Media/$9.95-er postgame analysis articles (Week 5)

[satyanash 15660]

Collecting all the post-game analysis articles, including those behind paywalls, regarding the blOU game here:

Jeff Howe: Texas can't complete improbable rally, loses to Oklahoma, 53-45

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DALLAS — Texas erased a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter to get Saturday's Red River Showdown with Oklahoma to overtime, but Tre Brown's interception of Sam Ehlinger on second-and-goal from the 19-yard line in the fourth overtime allowed the Sooners to prevail, 53-45. For the 22nd-ranked Longhorns (2-2, 1-2 Big 12), the loss is their third in the last four meetings with Oklahoma (2-2, 1-2), who has now won nine of the last 12 meetings in the series.

After a third overtime where Cameron Dicker had a 33-yard field goal blocked and Oklahoma's Gabe Brkic missed a 31-yard field goal wide left, Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler fired a 25-yard touchdown pass to Drake Stoops to put the Sooners ahead in the fourth overtime, 51-45. Required to attempt a two-point conversion after the third overtime, Rattler found Theo Wease in the end zone to put Oklahoma up by eight, 53-45.

A holding penalty set the ensuing Texas drive back, putting the Longhorns in a first-and-goal situation at the 19-yard line. Two plays later, Brown picked Ehlinger off in the end zone to end the game. The first time the Red River Showdown needed more than four quarters for the outcome to be decided since 1996 saw the Longhorns waste little time scoring in the extra session. Ehlinger crossed the goal line on a 3-yard run to put the Longhorns ahead on the scoreboard for the first time in the game, 38-31, a lead which lasted only a few moments until Rattler lobbed a ball near the goal line to tight end Austin Stogner, who made a leaping 11-yard snag on third-and-8 to tie the game and send it to a second overtime.

After Rattler's third-and-goal touchdown run was overtuned following a replay, the redshirt freshman pushed his way across the goal line on fourth-and-goal from inside 1-yard line. Trailing by a touchdown, 45-38, Ehlinger needed only two plays before he was in the end zone from 25 yards out with his fourth rushing touchdown of the day coming when he had to pull the ball down and made a couple of Sooner defenders miss in the open field before hugging his own sideline to keep Texas alive heading into the third overtime.

How the game got to extra time is yet another example of how Texas can't be counted out as long as Ehlinger has the ball and time left on the clock with an opportunity to bring the Longhorns back, even when the odds seem insurmountable.

Getting the ball back with 4:50 to go in regulation after an Oklahoma punt, Ehlinger engineered a 4-play, 50-yard drive that took only 1:10 off of the clock. After Ehlinger hit Joshua Moore for a 6-yard touchdown to make it a one-score game, 31-24, with 3:28 to go, it looked like the Longhorns had lost their chance for a comeback when Dicker had his ensuing onside kick attempt land out of bounds after going through a sea of hands.

The Texas defense, thankfully, kept the spark alive by forcing a three-and-out. Even after a penalty left the Longhorns with 86 yards to go and no timeouts with only 1:52 to play, Ehlinger had gains of 17 and 10 yards respectively on the ground, hit Brennan Eagles for 17 yards and found Moore twice (once for 12 yards and another for 19 yards) before a wonderfully-designed play on the 2-yard line with 18 seconds to go ended with the ball finding the hands of a wide-open Keaontay Ingram to send the game to overtime.

This story is developing and will be updated.

(Joseph Cook) Rapid Fire Thoughts: Oklahoma 53, Texas 45

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1st thought – Both teams stress being disciplined, especially ahead of a rivalry game. Neither team was close to disciplined in Dallas in the first half of Saturday’s game. Texas fumbled, had a punt blocked, and committed several penalties that derailed potential scoring drives. Oklahoma had three consecutive drives end in turnovers.

2nd thought – One of the main storylines ahead of this year’s edition of the Red River Showdown was the matchup between quarterbacks. Sam Ehlinger became one of a handful of quarterbacks to start four games against the Sooners in his attempt to secure his second win in the Cotton Bowl. On the other side was Spencer Rattler, a talented redshirt freshman who seems to be the next great thing under center in Norman. Rattler was anything but great in the first half of his first game. He did find a completely uncovered Marvin Mims in the first quarter but committed two backbreaking turnovers that lead to 10 Longhorn points. Rattler was replaced by Tanner Mordecai after the second turnover. It appeared Rattler may have injured his throwing arm, as he favored it around Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley on the sidelines. Mordecai wasn’t spectacular in his action in the first half, and almost committed a turnover himself.

3rd thought – Mordecai is no slouch, but he did enter the season as the Sooners’ second quarterback for a reason. Without Rattler’s passing ability, much of the Sooner offense was limited. That’s including being down several running backs for various reasons. TJ Pledger and Marcus Major found success running outside on Oklahoma’s trademark GT counter early in the game, as Texas simply struggled to set the edge. When Rattler left, so did some of the lethality of the Sooner offense. Texas was able to adjust and do a better job against the OU trademark as the first half carried on.

4th thought – It’s a good thing Jordan Whittington returned for this game, as Jake Smith didn’t see a single snap in the first half. Texas was already thin at slot receiver and remained so. Whittington was impressive in the first half with five receptions for 38 yards, but the additional threat of Smith would have been a major boost for the Longhorn offense.

5th thought – Another Longhorn starter who did not play was safety Caden Sterns. Both Sterns and Smith participated in pre-game warmups in some fashion, but neither saw a snap. BJ Foster stepped in for him and held the Sooners out of the end zone on their second drive of the game, breaking hard on a pick route and knocking the ball loose from Charleston Rambo. Foster played well in some respects but continued to struggle with tackling.

6th thought – Typically, this game is the most emotionally intense of the season for the Longhorns. With only 25% able to fill the normally raucous Cotton Bowl, the environment was astonishingly tame. Texas fans did get up on some occasions, but the stadium typically remained reserved for what is college football’s greatest rivalry.

Scoring summary
OU Gabe Brkic 19-yard field goal. 9 plays, 58 yards, 3:17 – 3-0 Oklahoma.
OU Marvin Mims 30-yard pass from Spencer Rattler. PAT good. 4 plays, 60 yards, 1:33 – 10-0 Oklahoma.
UT Cameron Dicker 34-yard field goal. 4 plays, -5 yards, 1:20 - 10-3 Oklahoma.
UT Sam Ehlinger 6-yard rush. PAT good. 2 plays, 19 yards, 0:47 – 10-10
OU Marcus Major 7-yard rush. PAT good. 5 plays, 5 yards, 2:07 – 17-10 Oklahoma.
UT Sam Ehlinger 2-yard rush. PAT good. 8 plays, 75 yards, 2:44 – 17-17

1st post halftime thought – Ryan Bujcevski got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in a game where he had one punt blocked and another go for only 21 yards. It set up Oklahoma with a 16-yard field. His cousin was not pleased.

2nd post halftime thought – After a 1st half benching, Rattler returned under center and looked like a totally different player than the one who committed several turnovers. Rattler took over on the Texas 16 and needed just three plays to get the Sooners into the end zone. Pledger ran in from one yard out for his second score of the day. When the Sooners got the ball back after another three-and-out, Rattler led the Sooners on a 17-play drive that took 8:07 off the clock. He scrambled, moved the pocket, and found Theo Wease several times for third down conversions. After a lackluster first half, Rattler’s 3rd quarter gave the Sooners a two-touchdown lead.

3rd post halftime thought – Facing 3rd-and-one at the end of the third quarter down 14 and needing a score following a 17-play Oklahoma drive, Texas dialed up a deep pass to freshman running back Bijan Robinson. It fell incomplete, and a punt gave the ball right back to the Sooners.

4th post halftime thought – It was a terrible day for the Texas offense, but the running game struggles stands out above the rest. Through three quarters, Texas had 17 carries for 29 yards against a Sooner defense that had yet to find any footing. Texas running backs had 11 carries for 29 yards.

5th post halftime thought – Tom Herman talked over and over and over about how his Texas team needed to stop beating itself. It didn’t stop beating itself for most of the 60 minutes of regulation. Penalties, turnovers, poor play calls, strategic decisions, and a wide range of problems affected the Longhorns. Again, this all took place after a continued emphasis on not beating themselves. This all took place after an offseason in which Herman hired seven new coaches to emphasize fundamentals and produce better results than his original staff. This took place in year four of his program.

6th post halftime thought - It looked completely lost, and then Texas scored with 3:28 left in the game. Then they stopped Oklahoma on defense after failing to recover the onside kick. Then they drove down the field. Ehlinger, after a lackluster day, made plays happen with both his arm and legs against a tired Sooner defense. Then Ehlinger found Ingram for a one-yard score to tie the game.

7th post halftime thought - All the negative, all the disappointment, all the poor football still happened, but Ehlinger's late-game heroics put Texas in a position to still win the football game. Ehlinger's ability to run and throw in the final drive was pivotal, and is the type of play that puts quarterbacks into history books forever.

Scoring summary
OU TJ Pledger 2-yard rush. PAT Good. 3 plays, 30 yards, 1:22 – 24-17 Oklahoma
OU TJ Pledger 1-yard rush. PAT Good. 17 plays, 87 yards, 8:07 – 31-17 Oklahoma
UT Joshua Moore 9-yard pass from Sam Ehlinger. PAT Good. 4 plays, 50 yards, 1:10 - 31-24 Oklahoma
UT Keaontay Ingram 1-yard pass from Sam Ehlinger. PAT Good. 8 plays, 84 yards, 1:38 - 31-31

1st overtime thought - Ehlinger kept his phenomenal late-game play going in the overtime period. It is only fitting that he ran in the ball into the end zone (from under center, no less). The Texas hopes always seem to hinge on his play. That held true once again on Saturday, and like he has more often than not, Ehlinger's excellence gave Texas its first lead of the day.

2nd overtime thought - Rattler made a big-league throw to Austin Stogner for the Sooners' score in the first overtime period. He handled pressure, kept his composure, and delivered a strike to his big tight end target. Jalen Green was draped all over Stogner, but he still managed to bring the ball in and inch across the goal line.

3rd overtime thought - Austin Stogner was matched on D'Shawn Jamison on the first play of OT2. Stogner made the most of the mismatch and drove the Sooners inside the Texas five yard-line. Texas held the Sooners out of the end zone on the first three downs, setting up a monumental 4th-and-goal from the one. Riley called a sneak, and Rattler rumbled into the end zone with his blockers ahead of him for the score.

4th overtime thought - Needing to score, Texas put it in the hands of its best player. Once again, he delivered with his fourth rushing touchdown of the day. It was his 21st rushing attempt and the effort put him over 100 rushing yards in a game where Texas mostly failed to run the ball effectively. 45-45, goodness.

5th overtime thought - Texas began on offense and began with (surprise!) an Ehlinger run. But on third and long, Ehlinger was sacked and Texas was forced to send on the field goal unit. Why not go for two in the OT prior? Definitely a coach's decision, but that field goal doesn't take place if Texas simply wins the game in OT2. And the ensuing blocked field goal doesn't take place if Texas simply goes for the win.

