TE?  Mostly with Cade Brewer.  He was solid overall and very good at times.  Doesn't blow people off the ball like Beck but Brewer created plenty of lanes leading in Power, blocking back on inside zone and getting out and engaging on the swing screen.  Minor contributions from Beck and Leitao as receivers.  Question adequately answered: quicker to the outside though a step down as run blockers.

OMG, only one scholarship RB!  Hello Roschon Johnson.  That's Mr. Johnson to you.  This kid was all effort and often outplayed RB1.  Tough, no quit runner.  Showed hands and blocking ability too.  Are we SURE he hasn't played RB since 5th grade?  QB3, RB2: Mr. Johnson doesn't care.

Right side of the OL: Angilau and Kerstetter more than held their own.  Protection broke down a few times but nothing too bad from the right side (one overload blitz and one stunt where Braun and Shack missed the switch).  Could not consistently move the oversized DL early on but got good push later.  Better than just decent but the strength is obviously still to the left.

 

There are still 2 questions unanswered IMO.  Field CB was a mess lass night.  Kobe Boyce is not the answer, not right now.  Not sure why J. Thompson and-or Watson didn't get an opportunity.

Can Orlando replace Omenihu's ability to generate in-line pass rush?  Coburn frequently got push up the middle while drawing double teams.  There was not enough edge pressure to force the QB to step up into that push most of the time.  Ossai would be a good bet at Buck LB.  He was very effective as a pass rusher - a sack and a QBH while only rushing a few times.  Coaches have made the decision he's more needed playing 5 yds off at Rover. 

 

Still insane they let Boyce play that much. Cook looked better when he was in. Not great but better. I’m gonna take a more thorough look at Cook on a rewatch, because I wasn’t always paying attention to him live.

orlando’s poor LB recruiting is really hurting us. We need to find a solid Rover, be it one of the JUCOs or Overshown. Ossai needs to be freed up to rush the passer at the same rate Chaisson was for LSU. I’m not sure exactly how good he is as a straight pass rusher, but he’s by far our best pass rusher, and Coburn getting the push he did will be a huge benefit to Ossai. 

Orlando believes in himself too much that he can scheme pressure. He needs to be rushing Ossai more, but without better DEs, I’m not sure that will be the full solution regardless. I’ll have to look for it on rewatch, but I don’t think I saw Graham do much of anything all game. Replacing him with someone who can make more of an impact would go a long way.

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

It sure would be nice to see Orlando draw up some help for Green & Boyce.  They're just not ready for prime time on an island, especially Boyce.

They had help on plenty of plays and still got beat often. The pass rush is tied to this issue. With our defensive personnel, we don’t have the rushers to give hep to both Green and the FCB on every play. Either Green needs to improve quickly as a CB who can not get killed every time he’s on an island, or Orlando needs to change personnel on the DL to create more of a pass rush. Hopefully, one of those two can happen, otherwise, we’ll be stuck in the same conundrum we were in last night many times this year.

[hookem48 4,636]

1 hour ago, sushihorn said:

There were some genuine concerns entering the season about manning at several positions.

How to replace LJ Humphrey's production at H-WR?  Why with Devin Duvernay of course!  #6 showed reliability and toughness in spades.  Those are the two most important qualities at that position for Texas.  He got tremendous production and made plays in key situations.  Along with some snaps for Jake Smith, this position is in good hands.

Who fills the vacated spot a Z-WR?  Brennan Eagles obviously.  He has the speed and the size to win a lot of 1-on-1 matchups outside.  Probably an even better fit here than Duvernay was.  More importantly allowed DD to move inside.  Eagles had some big plays last night.

How do you replace Beck's blocking presence at TE?  Mostly with Cade Brewer.  He was solid overall and very good at times.  Doesn't blow people off the ball like Beck but Brewer created plenty of lanes leading in Power, blocking back on inside zone and getting out and engaging on the swing screen.  Minor contributions from Beck and Leitao as receivers.  Question adequately answered: quicker to the outside though a step down as run blockers.

OMG, only one scholarship RB!  Hello Roschon Johnson.  That's Mr. Johnson to you.  This kid was all effort and often outplayed RB1.  Tough, no quit runner.  Showed hands and blocking ability too.  Are we SURE he hasn't played RB since 5th grade?  QB3, RB2: Mr. Johnson doesn't care.