6th overtime thought - Texas needed to make sure that if the Sooners were going to kick a field goal, it needed to be as long as possible. The Sooners have a high quality kicker in Gabe Brkic, so making the pressure-filled kick tougher on him was the goal. Unfortunately for Texas, the Sooners were able to move up inside the 20 and set up a much shorter field for their kicker. Except, Gabe Brkic missed the kick.

7th overtime thought - Drake Stoops slipped free, and Rattler found him for the easy score in another coverage bust by the Longhorn secondary. On the two-point conversion, Rattler found Wease again with a great throw and catch to make it 53-45.

8th overtime thought - Junior Angilau's holding play was another part of what was not his best day. Even worse, the holding came when Texas had first and goal. Ehlinger's heroics only went so far, as he was intercepted in the end zone to end the game.

[satyanash 15660]

 

 

[satyanash 15660]

Lot of unhappy former Texas players.

 

[taybo20 3042]

More pressure please! Pee Wee Herman sucks ass. 

[FORTY NINE TO ZERO 2652]

Former players speaking out is a good sign. Now we just need Tom fired early enough to salvage the recruiting

[Coach pop a bitch 6046]

Urban or bust. Unless royals ghost is available

[texashorn13 228]

Ya, if we want a coaching change, I think this time the former players are going to have to push the narrative.

[satyanash 15660]

Cody Daniel: Initial thoughts from Texas’ 4OT loss to Oklahoma

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Once again, the Texas Longhorns put forth a largely lackluster performance in a losing effort, falling to the Oklahoma Sooners 53-45 in 4OT to drop to 2-2 on the season and 1-2 in Big 12 play.

Here are some initial thoughts from the Longhorns’ latest loss. (To be updated)

Overall, this just isn’t a good football team. At the end of the day, that’s the reality of the situation. If it weren’t for some late-game heroics from Sam Ehlinger and a questionable third down passing call from Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma cruises to a safe regulation win. Although the heroics aspect was notable, at least offensively, Texas needed heroics and some luck to stay alive in this one, just as they didn’t against Texas Tech. We’re now reflecting on three straight efforts against three teams in Texas Tech, TCU, and this year’s edition of Oklahoma that aren’t exactly elite. This is a team that’s simply undisciplined, inconsistent, and poorly coached, and that’s been the case for nearly an entire month now.

Texas still can’t get out of its own way. This ties back to the glaring lack of discipline and is most evident in the form of costly penalties. Texas entered the Red River Showdown as one of the most penalized teams in the country and proceeded to commit 11 more. These penalties include a roughing the passer penalty on an early third down stop that extended the drive and led to an Oklahoma touchdown, and on the first drive the second half, an illegal block on Brennan Eagles led to a stalled drive and on the big punt return, punter Ryan Bujcevski was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. Three plays later Oklahoma found the end zone. Beyond the penalties, turnovers were once again costly, including Keaontay Ingram’s fumble on Texas first drive and of course, Ehlinger’s interception to seal the deal. If Texas want to establish any momentum this season, they simply can’t help the opposition nearly as often as they have thus far.

 

[satyanash 15660]

(Bobby Burton) Snap Judgments: Not enough

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We can talk about the comeback all we want. It was a spirited one. An improbable one. One people will remember for ages. Sam Ehlinger willed the team back from the brink to force three overtimes. But I will also remember those first three and a half quarters where Texas looked lost and like a team that got in its own way. The mental mistakes were so many it was frightening.

Derek Kerstetter with a personal foul on the goal line. Ryan Bujcevski takes an extra step to punt and it gets blocked. Junior Angilau flinches on a fourth down. Marcus Washington drops an easy first down. Really needing a first down, Sam Ehlinger goes for broke on third-and-short and wasn’t even close. Keaontay Ingram fumbles his very first carry. Moro Ojomo jumps offsides on a third-and-21. The list is long.

The Horns simply played as bad as they possibly could on offense for three and a half quarters. OU forced Texas into six three-and-outs. By comparison, OU only had one until late into the fourth quarter. You can’t play bad football for 55 minutes and expect to win the game. That’s exactly what Texas did. And the result was a first-year starter at OU left the Cotton Bowl with a victory over a fourth-year Longhorn starter.

**

The Texas defense rattled OU early, even creating three turnovers and forcing a QB switch. But Texas only scored 10 measly points off of those turnovers.

**

The Texas offense went into a shell yet again for long stretches of the game. It wasn’t until Ehlinger started running the football that the Horns’ offense moved the ball. Where was that for the first 55 minutes? Why isn’t Ehlinger running earlier and taking the first downs? I can’t answer that question other than to say it is clearly hurting the team.

**

Texas got the ball late in the second quarter with the game tied at 17-17. The Horns couldn’t score. The Horns got the ball three times in the third quarter and didn’t make a single first down the entire quarter. Again, the comeback was nice, but errant passes, lack of a running game, breakdowns in pass protection and mental miscues made this an ugly, ugly game for 55 minutes. There really is no excuse for that.

**

I felt like the defense played admirably most of the day. Other than the one long drive where the Sooners ate up most of the third quarter, Texas played hard and tackled reasonably well. And other than an easy first half score to Marvin Mims and the third OT TD to Drake Stoops, I don’t recall any other Sooner running free on the Texas secondary.

**

The lack of a Texas run game is troubling. The Horns mustered nothing on the ground other than Ehlinger's scrambles. Texas is just not getting it done on the offensive line or the run scheme is too easy to diagnose and disrupt.

**

Ehlinger’s last minute performance was heroic. So were the efforts of the receiving corps, Jordan Whittington and Josh Moore in particular. But I can’t get over the lifelessness the Horns displayed for the first 55 minutes. If you can’t get up to play OU, then what are you doing playing for or coaching at Texas? Texas played roughly one quarter worth of good offensive football. That’s all. The defense hung in the game, forced the OU QB into some uncomfortable situations, but the end result is another L.

**

This was not Angilau’s best game. Not only was he called for a procedure penalty that took Texas out of a short fourth-down attempt, but he also was the one who allowed penetration into the backfield on the field goal that was blocked and was called for an obvious hold in the third OT. He also allowed an easy sack of Ehlinger earlier in the game.

**

The best play call of the game for Texas came on the Ingram TD catch to tie the game near the end of regulation.

**

The Horns are now 2-2 and look like a team that doesn’t have a clue who they are. Are they the ones who played lights out in the final few minutes against OU? Or are they the ones who were lifeless and clueless - specifically on offense - for most of the day? Only time will tell who they are. But this is getting old. It’s time for Tom Herman to be accountable for all of it. The Horns are just 1-2 in conference, harbor no hopes of going to the Big 12 title game and it seems to be a season on the brink. This sort of performance against OU for the first 55 minutes is just unthinkable. Herman didn’t have his team focused or ready to play against the Sooners.

**

Again, Texas did not give up in this game. And the players should be commended for that. But it shouldn’t always take their backs being against the wall to elicit that sort of concentrated effort.

 

[satyanash 15660]

(Chris Hummer) No more excuses: Time is running out for Tom Herman to fix Texas

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On a day in which everything felt different at the 116th rendition of the Red River Showdown, two things remained shockingly the same: The wildness of the Red River Rivalry and Texas’ penchant for costly, unforced and self-inflicted errors. Those shoot-yourself-in-the foot moments defined the No. 22 Longhorns’ 53-45 loss to Oklahoma, a game that spanned four overtimes.

Texas hired Tom Herman four years ago to cut that sickness out of the program. Saturday, cameras caught him in a constant state of pained sideline expressions, a surrender cobra gallery reserved for only the most baffled of fans.

Some might deflect blame from Herman after this performance. He isn’t the one who fumbled on Texas’ opening possession. He isn’t the one who earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Oklahoma’s one-yard line. He isn’t the PUNTER who drew an unsportsmanlike penalty in his own territory in a tie game. He isn’t the field goal unit that surrendered a block in overtime.

He is, however, the coach who could have twice ended the game on his own terms by going for two against a tired, reeling Oklahoma defense. He is the coach whose team wasted a heroic six-touchdown effort by senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger. Herman’s team was undisciplined. Herman’s team played to lose. This loss falls at Herman’s feet. “A lot of (the mistakes) are self-inflicted," Herman said. "I’m disappointed. Again, it’s my job to make sure they don’t happen.”

To understand the severity of Texas’ blunders Saturday, one must realize how advantaged the Longhorns were. Oklahoma stumbled into Dallas having lost two straight Big 12 games for the first time since 1999. The Sooners employed a redshirt freshman QB (who had three turnovers), a fourth-string running back, a patchwork group of receivers and a defense playing without, arguably, its two best players – the suspended Ronnie Perkins and the opted-out Jalen Redmond. As Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley said postgame: "Our roster is all over the place."

The Sooners, winners of five straight Big 12 titles, had no shortage of excuses. They also didn’t lack for mistakes, at one point turning the ball over on three straight possessions in the first half. Didn’t matter. Oklahoma refused to buckle. It stopped making stupid mistakes. The Sooners rallied. Got punched in the face at the end or regulation, missed a game-winning field goal attempt and then rallied again. “I could not be prouder of this team," Riley said.

Did anyone have any allusions Texas could consistently do the same? This should’ve been the Longhorns’ year. Texas landed back-to-back-to-back Top 10 recruiting classes entering Herman’s fourth season. The Longhorns had Sam Ehlinger, a fourth-year, record-setting QB and 15 starters returning around him. There were no excuses but for Texas to take the next step.

Instead: Oklahoma 53, Texas 45 Instead: Gary Patterson won his third of four games against Tom Herman Instead: Texas needed a botched onside kick recovery to escape Lubbock.

This Longhorn team should be 1-3. You could point to a dozen reasons for the subpar start. But on a day like today, it’s difficult to look anywhere but the coaching staff. That’s Herman’s hand-picked staff, by the way. He hit the reset button this offseason with seven new assistant coaches and two new coordinators. Herman played the get-out-of-jail free card highly-paid coaches seem to automatically receive.

Schemes changed. The preseason messaging changed a little. The on-field result? The same. Texas ranked 112th in penalties Herman’s first season, 125th in his second and 109th in his third. This year? The Longhorns sat 67th out of 75 teams. Texas added 11 more to its ledger Saturday, costing the team at least 10 points. Those are mental errors, and those, more than anything, belong at the feet of the head coach.

The 2020 season is still young. A 1-2 Texas, shockingly, sits at the same place in the Big 12 standings as Oklahoma. The Longhorns are still very much alive for a conference title appearance. But that’s merely a technicality. Texas, as overwhelmingly talented as it is on paper and as fantastic as it looks for stretches, has yet to show it can make that sort of run with any consistency – the longest win streak of Herman’s tenure is six games.

That leads us to the only place it can: Buyouts and talk of Herman’s future. He’s recruited the talent. He’s had the time. He's had the quarterback. He’s had the resources. Yet things remain static as they’ve ever been. Herman is 27-17 as Texas’ head coach. That’s better than the six years that preceded his tenure 46-42. But things aren’t fixed if an underperforming team performs slightly better. The problem remains, and it seems systemic.

It’s too early to know if Herman’s slow start will put his job in jeopardy. COVID-19 has impacted every athletic department in the country, and the Longhorns are expected to bleed $54.3 million in revenue this fiscal year. Herman, who received a contract extension following the 2018 season, carries a hefty buyout in the range of $15 million, according to those familiar with the program. That’s no small sum. It’s also not a large enough fence to keep the wolves out if boosters really want a change in Austin — and if they really think Urban Meyer would be interested in righting this ship.

Before kickoff in Dallas, I witnessed a Texas Longhorns fan stumble and drop his $7 beer. His fraternity brothers proceeded to stand around him and mock him incessantly. I didn’t think I’d see a worse self-imposed mistake all day. Then Texas’ Saturday afternoon happened. A day filled with opportunity, squandered again and again.

 

[satyanash 15660]

Oof.

 

[David Dennison 19571]

Meanwhile, in Chapel Hill . . . 

[Ricky Butler 2809]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

Meanwhile, in Chapel Hill . . . 

We held onto Mack too long, not the other way around. OU weekend should always remind you of that fact.

[satyanash 15660]

More unhappy former player reactions...

 

[David Dennison 19571]

3 minutes ago, Ricky Butler said:

We held onto Mack too long, not the other way around. OU weekend should always remind you of that fact.

I don't disagree, but Mack Brown is a better football coach than Charlie Strong and Tom Herman.

And that sucks.

[satyanash 15660]

(talking about Herman, obviously)

Edited October 10, 2020 by satyanash

[TexasGolf 5467]

If I recall former players called out Strong too ?

[satyanash 15660]

(Joseph Cook) Oklahoma 53, Texas 45 (4OT): Another Ehlinger-led comeback attempt falls short

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Sam Ehlinger’s herculean fourth quarter effort was not enough to overcome repeated mistakes made by the Longhorn football team against the weakest Oklahoma Sooner team in recent memory. Similar issues in all phases of the game that hampered the Longhorns against Texas Tech and TCU traveled with the team to Dallas. Ehlinger brought Texas to the cusp of victory in overtime, but the Sooners made one fewer mistake than the Longhorns in their 53-45 overtime victory.

“Absolutely crushed that we as a family didn’t do enough collectively for (Ehlinger) to finish his career against these guys the way that he deserved to,” Texas head coach Tom Herman said after the game. “Part of being part of a family. I feel like we all let him down.”

The 2020 edition of the Red River Showdown followed the script of so many of Ehlinger’s games in a Longhorn uniform. The offense, specifically the running game, sputtered. Texas failings on Herman’s side of the football required Ehlinger to drag Texas back into a game it had no business being in. “I have a lot of emotions right now,” Ehlinger said. “I don’t know which one to best pinpoint how I’m feeling. Disappointed. Obviously would have liked things to be different and would have liked to be walking out of here with a win.”

He brought Texas back into the game with his arm and his legs, gaining yards on the ground and buying time when his offensive line could not hold up. Down 14 in the fourth quarter, Ehlinger led a four-play, 50-yard drive which included a 20-yard run and ended with a nine-yard pass to Joshua Moore. Texas failed to recover the ensuing onside kick, but a defensive stop gave Ehlinger one last chance to tie the game.

The Longhorns took advantage of the opportunity, something they had not done with consistency in the last two games unless the time available to Texas was running out. Ehlinger drove the Longhorns 84 yards in 1:38, capping the drive with a 2-yard pass to Keaontay Ingram with 0:08 on the clock. The Longhorns hit the PAT to send the game into overtime tied at 31.

Texas succeeded airing the ball out and playing with tempo when it was forced to play that way. Herman said following the game on the Longhorn Radio Network that “it’s a shame we have to go fast on offense to be effective.” He expanded on that point after the game. “Maybe we turn into one of those teams that tries to win games 65-55,” Herman said. “That’s not what I envision, and I don’t think that’s what anybody envisions around here. We’ve got to find a way to be able to at a normal tempo sustain drives and stay ahead of the chains. We haven’t done that here in the last couple of weeks.”

Neither team truly excelled in any facet of the game. The Longhorn defense held the typically strong Oklahoma offense to total 31 points in regulation. It turned freshman phenom Spencer Rattler into a pedestrian looking quarterback. Texas defensive coordinator Chris Ash’s defense forced Rattler to turn the ball over twice, prompting OU head coach Lincoln Riley to replace him with backup Tanner Mordecai in the first half.

The Longhorn offense could not run the ball versus the Sooners. Ehlinger finished with 23 carries for 112 yards. UT running backs Ingram, Roschon Johnson, and Bijan Robinson combined for 11 carries for 29 yards.

Texas’ special teams were not special at all. Punter Ryan Bujcevski shanked a punt 21 yards and had another one blocked deep in UT territory. They allowed a significant amount of return yardage to Marvin Mims and the Sooners’ special teams, and even gifted them additional yardage. Bujcevski was called for unsportsmanlike conduct on Mims' best return of the day in the third quarter.

A simple third down conversion late in the fourth quarter would have iced the game for the Sooners and sent Herman back to Austin with a devastating loss to make him 1-4 against Texas’ rival. An incompletion on third down gave Texas the life it needed to go on the game-tying drive. The Longhorns and Sooners traded touchdowns in the first and second overtimes. UT had possession first in the third overtime and ended up having to settle for a field goal attempt. That Cameron Dicker try was blocked, and all Oklahoma needed was a score of any type to win the Golden Hat.

The Sooners had its own kicking woes. Typically reliable Gabe Brkic missed his 31-yard field goal wide left, giving the Longhorns additional life and a fourth overtime. Oklahoma scored a touchdown and converted the two-point attempt. Texas would need to once again move down the field 25 yards in order to continue the ball game, but a pivotal penalty made 1st-and-goal from the nine 1st-and-goal from the 19.

After one incompletion, Ehlinger looked for a receiver in the end zone, but his 53rd pass of the day was intercepted by Tre Brown, ending one of the wildest iterations of the rivalry in memory. It was likely Ehlinger’s final attempt at a second win versus the Sooners. The team that constantly looks to him for leadership and production was not able to help the Longhorn quarterback achieve his goal.

“It’s frustrating,” Ehlinger said. “We showed the football team that we are there at the end when we stay out of our own way, don’t have penalties, and a lot of different things. Mistakes that are self-inflicted. It’s unfortunate. We’ve got to get better.” It was also the story of the Herman era. So many mistakes across the team put the Longhorns in a hole. Two Sooners touchdowns were the result of coverage busts in the Longhorn secondary. The special teams, or special forces as Herman calls them, were unable to complete their mission.

Herman lost another game to an unranked opponent while ranked. The fourth-year Playoff dreams were dashed. Conference title chances were taken out of the Longhorns’ control. Ehlinger almost led the Longhorns back, but his efforts were not enough to overcome what has hampered the program so often in the last four years. “We always seem to be tripping ourselves up,” Ehlinger said. Getting in our own way. Making mistakes in crucial, tough times. The best teams don’t do that.”

 

[satyanash 15660]

(Jeff Howe) Recap: Self-inflicted mistakes catch up with Texas in loss to OU

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DALLAS — Texas head coach Tom Herman reiterated following his team’s 53-45, four-overtime loss to Oklahoma in the Red River Showdown what he said of the squad’s response to a 33-31 loss to TCU. The 22nd-ranked Longhorns had a great Sunday practice following the defeat suffered at the hands of the Horned Frogs, Herman said, but what happened in the week leading up to what ultimately turned out to be Herman’s fourth loss to the Sooners in five meetings left the head coach even more baffled as to why Texas (2-2, 1-2 Big 12) couldn’t avoid playing an overall sloppy brand of football for the third week in a row, this time inside the Cotton Bowl to the program's only true rival.

“I do want to tell you guys: we had a great week of practice,” Herman said. “Probably the best Sunday after a loss that we've ever had in our program. There [was] tons of accountability, tons of maturity and really, really had a great week of practice. Now what we have to do is we have to find a way — find a way mentally — to do the things to translate what we work on and we execute at a very high level in practice, to do that in a game.”

Texas did those things sometimes, like when Sam Ehlinger engineered two fourth-quarter drives while the defense kept Oklahoma (2-2, 1-2) off of the scoreboard from the 1:27 mark of the third quarter through the end of regulation to get the game to overtime by erasing a 14-point deficit. Unfortunately, the Longhorns didn’t do them enough to make a difference in the end. As a result, Herman’s organization heads into a second bye week of a season where things feel dangerously close to coming undone.

It was over when …

Ehlinger was intercepted by Oklahoma’s Tre Brown on second-and-goal from the 19-yard line in the fourth and final overtime. The fact that the Longhorns had a goal-to-go situation barely inside the red zone was a microcosm of a day where they were penalized 11 times for 101 yards, bringing the team’s three-game Big 12 total to 33 penalties for 293 yards.

The infraction was a holding call against Junior Angilau, but his penalty wasn’t the only one of significance levied against Texas. Derek Kerstetter was called for unnecessary roughness in the second quarter to take the Longhorns out of a fourth-and-goal situation from the 1-yard line, offensive pass interference and holding calls wiped out a pair of first-down throws from Ehlinger (30 of 53, 287 yards passing and two passing touchdowns with two interceptions; 112 yards rushing and four rushing touchdowns) to Joshua Moore (six receptions, 83 yards and a touchdown), a roughing the passer call on Moro Ojomo extended an Oklahoma scoring drive in the first quarter and an unsportsmanlike conduct call on Ryan Bujcevski at the end of a 36-yard punt return by Marvin Mims to put the defense on a 16-yard field to defend in a tie game in the third quarter (a T.J. Pledger 2-yard touchdown run gave the Sooners the lead three plays later, 24-17) are the kinds of mistakes Texas continues to make week after week.

Top Offensive Performer

As good as Ehlinger was down the stretch and even though Moore made some big-time plays to help him out, Jordan Whittington was the offense’s most consistent player from start to finish (if such a statement can be made given the way things unfolded on Saturday). Learning he’d get the start in pregame warmups when it was revealed Jake Smith tweaked his previously injured hamstring and wouldn’t be able to play, Whittington responded by pulling in a game-high 10 receptions for 65 yards in the first extensive action of his career.

Sorting through the muck of the first three quarters of play for the Longhorns, Whittington's play was one of the true bright spots for the Longhorns when things looked bleak. If only Whittington and Smith could get healthy enough to be able to play at the same time could Mike Yurcich bring a degree of diversity to the offense yet to be seen in 2020.

Top Defensive Performer

There’s probably not a harder-playing Longhorn on defense right now than Joseph Ossai. Not only was he credited with 10 total tackles, one half of a sack, two tackles for loss and a forced fumble, but Saturday was one of the days where it felt like No. 46 was always around the ball inside the Cotton Bowl.

Ossai was one of four Longhorns who finished with double-digit tackles. Of those other three, B.J. Foster (a game-high 13 tackles) had an incredible pass breakup on the goal line early in the game when he properly read a rub route and undercut Charleston Rambo to force an incomplete pass; DeMarvion Overshown (11 tackles, 0.5 tackles for loss) intercepted Spencer Rattler to set up the first Texas score of the game.

Reasons to Feel Optimistic

The comeback to overcome a 14-point deficit was every bit frustrating as it was exciting. While Ehlinger has proven time and again that if he’s got time, the ball and there’s a mathematical chance that Texas can get back in the game, no lead is safe, the Longhorns have nobody to blame put themselves for being down by two touchdowns, 31-17, with 4:38 to play in regulation.