Right side of the OL: Angilau and Kerstetter more than held their own.  Protection broke down a few times but nothing too bad from the right side (one overload blitz and one stunt where Braun and Shack missed the switch).  Could not consistently move the oversized DL early on but got good push later.  Better than just decent but the strength is obviously still to the left.

 

There are still 2 questions unanswered IMO.  Field CB was a mess lass night.  Kobe Boyce is not the answer, not right now.  Not sure why J. Thompson and-or Watson didn't get an opportunity.

Can Orlando replace Omenihu's ability to generate in-line pass rush?  Coburn frequently got push up the middle while drawing double teams.  There was not enough edge pressure to force the QB to step up into that push most of the time.  Ossai would be a good bet at Buck LB.  He was very effective as a pass rusher - a sack and a QBH while only rushing a few times.  Coaches have made the decision he's more needed playing 5 yds off at Rover. 

 

Maybe just my imagination but it seems like we never run to the left even though that's our strong side of the oline.

[Burt Macklin 19,000]

11 minutes ago, torre said:

 

@sushi -  Please address the safety play for us which I thought was horrendous.   Michael Griffin commented that BJones appears to be having difficulty adjusting to PJ Locke's role playing close to the los.    Sterns was very, very tentative - I had rather see him overrun a play that sit back and do nothing.    May be Orlando's scheme  ?

Not sushi, but I didn’t think Sterns was as bad in the game as some people are saying on here watching at the stadium. Maybe I missed some of his mistakes. The other problem is when your whole defense is breaking down, it makes it hard for the deep safety to play aggressively. 

They tried Jones at Nickel to free up Foster to do some more linebacker-ish things. Foster excelled in his role, but Jones did not. He can’t hold up at Nickel. 

The biggest problem with our defense this year is we’re doing a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul. We don’t have a reliable Nickel, so we play Foster there, even though he’s best used as a Joker. Orlando tried to fix that some with Jones, but he can’t cut it at Nickel. Ossai is our best pass rusher, but we drop him a lot because we only have one true competent ILB, Shark. We have issues on DL, so we have to blitz extra men, leaving our  CBs in some bad spots.

Some of this is still lingering fromh Charlie’s abomination of roster management and the terrible 2016 and 2017 classes. Charlie left us with very little at DL, LB, CB, RB and OL in those two classes. But some of the blame is also due to poor recruiting/roster management by Herman’s staff.

We only took 1 ILB in 2018 and that was Dele, who’s looking pretty bad. We took some really good CB prospects in 2018, but they’re still young and I wondered why we weren’t going after a  JUCO CB last year. 

The positive is next year, we don’t project to having to do much, if any, of this roster meanuevering. The downside is I think some of these personnel issues are just going to plague us all year, although Orlando can do better to mitigate those issues via playing the right personnel and some scheme changes.

Edited September 8, 2019 by Burt Macklin

[ClubWhatever 12,087]

6 minutes ago, hookem48 said:

Maybe just my imagination but it seems like we never run to the left even though that's our strong side of the oline.

It’s just your imagination.  Rojos first run of his career was to the left.  They ran the same play last night.  Ingram had at least two carries to the left.  

[Leanderman 2,271]

Just my two cents, seemed we played too much on the blitz happening and left the secondary too exposed one on one.  There seem to be no line stunting, just defensive lineman filling their gaps.  We really missed Gary Johnson last night.  Damn it I am starting on Shiner Octoberfest and it is not even October.

[Funk Doctor Spock 11,952]

We know Ringo keeps in touch with the staff regularly, so hopefully they sold him he can start from day 1 last night. Hell of a sell 

[Zavala 1,384]

Jamison?

Overshown?

[Bill Lumbergh 7,171]

The running game was decent against an enormous D Line and big, fast LBs even with limited use of misdirection.

The lack of misdirection was one of the most puzzling aspects of our offensive game plan. Someone else commented that the game reminded them of the big twelve championship, and I agree from a play calling perspective.

In the RRS and the sugar bowl it was so clearly obvious we had a great game plan to attack both teams. In the bxii championship and this game, I didn't see that as much. It got a bit better after the half, but some of the first half felt like our offensive game plan was "chunk it deep.". There wasn't much cohesion to what we were trying to do.

Every offensive preview of this matchup mentioned we should use misdirection and confusion to freeze their athletes and instead we seemed intent on proving we could just go right at them. In some cases we could, but not having a game plan with more misdirection is just confusing in a matchup like this.