The defensive numbers aren’t pretty (208 rushing yards allowed, an 8-for-18 performance by Oklahoma on third down and a busted coverage that led to a 30-yard touchdown pass from Rattler to Mims in the first quarter for Oklahoma’s longest passing play of the game), but miscues by the special teams and offense put Chris Ash’s group in either sudden-change situations or needing to defend short fields (the Sooners had touchdown drives in regulation that covered five and 30 yards respectively) throughout the game. With that as the backdrop, holding Oklahoma to 43 total yards (2.5 yards per play) and 0-for-4 on third down in the fourth quarter was every bit as important to the rally as Ehlinger’s efforts.

Reason to be Pessimistic

I’m blown away at how atrocious Texas is in the kicking game. In addition to the Bujcevski personal foul call after Mims ran a punt back 30 yards, the Longhorns had a punt blocked and a field goal blocked. The Longhorns are now regularly losing the battle of hidden yardage in a landslide and while there’s plenty of things to complain about regarding the on-field product, special teams might be the single worst aspect of the program right now considering how much money was forked over to hire Jay Boulware and how much Herman said turning the offense over to Yurcich would free him to do things like help in the third phase.

An aspect of the game that was a detriment to the cause in 2019 is somehow remarkably worse in 2020. With the complaint about the kicking game out of the way, the Oklahoma game will always be a line of scrimmage game Texas lost that battle by a mile on Saturday. Not only were the Sooners plus-67 in rushing yards over the Longhorns (208-141), a rushing attack that entered the game with only one run of 20 yards or more against FBS defense ripped off four on the Texas stoppers (the 208 yards were a season-high for Oklahoma).

Ehlinger was also sacked six times. Those takedowns bring the total to 15 sacks allowed by Herb Hand’s offensive line in two meetings with Alex Grinch’s defense and while the film might not reveal all of those were due to issues up front, the Texas offense got hit in the mouth for the second year in a row and never delivered an adequate response.

Modest Proposal

The Texas coaches simply need to be better in the third quarter because Herman, Yurcich, Ash, Boulware and the rest of the staff has been collectively been outclassed by the opposition coming out of the locker room. Coming out for the second half is when halftime adjustments are supposed to be made and supposed to show up, but the Longhorns appeared to make none (at least not any that had any sort of positive impact on the game) and it was evident in every possible way in a forgettable third quarter.

The offense had the ball three times in third quarter and went three-and-out on each series, finishing the period with no first downs and 13 total yards. Things weren't much better defensively with Oklahoma scoring twice, including a 17-play, 87-yard drive that took more than eight minutes off of the clock where it went 3-for-3 on third down. Texas has now been outscored 38-14 in the third quarter in three Big 12 games. The Longhorns have also been outgained significantly in those three third quarters, 370-124, and it's going to be incredible hard to win games unless those two trends change.

Drive of the Game

An 8-play, 84-yard drive in the fourth quarter that ended when Ehlinger hit Keaontay Ingram for a 2-yard touchdown pass with 14 seconds remaining in regulation. A holding penalty on an otherwise nice D'Shawn Jamison punt return moved the ball back to the Texas 16-yard line, but Ehlinger quickly moved the Longhorns into Oklahoma territory thanks to a 17-yard scramble and a 17-yard strike to Brennan Eagles.

Ehlinger ran for 10 more yards on a second-and-10 from the Oklahoma 40-yard line. After a holding penalty essentially negated the yardage Ehlinger gained, he hit Moore for 19 yards and Ingram ran for four yards on third down to move the sticks. On second-and-10 from the Oklahoma 17-yard line, Kai Money drew a pass interference call to spot the ball on the 2-yard line. Texas then dialed up a pass where Money and Malcolm Epps took the defenders in the middle of the field with them, leaving the right side of the Longhorn end zone wide open for Ingram to make the game-tying score.

Best Offensive Play

The final touchdown of the day for Texas, which occurred in the second overtime. After Rattler’s 1-yard touchdown run put Oklahoma back on top, Ehlinger pulled the ball down two plays later on second-and-10 for the Longhorns to try and get what he could. Ehlinger got a nice perimeter block from Cade Brewer, hugged the sideline and eventually made Oklahoma’s Patrick Fields miss an open-field tackle before crossing the goal line. The score brought Ehlinger's career total to 12 rushing touchdowns in five meetings with the Sooners.

Best Defensive Play

Lincoln Riley sent Rattler to the sideline and put Tanner Mordecai in the game after the redshirt freshman's second turnover in as many possessions, which led to a Texas touchdown. On third-and-6 from his own 29-yard line in the second quarter, Rattler was popped by T'Vondre Sweat, a hit that caused the ball to squirt out of his hands. The pigskin then found the hands of Juwan Mitchell, giving the Longhorns possession at the Oklahoma 19-yard line. Two plays later, Ehlinger scored from six yards out to tie the game, 10-10.

Biggest question heading into the next game

Is this the beginning of the end for Herman?

Texas has a bye week before a scheduled home game with Baylor on Oct. 24, which is only going to provide time to further stoke the conversations regarding where things are headed and whether or not Herman is ultimately the best man for the job. As hard as it is to fathom the program making a coaching change amid a pandemic, Herman said repeatedly throughout the offseason that the 2020 season was one everyone within the organization had circled internally as the year when the Longhorns would break through, yet the on-field product is as bad as it was at any of the low points last season.

Those results (or lack thereof) were enough for Herman to turnover seven positions on his full-time coaching staff. Certainly, COVID-19 didn’t create the best atmosphere for a rebuild, but Herman just lost to Riley and an Oklahoma team where its top four running backs, its best prospect at wide receiver, its top two defensive linemen and its top linebacker are either injured, suspended or chose to opt-out of the season.

Similar to the TCU loss, Herman’s Texas squad could’ve defeated a formidable opponent in a year where the window was open to control the conference. Instead, the Horned Frogs have wins over the Longhorns with rosters that are young and talented while Texas inches closer to the reality of life without Ehlinger waiting in the wings to bail the team out of bad situations.

For a team expected to compete for the Big 12 title, Texas looked nowhere near such a caliber of squad once again on Saturday. Herman has six games to try and build some momentum, but it's hard to have confidence in things getting better since the Longhorns are stacking sloppy performances on top of each other halfway through the head coach's fourth season on the job.

 

[satyanash 15660]

Chip Brown: The Good, Bad and Ugly from Texas' four-OT Red River Agony

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DALLAS, Texas — It’s hard to say what’s worse about Texas’ 53-45 loss to Oklahoma in four overtimes on Saturday: The fact OU had lost two in a row for the first time since 1999; was down to its fourth-string tailback (T.J. Pledger, who gashed UT for 131 yards and two touchdowns); played without its alpha on defense (suspended defensive end Ronnie Perkins); briefly benched starting quarterback Spencer Rattler in the first half; and still smashed the Longhorns?

Or the fact Texas, which has 16 returning starters and an incredibly talented senior quarterback, can't run the ball; can't move the ball without going tempo; can't get pressure on opposing quarterbacks; commits way too many penalties; and still has no answers for why the Longhorns can look like they're dying for 55 minutes or so of a game before coming to life as if slapped with heart paddles?

In the same week players had been challenged by senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger  to be more disciplined on attention to detail, Texas produced three and a half quarters that included: A first-drive fumble leading to an Oklahoma field goal; a busted coverage on a 30-yard OU touchdown pass; a great run by Ehlinger to the OU 2 negated by a dead ball personal foul on center Derek Kerstetter; and a blocked punt (that OU recovered at the UT 5 and converted into a touchdown).

That was just the first half, when, thanks to two OU turnovers that led to 10 Texas points, the Longhorns were able to hang on for a 17-17 tie at intermission. It didn’t seem possible things could get worse in the second half, right? Surely, coach Tom Herman would come up with the halftime of his life and say something like, “We can’t play any worse - and we’re tied! We’re going to make adjustments and then go kick ass, because it’s 2 pm, and OU still sucks!” Right?!?!

Well, who knows what Herman said? But the third quarter was one of the worst I’ve seen in 28 years of covering Texas football. With all of its season goals on the line coming out of the Cotton Bowl tunnel for the second half, Texas took the ball and went three-and-out; finished the third quarter with four carries for minus-9 yards (-2.3 ypc); ran nine plays (to OU's 21); and lost the time of possession 9:43-5:17.

The Longhorns’ defense, meanwhile, gave up third-and-1, third-and-9 and third-and-7 in a 17-play, 87-yard Oklahoma touchdown drive that took 8:07 off the clock. By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, with Texas trailing 31-17, the only question was if Saturday’s statement game for the Longhorns (for all the wrong reasons, it turned out) was going to end up as Herman’s worst loss in four seasons as Texas’ head coach.

And then the ridiculous and unthinkable happened - again. Led by the heroics of their senior quarterback - again - the Longhorns rallied from 14-down in the final 3:28 to force overtime. If you were a Texas fan, you didn’t know whether to be elated or pissed beyond belief that it took 55 minutes for your team to show that Texas Fight. Against Texas Tech, UT erased a 15-point deficit in the final 3:13 to force overtime before pulling off an improbable, 63-56 win as Ehlinger finished that game 10-of-11 passing, including three TD passes and a two-point conversion pass.

Ehlinger might’ve pulled off another come-from-behind win last week at home against TCU if not for some questionable tempo decisions on UT's final possession and a first-and-goal fumble by Keaontay Ingram with 2:32 left. Saturday in the Cotton Bowl, Ehlinger completed 10-of-15 passes for 75 yards and two touchdowns and ran eight times for 90 yards and two touchdowns - and that was JUST in UT’s final two drives of regulation and in four overtimes.

But after OU scored a touchdown and converted the two-point conversion on the first possession of the fourth overtime, Ehlinger was intercepted in the end zone by OU’s Tre Brown on a pass intended for Tarik Black to end the game. There was irony in the ending, because it was also Brown, OU’s maligned, undersized cornerback, who sacked Ehlinger in the end zone for a safety, late in the 2018 Big 12 title game, to keep Ehlinger and the Longhorns from UT's first Big 12 title since 2009.

On Saturday, however, this wasn’t a battle of two, Big 12 title worthy teams. It was a battle of two flawed teams trying to overcome their most glaring ineptitude: Oklahoma’s inability to hold a lead late in games and Texas’ inability to get out of its own way.

It’s hard to know where to begin with all the things the Longhorns’ added to their list of things to clean up - a list that now may include the psyche of Ingram, the team’s best running back this season until his fumbles in the last two games. Ehlinger pointed to a 2-yard touchdown pass to Ingram with 14 seconds left in regulation that ended up forcing overtime as proof of “how much trust we have in him.”

But Ingram finished the game with only three carries for 15 yards (5 yards per carry), including the 8-yard run he fumbled on - on a day when fellow running back Roschon Johnson left the game injured after only three carries. Texas needed Ingram to be the star of Saturday’s show. The Longhorns needed juice running the ball and ended up putting it all on Ehlinger’s legs.

With the momentum following Ehlinger’s TD pass to Ingram with 14 seconds left in regulation, why didn’t Herman just go for two to win the game or even after Ehlinger’s 25-yard TD run in the second overtime? “Certainly thought about it and talked about it each time we scored,” Herman said. “Our offense was playing well, and, certainly at the end of regulation, we felt we were playing good enough defensively to take it into overtime.”

Saying this Texas team can play really well when it wants to or when it absolutely has to is like saying someone was driving really well right up until the crash. “I don’t believe the season is slipping away,” Texas defensive tackle Ta’Quon Graham said. “We’ve lost two games back-to-back. But as one of the leaders on the team, we’ve got to keep guys heads on straight and keep working.”

Jordan Whittington, who led Texas with 10 receptions for 65 yards, said of the loss, “Emotionally, it is devastating, especially after a game like this. But we’ve got to learn from losing. We can’t just let an L be an L. The goal is to start the game like we played in the fourth quarter. We started slow, but we came together at the end. As soon as we start games better, we’ll be good to go.”

Ehlinger’s post-game comments sounded a lot like his comments after last week’s loss to TCU. “It’s frustrating,” he said. “We showed the football team we are at the end when we stay out of our own way and avoid the penalties and mistakes that are self inflicted. We’ve got to get better. We have the talent and the schemes. We seem to keep getting in our own way, and the best teams don’t do that.”

With a home game against Baylor up next on Oct. 24 (after an off week), the list of things Herman has to get cleaned up is growing, including, he said, “consistently moving the ball without using tempo.” He tried to sound optimistic. “We’ve got an opportunity to still have a really, really good season," Herman said. "Extremely proud of the fight and resiliency, but we’ve got a lot of things to clean up. We’re going to use this bye to teach and simplify things and be ready to go in two weeks against Baylor.”

A lot of the problems, however, remain the same. “A lot of them are self-inflicted wounds,” Herman said. “I’m disappointed. It’s my job to get those things corrected. We had a great week of practice. There was tons of accountability and maturity and really had a great week of practice. Now, we have to find a way mentally to translate what we work on and execute in practice to a game.”

Tops on the list to get solved? “How do we get a group of guys who want to be great to translate their play in practice to the games? That’s job number one right now. There were some bright spots. We’ve got to build on those and figure out a way as coaches - with a limited amount of reps. It’s all hands on deck right now to figure out how to get enough reps that we get things corrected while also keeping our guys healthy. We can’t go out and have a four-hour Junction Boys type practice.”

It doesn’t matter what Herman says to the media after a game. It matters what he’s saying to his players to keep the same outcomes from happening over and over. So far, it seems, Herman and a highly paid cast of seven new assistant coaches are still not getting through. Here’s a look at the GOOD, BAD and UGLY from Saturday’s prolonged agony:

THE GOOD

- Sam Ehlinger finished the game 30 of 53 passing for 287 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions while running 23 times for 112 yards (4.9 ypc) and four TDs. He finishes his career 1-4 against OU. When asked about Ehlinger’s heroics in UT’s failed comeback, Herman said, “Absolutely crushed that we didn’t do enough to win and help him finish his career in this game the way he should’ve.

- DeMarvion Overshown intercepted a pass and returned it to the OU 11, leading to a Texas field goal in the first half.

- Joseph Ossai, Chris Brown and T’Vondre Sweat all forced fumbles. Juwan Mitchell and Brown had fumble recoveries for UT.

- B.J. Foster, who got the start for injured starter Caden Sterns (toe), led Texas in tackles with 13, followed by Overshown with 11. Ossai and Mitchell each had 10. Ossai also had two tackles for loss.

- Seemingly against all odds, Texas found itself with a 38-31 lead in overtime after Ehlinger completed passes of 1 and 10 yards to Whittington before running for 11 yards, setting up his own 3-yard touchdown run.

- Absolutely nothing good happened in the entire third quarter.

- Ehlinger converted third-and-9 with a nice catch-and-run by Joshua Moore for 9 yards to the OU 46 with just less than a minute left in the first half.

- While trying to buy time in the pocket, OU quarterback Tanner Mordecai inexplicably lost the ball and jumped on it for a 12-yard loss, bringing up third-and-21. OU ended up punting to Texas with 1:46 left in the half.

- Texas converted third-and-6 on a precision pass from Ehlinger to Tarik Black for 24 yards. That was followed by a pass interference flag on OU cornerback Tre Brown against Joshua Moore, giving Texas first-and-goal from the OU 8. After a 6-yard pass to Whittington, Ehlinger ran it in from 2 yards, giving him his second rushing TD of the game and tying the score 17-17 with 4:14 left in the half.

- Ryan Bujcevski’s 36-yard punt with 3:36 left in the first quarter landed on the OU 3, bounced backward and was downed by Texas at the OU 4.

- Texas converted third-and-3 with a 20-yard completion from Ehlinger to Whittington, and Ehlinger hit Joshua Moore with a 14-yard pass to the OU 35 late in the first quarter (but the eight-play drive stalled there, resulting in a punt).

- Jordan Whittington, back from a month layoff following minor knee surgery, caught a 4-yard bubble screen on UT’s first offensive play.

- OU went backward on its first possession following back-to-back flags on its offensive line, followed by a kick-catch interference flag on the punt, giving Texas great field position at midfield for UT’s first drive (unfortunately, it ended two plays later with Ingram’s fumble).

- With OU driving the ball down UT’s throat, Joseph Ossai caused a fumble by Sooners’ running back T.J. Pledger, recovered by Chris Brown at the UT 18 with 10:09 left in the second quarter.

- T’Vondre Sweat hit OU quarterback Spencer Rattler, knocking the ball loose, and Juwan Mitchell recovered it in the air, giving Texas the ball at the OU 19 with 12:31 left in the first half. With the help of a questionable pass interference call on OU’s Brendan Radley-Hiles against Cade Brewer in the back of the end zone (giving Texas first-and-goal at the OU 6), the Longhorns were able to convert the turnover into a touchdown on a 6-yard QB draw by Ehlinger, keyed by a nice block from Brewer.

- DeMarvion Overshown came up with a huge interception at the end of the first quarter - returned 29 yards to the OU 11 - stopping a tidal wive of momentum for the Sooners that began with Keaontay Ingram’s fumble on UT’s first possession.

THE BAD

- The more physical team usually wins the Red River Shootout, and through three quarters, when Texas fell behind 31-17, the Longhorns had 17 carries for 29 yards (1.7 ypc).

- When asked why his team can’t run the ball consistently, Herman said: “It’s a number of things. We’ve got to improve up front. It’s hard when you get down and feel like things are slipping away a little bit, to stick with 1- and 2-yard runs. But to be able to run the football, you have to keep at it. I’ve been in (offensive coordinator) Mike (Yurcich’s) shoes, when it feels like things aren’t working. So we’ve got to improve up front and major in the things we do well.”

- I was told before the game, Caden Sterns was available but was battling a toe injury. He didn’t play a single down in a game in which OU had 97 plays.

- Texas finished with 11 penalties for 101 yards. (OU was flagged 10 times for 106 yards.)

- The Longhorns had only one sack (a combined effort by Ossai and Alfred Collins).

- Oklahoma, which had to be wondering how it was trailing 38-31 and still playing football in overtime after dominating regulation for 55 minutes, answered Ehlinger’s 3-yard TD run with a third-and-8, 11-yard touchdown pass from Spencer Rattler to tight end Austin Stogner, forcing a second overtime.

- The third overtime saw Cameron Dicker’s 33-yard field goal attempt blocked by OU’s Perrion Winfrey, who got a good push against Junior Angilau. But Texas stayed alive and went into a fourth OT, because OU kicker Gabe Brkic’s 31-yard attempt was wide left.

- Ehlinger was intercepted in the end zone with 5:02 to play on first down from the OU 23.

- The entire third quarter ... which included OU converting three third downs on a 17-play, 87-yard, touchdown drive that took 8:07 off the clock and put OU up 31-17. “I wouldn’t say it zapped our will,” Texas defensive tackle Ta’Quon Graham said of the drive. “But it was a crushing drive. I think it was about 18 plays and swung the momentum the other way.”

- Josh Thompson appeared to break up a third-and-5 pass from Tanner Mordecai to Charleston Rambo, but the ball tipped off Thompson’s hand right into the hands of Rambo for a 12-yard gain and a first down late in the second quarter.

- Texas did nothing with a fumble forced by Joseph Ossai and recovered by Chris Brown at UT’s 18, and after the three-and-out, Ryan Bujcevski ran to his right and rugby punted the ball right into the arm of OU’s David Ugwoegbu, who also recovered the ball at the Texas 5. OU was called for unsportsmanlike conduct while celebrating the recovery, but converted the turnover into a touchdown on a 7-yard run by Marcus Majors, putting OU up 17-10 midway through the second quarter.

- On Bucjevski’s punt being blocked, Herman said: “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve drilled that. This is the first time in six years, we’ve had issues with this punt protection, but it’s happening now, and we’ve got to get it fixed.”

- Another lowlight for Bujcevski: After already suffering the block (that led to an OU TD in the first half), he was flagged for a personal foul for shoving the guy who’d just returned his punt 36 yards, giving OU the ball at the UT 16 (instead of the OU 30), and the Sooners scored three plays later on a T.J. Pledger TD run for 24-17 lead in the third quarter.

- After making a nice hit on OU tight end Austin Stogner following an 11-yard pass reception to the Texas 1 in the third quarter, Chris Brown flexed like Superman. OU scored on the next play.

- Sam Ehlinger had just scrambled to the OU 2 yard-line on third-and-16 that would’ve given Texas a fourth-and-1 decision from the OU 2. But center Derek Kerstetter committed a dead ball personal foul for shoving OU defensive end Marcus Stripling in the back, knocking Stripling to the ground, moving Texas back to the OU 17, where Cameron Dicker booted a 34-yard field goal, cutting OU’s lead to 10-3 with 13:40 left in the first half.

- After the Texas offense went three-and-out on its possession following Keaontay Ingram’s fumble, OU caught Texas in a coverage bust on a 30-yard TD pass from Spencer Rattler to Marvin Mims, putting OU up 10-0 with 6:47 left in the first quarter.

- Moro Ojomo was called for roughing the passer on third-and-5, extending OU’s first-quarter drive to a field goal (on a play in which Spencer Rattler’s pass was incomplete).

- All the early momentum was going Texas’ way until Ingram fumbled the ball on his first carry of the game, and it was recovered by OU at the Sooners’ 40 with 12:51 left in the first quarter - giving Ingram back-to-back fumbles on his last two carries dating to last week’s goal-line turnover against TCU.

THE UGLY

It’s your pick … Ingram’s fumble … the blocked punt … the penalties … the entire third quarter … other

 

[dcar00 15005]

Herman is way over estimating that these players want to be great.  they are marking time, as is this coaching staff.

[satyanash 15660]

Sam Khan Jr: Texas Longhorns' Tom Herman, Sam Ehlinger lament mistakes after loss to Oklahoma Sooners

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Following the Texas' second consecutive defeat, Longhorns head coach Tom Herman and quarterback Sam Ehlinger lamented the team's mistakes. The No. 22 Longhorns committed 10 penalties, had three turnovers and made multiple special-teams miscues in a 53-45 four-overtime loss to rival Oklahoma on Saturday in Dallas. "A lot of them are self-inflicted wounds, and I'm disappointed," Herman said. "It's my job to make sure that they don't happen."

Ehlinger, who last week said following a loss to TCU that "this university deserves better," was left frustrated with many of the same types of problems that plagued Texas in the previous loss. "We showed the football team we are at the end when we stay out of our own way -- when we don't have penalties and a lot of different mistakes that are self-inflicted," Ehlinger said. "It's unfortunate, and we've got to get better."

Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger runs for a touchdown in overtime against Oklahoma on Saturday, but the Sooners won the game in the fourth overtime. Andrew Dieb/USA TODAY Sports

Asked if he believed the Longhorns (2-2, 1-2 Big 12) are a good team, Ehlinger said: "Yeah, this is a good team."

"We have the talent; that's not the issue," Ehlinger said. "We have the schemes; that's not the issue. We always seem to be tripping ourselves up. Getting in our own way, making mistakes at crucial times, and the best teams don't do that."

The Longhorns saw a punt blocked and a field goal blocked, and the game ended on an interception thrown by Ehlinger, who accounted for a game-high 399 yards and six touchdowns. The Sooners (2-2, 1-2) made their fair share of mistakes, as well, committing 11 penalties, three turnovers and missing a field goal. But after what Herman termed "a great week of practice" and the "best Sunday after a loss that we've ever had in our program," the Longhorns were still ruing their own problems.

"It's unfortunate, but we can't change the past," Ehlinger said. Said Herman: "Now what we have to do is we have to find a way mentally to do the things to translate what we work on and we execute at a very high level in practice, to do that in a game. And that's all I know how to do."

 

[Brothahorn 10100]

5 hours ago, Ricky Butler said:

We held onto Mack too long, not the other way around. OU weekend should always remind you of that fact.

We should have went the KSU route and let him take a few years off. We should have called him back after Charlie.

[dcar00 15005]

8 hours ago, satyanash said:

Lot of unhappy former Texas players.

 

demarco boyd is an idiot.  Herman will be here forever if we hold him to the same standards as strong.  we want him fired.

[satyanash 15660]

(Scipio Tex) 2020 Oklahoma Postmortem: Offense

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I heard somewhere that they teach Coast Guard ocean rescue swimmers that if a drowning person resists rescue, and is completely hysterical, incapable of helping to save their own life - in fact, threatening yours with their clawing, irrational panic - that it's OK to stun them or drown them into some degree of incapacity so that you can establish control and get them to safety. You can always revive them on the shore or the boat, but neither of you will get there if the panicking swimmer kills the rescuer.

I don't know if that's true, but when I think of irrationality, drowning, and the need for rescue, my mind naturally drifts to Tom Herman and Texas Football. Maybe that should be #11's approach in pregame. "Can I talk to you for a second, coach? Yeah, just right over here. Lift your chin up a bit?" Whack. Herman wakes up to a win, his head aching, wondering how it all went down.

It's only Game 4 and the Texas offense is broken. Again. Right on schedule. Four years after starting as a true freshman, Sam Ehlinger is back in a familiar place, relying on improvisation, running for his life, trying to win games bearing the weight of the program. Doing his best to carry a struggling offense over the goal line, Herman's heels dug in so deep that you can plant tobacco in the furrows.

How did Texas rally to force overtime after such a moribund offensive performance? Certainly not because of the play of the Texas offense as a whole. And certainly not due to the efforts of the staff.

The OU defense just plain wore down chasing and tackling Sam Ehlinger. Part bludgeon, part escape artist, he ran Oklahoma's defense ragged despite logging long quarters of inefficient play. He redefined The One Man Gang.

Ehlinger threw (53 attempts) or ran (23 carries) on 76 of the 87 plays Texas ran. That's 87.3% of the game in his hands. By my best estimation, a new Longhorn record for One Man Gangness. I've racked my brain thinking of comps and not even Colt McCoy and Vince Young can match that usage rate in their most famous Put It On My Shoulders Games. Of course, Sam had a 80.2% usage rate least year against Oklahoma, chasing the same game script. We shouldn't be surprised anymore.

That's a testament to Sam's toughness and grit, but also a statement of total offensive futility. Texas doesn't enter games with a plan, they enter with presumption. The real contest is in how quickly the staff can be disabused of their presumptions and then let fear do the work of reason with the new improvised game script.

In fairness, this game plan was not quite the F level pregame effort of 2019, but it was a strong D+ to C-. Texas had 70 yards of offense after the first quarter (down 10-0 early) and totaled only 428 on 87 plays for the game. That's 4.9 yards per play. The grind is back, baby! Don't pay attention to the fact that Iowa State and Kansas State both averaged over 7 yards per play against the Sooners with multiple chunk gains in both the passing and running games. One cannot hope to match the blue-chip talent found in Ames and Manhattan.

Is Tom Herman being beset by a banshee? Is this a tornado drill? Is he doing a standing crunch? Is he...TURTLING?

Not classic Tom Turtling. That requires a slight Texas lead paired with situationally low testosterone. This wasn't Iowa State last year or last week against TCU, but punting on 4th and 1 near midfield down two touchdowns with a quarter remaining was interesting. As was the refusal to consider a two point conversion at any point in regulation or overtime to cover for a Texas defense that had worn down badly and would go on to surrender OU touchdowns on every one of their overtime possessions, save the OU missed field goal, which OU obviously worked towards. The game management was rather turtley, but I can't give it the full terrapin.

But that doesn't mean we're not watching a staff shell game of a different variety. Would Texas have improved its chances to win with a two point attempt? Yeah, probably. But it's debatable. Tom postgame press conference was fun. He had an epiphany. From Joe Cook's report:

• Texas succeeded airing the ball out and playing with tempo when it was forced to play that way. Herman said following the game on the Longhorn Radio Network that “it’s a shame we have to go fast on offense to be effective.” He expanded on that point after the game.
• “Maybe we turn into one of those teams that tries to win games 65-55,” Herman said. “That’s not what I envision, and I don’t think that’s what anybody envisions around here. We’ve got to find a way to be able to at a normal tempo sustain drives and stay ahead of the chains. We haven’t done that here in the last couple of weeks.”

We have to go fast to be effective? SHAMEFUL. Real offenses go slow! It is written!

This is objectively funny. It's like watching Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm or Ricky Gervais in The Office negotiate a social situation. The lack of awareness - both self and external - is awesome. He's 4.5 years into this. Herman is also seemingly unaware of the game he just participated in. You just got ball controlled, Tom. That was Parcells Ball. Oklahoma grinded. They ran 97 plays, didn't throw it over our heads once, benched their QB for a quarter of play, and Riley demonstrated as much risk tolerance for letting his QB get after it as you have for abandoning a sunny log in a pond. The score got in the 50s because your QB forced overtime.

Herman wants to punish defenses at the line of scrimmage, be physical, control clock, and run the ball effectively. Well, the Texas running backs combined for 11 carries and 34 yards. Texas had 23 carries from the QB, at least half of them improvised. Texas threw the ball 53 times. Poorly. If you're incapable of creating your desired reality 4 years in to your tenure at Texas, why would I think you're ever capable of it? What exactly is it that you say you do around here?

QB

Ehlinger got off to a rough start. A bad confluence of his own poor play, the game plan, OL struggles, and the Texas receivers not getting open. He was too frequently inaccurate and missed a couple of obvious throws, particularly the 3rd down and short where he had multiple open men past the sticks and still tried to hit Bijan. His first end zone interception to a covered Josh Moore was simply a poor, inadvisable throw from a QB trying to do too much. The second end zone interception was a desperation throw after Angilau put Texas behind the chains with a boneheaded penalty. You'd like to see a staff that can create easy throws and some gotcha plays on a Sooner defense full of schematic and personnel holes, but no such luck. That play caller is on the other sideline.

Sam missed some balls, but watch the game clearly and you'll see very few open throws over the course of the contest. The ones that were missed get a spotlight because opportunity was otherwise so scarce. Scarcity influences viewing perception. This was not a pretty performance, but it was an extremely gritty performance. The fact is that Ehlinger put the team on his back in the 4th quarter, dragged them into overtime, then fought with all he had for victory.

23 carries, 112 yards, 4 touchdowns. Take out sacks and he averaged 8.6 yards per carry while absorbing dozens of hits in and out of the pocket. If that carry number sounds familiar, that's because that's exactly how many times he carried it last year against Oklahoma. Longhorn overuse of the QB run game is a sign of 1) trailing 2) a staff out of ideas 3) the inability of the receivers and scheme to beat press. So Sam becomes John Henry trying to build a railroad all by himself. Don't be surprised when the guy who has been eating hits all day throws less accurately or wears from overuse.

His passing game numbers were an absolutely awful grind (53-30-287-2td-2int), but that's reflective of a lot of factors much bigger than in-game inaccuracy.

OL

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Oklahoma now has 15 sacks against Herb Hand's offensive lines over the last two years. Hand can't teach this running game. Pad level is still atrocious. I will continue to write this every week. They think outside zone blocking means standing up and running to a spot instead of seeking violent contact in a coordinated way. If the defender wants to go somewhere, help them and then keep pushing them past the spot they wanted with their own momentum. If they want to plug, seal a side, and let the back choose. Our execution in zone blocking at the point of attack is so poor and we have no idea how to cap play side penetration or win the edge when OU conceded it by alignment with some overloads. We're also not syncing up the RB's steps to the rhythms of the blocking. Shanahan would laugh out loud at our outside zone running game coordination and our inability to marry it to obvious constraints.

Aside from giving up six sacks and a dozen pocket hits on Ehlinger along with no running game, the OL repeatedly beat the offense with killer mistakes. Derek Kerstetter cost Texas 4 points with a foolish personal foul on the 1 yard line. Angilau tossed away a potential score by jumping offsides on a 4th and 2 in Sooner territory that then forced a punt. Then Junior's hold in the 4th overtime created a 1st and goal from the 19 yard line. Sam's improvisation happens a lot more manageably in 10 yard chunks. Once that happened, Longhorn chances of a tying touchdown and two point conversion were cut 80%. OL can't do this to your team. They're supposed to be the steady reliables. The foundation. Not drive killers.

Christian Jones struggled badly with Bonitto and other Sooner edge rushers when they didn't even have to think about run game or honoring the edge. Gave up two sacks and two holds. Instead of helping him on 3rd and long, we put our flexed TEs into the route on nearly every play. Total tight end catches in 53 pass attempts? 2 for 14 yards. Good times. Reveals a strong understanding of risk/reward. Are we under the impression that Travis Kelce is on our roster?

Our second best tackle plays center and right now he's not very good at center. Texas needs a total re-imagining of the OL, but it's probably too late. Four years in and Texas doesn't have a center ready to play football. So they break up one of the more effective pass blocking tackle duos in college football. Absolutely remarkable. Maybe we can shore up middle linebacker by playing Sam there. Would that be a good allocation of resources?

WR/TE

The Texas pass catchers and scheme cannot beat man coverage. No separation. Watching Brennan Eagles struggle to get a release on a 180 pound cornerback doesn't surprise me anymore. One of many reasons that Texas was 6 of 17 on 3rd down and Just Do Something Sam became our late game rallying cry.

The Sooner secondary beat the Texas pass catchers on most snaps, running a lot of predictable man coverage on 3rd down. Rather than help them with scheme, Texas ran too many individual passing game concepts like we were '01 Miami. Let's just let our athletes win! Except that they didn't. There are schematic ways to beat man coverage, particularly against average defensive backs, even with average receivers. Texas didn't do enough there.

Josh Moore had 8 catches for 83 yards and a TD, but what's lost in that respectable box score is the fact that his longest catch went for 19 yards and he had 14 overall targets. That's inefficient. It was great to see Whittington back, even if at 80%, but he averaged 6.5 yards per catch on 10 grabs. Eagles had just 3-41, and his block in the back penalty was a drive killer. For a 230 pound guy, he's simply not physical enough out there. Kai Money drew a PI on Patrick Fields. We certainly missed Jake Smith, but there's something missing conceptually in this offense.

The tight ends were negligible contributors.

RB

The Longhorn running game was Sam Ehlinger. Ingram, Johnson, and Robinson totaled 11 carries for 34 yards. Ingram had a fumble on the first Longhorn possession. Robinson had a couple of good blitz picks up and caught two balls for 39 yards. Ingram caught 4 for 21 yards, including a wide open goal line TD pass. RoJo was completely missing. Why? No contribution from a unit that should be a team asset.

Final

(Scipio Tex) 2020 Oklahoma Postmortem: Defense/Special Teams

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Jorge Luis Borges called the Falklands War "Two bald men fighting over a comb" and that's what it felt like watching Texas battle Oklahoma this Saturday. Somehow, the low stakes made it feel all the more desperate.

53 points on the scoreboard suggests that the Oklahoma offense ran up and down the field like it was a classic Mack Brown era OU butt-kicking, but the Texas defense actually held Oklahoma to under 5 yards per play (97 plays-469 yards-4.8 yards per play) and did a fine job of holding down the downfield threat of the Sooner passing game. The Longhorns also forced three turnovers, resulting in 10 Texas points.

Sooner QB Spencer Rattler, who would have been the Faceman for the 1986 Celtics, was benched for ineffectiveness, returned in the second half, and finished the game with a modest 23 of 35 for 209 yards passing stat line. He ran effectively on some key downs and regained his composure enough to manage a hyper-conservative Sooner ball control attack that evoked the 1990 Bill Parcells Giants. Lincoln Riley was clearly leery of his QB play, pulled in the reins, and still found his points with a newly revived Oklahoma running game and a variety of low risk passing game targets. It also helped Riley that our defense is frequently stupid and undisciplined, now a defining characteristic of the Longhorn program as whole.

Unfortunately, the Texas defense wasn't able to come up big on key downs - particularly in overtime. They were 9 of 19 on money downs. Giving up a new set of downs nearly 50% of the time ain't cutting it. Of course, defending 20 total Oklahoma possessions may have played a role in that. A 3rd quarter 17 play, 87 yard Sooner touchdown drive that took over 8:00 and put OU up 31-17 was a prime example of Longhorn futility on 3rd down (allowed three 3rd down conversions) and demonstrated the Longhorn inability to stop the Sooner running game (10 carries, 46 yards) when Ash knew it was coming.

In fairness, the Horns also surrendered five of their touchdowns defending drives that began on the Texas 5, the Texas 30, and the Texas 25 three times (overtime). The Texas offense and special teams did them no favors in regulation, but if you can't dial in on a limited Sooner offense for one big stop when you most need it, the defense takes the loss with the rest of the program.

I saw a few WTF moments: Anyone else see Juwan Mitchell in a four point stance over the center for Spencer Rattler's 4th down QB sneak touchdown after OU burned their play action surprise with a well-timed Horn timeout? Next time, put Sweat, Coburn, Graham across the G-C-G. Good lord.

The same passing game concept that scored Mims from 30 yards out (the longest Sooner gain of the game) to put OU up 10-0 on a blown Texas coverage was the same concept that Drake Stoops scored on from 25 yards out in the final overtime. Texas blew the coverage in the exact same way. Shades of the TCU Empty Set QB Draw. Not quite as egregious, but there's a pattern there if you'd like to see it. There are a lot of patterns in this program if you'd like to see it.

Texas defended a 3rd and 1 where OU ran Wildcat with Pledger with an honest box. He is not a passing threat. No. Bad. It's also worth mentioning that on the play where Overshown intercepted Rattler, Texas was outnumbered on the other side of the field by the OU WRs. If Rattler looks that way, it would have been 6 for the Sooners. I've got more, but whatever. I should probably also point out that OU isn't very good.

DL

The Sooner running game largely targeted the hapless Texas LB corps and our run fits from the secondary, but the DL's failure to exploit what had been a shaky Sooner OL more often was disappointing. Particularly given that they started a freshman tackle in place of Swenson and the Sooner playbook was running off of an index card when Riley saw Rattler open the game like a garter snake.

Joe Ossai was a man throughout, playing through exhaustion and injury. He totaled 10 tackles, had a hustle pursuit forced fumble that negated a long TJ Pledger run, and had two tackles for loss. Jett Bush spelled him and had a nice tackle for loss on the reverse, but he needs to understand as a pass rusher that five yards past the QB is the most useless place on the football field. The tackle is inviting you around the long corner for a reason. Jacoby Jones had a pressure, but wasn't much of a problem for the Sooners.

Alfred Collins split a sack. T'Vondre Sweat had a huge forced fumble on Rattler. Moro Ojomo had a nice tipped ball, but drew a foolish 15 yard roughing call. He's been good for a major penalty every game. Coburn had only one tackle after dominating against TCU and he never really collapsed the pocket. Creed won that round, Rocky.

LB

OU had more success running the ball against Texas (notching their first 100 yard rushing effort of the season from their 3rd string RB Pledger, who had 22-131-2 tds) than any other opponent because stopping a G/T counter requires a baseline level of LB play.

Juwan Mitchell is credited with double digit tackles in the box score, but he put on a clinic of ineptitude. He kept blindly running to a gap (and a Sooner blocker) without even diagnosing the run. I lost it when I saw him go inside of an OU blocker and uselessly run up the field on an outside screen where the OU RB already had the ball and was past him. He lost a literal Oklahoma drill on the goal line when unblocked with TJ Pledger. He's bad against the run and bad against the pass.

Overshown had some good moments, but he lost the edge badly on an early 21 yard Pledger run. His INT where he dropped from an edge rush into the passing lane was a big play, but that was a good defensive call paired with a bad throw. Overshown just completed the play and took advantage of the opportunity. 11 tackles and far fewer mistakes than the disaster we saw against Tech. He needs to come a lot harder when his number gets called on stunts and blitzes.

Cort Jaquess played sparingly, which surprised me. The game style suited him and his skill set perfectly. Maybe they feared playing him so Mitchell wouldn't quit again. David Gbenda got some run, mostly out of desperation. 4 tackles and didn't look quite as out of place as against TCU.

DB

Texas wasted a solid effort from the Texas cornerbacks and SPUR. Jamison and Thompson played well. Thompson didn't get beat over the top once and had some terrific open field tackles, including a beautiful TFL in the screen game. The freak Rambo catch off a deflection could have been an INT, but Thompson played winning football on the vast majority of his snaps. Jamison had two breaks ups, including a gorgeous play on the ball that deprived Rambo of a touchdown in overtime and some excellent coverage in other circumstances. Jalen Green had a really nice tackle for loss in the screen game, but lost Rattler on a zone read that hurt us. I have no problem with his coverage on the two point conversion or the Stogner TD. Sometimes the other guys make great plays.

Chris Adimora had a great break up on a Sooner 3rd and 9 and added 5 tackles. The Sooners really weren't able to attack him effectively for most of the game.

Caden Sterns skipped the game with a foot injury and that meant Brown and Foster got the start. With that combination, Texas lost some range and that influenced depth and how we played them. Brown had a great forced fumble (Texas couldn't recover) with 9 tackles and BJ led the team in tackles (13), but they both had some critical errors in run support from depth. BJ was playing with a pretty significant injury, so props to him for putting it out there. Brown's worst error occurred near the goal line as he and Mitchell - both unblocked -were slow to react to runner, who strolled in for an easy 6. Both Brown and Foster got shaken up.

Special Teams

What's yellow and is something you shouldn't drink? A school bus. That was a bad joke. Much like the Texas special teams. It's also relevant because our staff would try to drink a school bus.

Bujcevski shanked his first punt for 21 yards. He had another punt blocked attempting to double clutch a rugby punt, which led to an easy short field Sooner touchdown, and then Buj added a 15 yard personal foul on another punt that facilitated another Sooner score. His cousin Michael Dickson is mildly unimpressed with Texas coaching. His now deleted Tweet read: “No protection. Week in week out. No coverage week in week out. ST coach is (trash). Smh.”

The Horns gave up punt returns of 36 and 22 yards, respectively, Kitan Crawford was called for a hold on another punt, and Dicker had a field goal blocked when he appeared to kick it a bit flat and Angilau gave up too much penetration. To date, the performance of the special teams units is garbage and a telling insight into this regime's basic inability to coach the game.

Final

If I'd skipped the game to rest in a salted hammock made of razor blades and you told me that the Texas defense held the Sooner passing game to 6.3 yards per attempt and turned the Sooners over three times, I would have expected a pretty good result. Unfortunately, this staff and team have mastered the ability to lose in the margins so profoundly that simple metrics lose all of their value.

 

 

[BurntOrange&White 42020]

@satyanash

 

You got this one? https://texas.forums.rivals.com/threads/the-sunday-pulpit-via-loewy-law-firm-chris-del-conte-must-fix-the-chaos-he-created.493423/

[satyanash 15660]

Bobby Burton: Sunday

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I’ve rewatched the game and I’ve slept on it overnight. Tom Herman must go. He should be fired. His team, specifically his side of the ball, was not prepared on Saturday. The offense looked absolutely aimless for large parts of the game for the third consecutive conference game. The only thing that kept Texas in the game was a defense that played hard against a young quarterback who was overwhelmed early in the contest.

It’s important to note that I do not ascribe the problems to the defense that some will. They are not perfect and I think could play better at times. But I feel like we’ve largely entered a new age of football, one where Alabama, possibly the most talented defense in the country, gave up 48 points to a low-level SEC team last night and still won by two TDs. The problems are on the offense more than the defense. But it’s more than that, much more.

A coach’s job is to prepare his team to play to its best ability, to maximize what his team has. Does anyone think we’ve seen anything resembling that in the last two years? Instead, I see a team that makes mental mistakes that are beyond the pale. And the coach says he doesn’t believe in momentum, that it’s hard to win, that the players aren’t doing what the coaches are teaching them - not that the coaches need to teach better. Add it all up, and I see a coach who tries to hold others accountable but not himself or his staff.

So when do I think Herman should be relieved of his duties as head coach? Today. I’m a proponent of making the right move as soon as you know it’s the right move. It serves no purpose to let decisions like this linger. But if not today, he needs to coach every single minute of every single day like his career depends on it. Because that sort of urgency has been dreadfully lacking from him and his team. The utter lack of urgency on Saturday was nothing short of embarrassing.

If Herman is given more time, which is likely, then either Texas fans should see a new team emerge in two weeks, or Herman just doesn’t get it. Or if he does get it, he clearly can’t convey the message to his team to elicit the type of football that Texas fans want and the athletic department pays him handsomely for.

 

[Bill Lumbergh 7351]

Bobby Burton: Sunday

I’ve rewatched the game and I’ve slept on it overnight. Tom Herman must go. He should be fired. His team, specifically his side of the ball, was not prepared on Saturday. The offense looked absolutely aimless for large parts of the game for the third consecutive conference game. The only thing that kept Texas in the game was a defense that played hard against a young quarterback who was overwhelmed early in the contest.
It’s important to note that I do not ascribe the problems to the defense that some will. They are not perfect and I think could play better at times. But I feel like we’ve largely entered a new age of football, one where Alabama, possibly the most talented defense in the country, gave up 48 points to a low-level SEC team last night and still won by two TDs. The problems are on the offense more than the defense. But it’s more than that, much more.
A coach’s job is to prepare his team to play to its best ability, to maximize what his team has. Does anyone think we’ve seen anything resembling that in the last two years? Instead, I see a team that makes mental mistakes that are beyond the pale. And the coach says he doesn’t believe in momentum, that it’s hard to win, that the players aren’t doing what the coaches are teaching them - not that the coaches need to teach better. Add it all up, and I see a coach who tries to hold others accountable but not himself or his staff.
So when do I think Herman should be relieved of his duties as head coach? Today. I’m a proponent of making the right move as soon as you know it’s the right move. It serves no purpose to let decisions like this linger. But if not today, he needs to coach every single minute of every single day like his career depends on it. Because that sort of urgency has been dreadfully lacking from him and his team. The utter lack of urgency on Saturday was nothing short of embarrassing.
If Herman is given more time, which is likely, then either Texas fans should see a new team emerge in two weeks, or Herman just doesn’t get it. Or if he does get it, he clearly can’t convey the message to his team to elicit the type of football that Texas fans want and the athletic department pays him handsomely for.

 
I'm in complete agreement with a Bobby Burton article.

Congratulations, 2020, you win.

[satyanash 15660]

(Bobby Burton) Texas-OU Grades

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Quarterback

When Sam Ehlinger uses his feet and takes easy yardage to create better down and distance scenarios for the offense, Texas moves the chains and keeps defenses on their heels. When Ehlinger decides to merely sit in the pocket, the offense is pedestrian at best, and mediocre at worst. Ehlinger’s comeback attempt fell short in part because it shouldn’t have been a comeback in the first place. What he is doing in the fourth quarter is what needs to be done for an entire game. The team’s lack of urgency on offense, and the six three-and-outs it accumulated against possibly the worst defense in the conference, starts with the quarterback in the right frame of mind. Throwing a deep ball on third and one is an example. Throwing behind receivers on crossing routes is another. Going for broke on deep balls on first downs puts Texas behind the chains, too. Ehlinger is not a home-run QB. He’s a move-the-chains QB. He needs to get back to doing what he does best, 10 yards at a time. Six three-and-outs are inexcusable.

Grade: C-

Running back

The fumble by Keaontay Ingram clearly changed how Texas approached the run game. Ingram only had three carries the entire game. The staff did not trust him until much later in the game. With Roschon Johnson injured, Texas gave a large share of time to Bijan Robinson. At first, Robinson had real problems in pass protection. He missed a play-side blitz that caused a QB hurry. But as the game wore on, he started to get the hang of it and should be good to go the rest of the year. Ingram and Robinson did their best work in the passing game. It’s hard to fault the Texas running backs for much other than the fumble. It’s not like there were any running lanes to be had.

Grade: C-

Wide receivers

Jordan Whittington and Joshua Moore were bright spots again, especially Whittington. He is the type of player that can lead a passing attack. He is dependable, strong and sure-handed. He has moxie and speed. If there was offensive MVP from the game, it’s Whittington. However, other receivers did not step up. Brennan Eagles’ route-running continues to be hit or miss, as does his blocking. Tarik Black rounds off his routes, too, and doesn’t appear to have a feel for the passing game. Marcus Washington drooped a pass on a critical third down. Kai Money saw lots of action but his most memorable play was eliciting a pass interference call near the goal line. If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a hundred times. Texas needs less rotation and better route runners that focuses on speed. Otherwise, they are just not getting open often enough. And where is Brennan Schooler?

Grade: C

Tight ends

Smart football has been a rarity for these Longhorns this year. So I think it’s important to point out that Jared Wiley made one of the smartest plays of the game, even though it was so simple it would seem automatic to most football fans. In the fourth quarter, Wiley caught a simple option route to the right side of the field. It was a four or five yard pass and minimal gain. Wiley probably could have gotten more yardage, like seven or eight, had he turned up inside. But instead, he headed for the sideline to preserve time. He was smart. That is smart football, unlike much of what we saw on Saturday. It worked. Cade Brewer was a complete non-factor in the passing game. He’s not fast or quick enough to create separation against undersized Big 12 linebackers who are accustomed to covering much quicker players. It’s a miscalculation by the Texas staff to think otherwise. Brewer, however, is a solid blocker and has improved in that regard this season. Wiley flashed some and looks like he could be a future pro with more seasoning.

Grade: C-

Offensive line

Let me make this simple for everyone involved. Outside of the fourth quarter when OU basically stopped rushing the passer, the Texas OL was horrible. No run lanes. Two absolutely dumb penalties in critical situations. Blown assignments. The same issues of guard-center communication not fixed after multiple games. Their performance for three and a half quarters was horrible. It doesn’t help that Ehlinger didn’t run until that time to alleviate some pressure, but still this unit isn’t really a unit. They are just a collection of guys. Poor coaching. Poor understanding of personnel. Poor execution. Bad results. Without the last five minutes and first two OTs, a grade of F would have been too kind.

Grade: F

Offense

Six three-and-outs (or five and one fumble, if you prefer to categorize it that way). There’s simply no excuse for such an abysmal performance for an offense with so much experience across the board. A fourth-year QB looked absolutely aimless for much of the game. There was no running game to speak of. Listless performance for the vast majority of the game and they petered out in the last two overtimes once OU made adjustments to spying Ehlinger. The Horns only scored 10 points off of the three turnovers the defense generated, including two that were deep in OU territory. That means there was only one decent drive by Texas for an entire 55 minutes of football. That’s bad football. In a game that is supposed to be your rival. Excuses are useless.

Grade: F

Defensive line

The Texas defensive front held their own against OU’s O-line, which is vastly different than what it has been the past couple of years. Still, the Horns allowed long runs and didn’t get enough pressure on the quarterback. Don’t get me wrong. This group played reasonably well. They just weren’t overwhelming. T'Vondre Sweat really flashed a couple of times. Joseph Ossai is playing hard and caused a fumble with sheer determination and effort on a downfield run. Keondre Coburn played well, too. Alfred Collins picked up a sack. Jett Bush made a big tackle for loss on a reverse to help put OU behind the chains in the fourth quarter.

Grade: B-

Linebackers

DeMarvion Overshown stepped in front of a Spencer Rattler pass for one of the big plays early in the contest. But Overshown had issues in the run game against the hulking OU OL, often getting lost and washed out of the play. Juwan Mitchell was his usual self. He made a couple of outstanding athletic plays and clearly played through injury, but also got lost somewhat in pass coverage. Yet the LB corps wasn’t a clear problem like it was against TCU.

Grade: C+

Secondary

Other than a first quarter TD pass to a wide open receiver, the Horns’ secondary played well. Nearly every catch was contested or a receiver was limited in yards after the catch. B.J. Foster made a key stop on a bubble pass on the goal line to hold the Sooners to a field goal early. D'Shawn Jamison, Josh Thompson and Jalen Green all played well, even if they lost a couple of contested one-on-one battles. Chris Brown continues to play hard and give his body completely to the game but also seems to be a step shy from being quick enough to play at an elite level.

Grade: B

Defense

The Sooners scored 31 points in regulation. Seven of those points came after a blocked punt. If I would have told any fan that figure prior to the game, many would think they’d be celebrating a two touchdown victory in the Cotton Bowl. Alas, it didn’t happen. Even though Texas created three turnovers in the first half. Even though they forced Lincoln Riley to go to his back up QB. Even though they held OU scoreless in the entire fourth quarter. Even though they were flagged just once all game (for an offsides). The Texas D didn’t do enough to win the game, but there’s no way I’m pinning this loss on them.

Grade: B

Special teams

Ryan Bujcevski’s delayed punt cost Texas seven points. His poor punt and punt coverage cost Texas field position earlier in the game. So did his personal foul penalty. Cameron Dicker’s blocked field goal attempt was hit a little low and Junior Angilau allowed just enough penetration from the OU defensive front for it to be blocked. Dicker’s onside kick was terrific but just off the fingertips of Malcolm Epps. Jamison’s only decent punt return was brought back by a hold. Special teams was poor overall and cost Texas points.

Grade: D

 

[satyanash 15660]

(Chris Hummer) At least we had corn dogs: A Red River weekend unlike any other

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DALLAS – With the Cotton Bowl looming in the background, hundreds of burnt orange- and crimson-clad fans mingled. They waited for the thing that can bring even the most heated of rivals together: A deep-fried, Fletcher’s Original Corny Dog.

A harmonious mix of beef and pork, battered and fried to crispy perfection, Fletcher’s made its debut at the 1942 State Fair of Texas. Since then, those corny dogs have been as synonymous with the Red River Rivalry as Bevo or the Sooner Schooner. Last year, Fletcher’s sold 80,000 the day Oklahoma and Texas clashed. “There’s nothing like these,” said Texas fan Tom Mays, attending his 40th straight Red River Shootout. “It’s tradition.” Corn dogs, at least, felt normal.

Texas and Oklahoma have met annually at the Texas State Fair since 1932. Longhorn fans sit in the north end of the stadium. Sooner fans sit in the south. At the 50-yard-line, a handful of the 92,100 fans in attendance intermingle at a line of demarcation. Not in 2020. College football marched on this season, but the pageantry that surrounds the sport – and its premier neutral site rivalry – often felt like a shell of itself due to COVID-19 precautions. That is until the finish.

When Texas scaled a 14-point deficit with fewer than five minutes remaining, 24,000 fans socially distanced throughout the Cotton Bowl did a decent impression of a stadium packed to capacity. By the time Oklahoma emerged a 53-45 victor in the fourth overtime, the cries of “Boomer! Sooner!” rang throughout the fairgrounds no matter where one stood.

“It was very strange,” Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley said following his sixth Red River Rivalry game. “Everything was just so different. But at the end, it felt like there were 90,000 people in there. It really did."

***

Every Red River Rivalry game starts on I-35. A hell spawn of a highway that brings together Longhorn and Sooner fans in shared traffic-jam agony, that freeway is the start of every journey to Dallas from Austin or Norman. Usually a three-hour ride or so, Texas/OU weekend will often stretch that trip to a five or six-hour affair.

Well, 2020 has a few blessings. I made the drive from Austin in a comparatively easy three-and-a-half hours – Waco construction cost me 30 minutes – and arrived at Fair Park without sitting bumper-to-bumper with anyone. Parking, too, came easy. Home owners usually line the road into Fair Park and shout at cars driving by, offering their driveways and yards as parking lots for reasonable sums anywhere from $20 or $80. No receipts. Only one or two self-made parking attendants pitched me during my 8:30 a.m. drive down Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

My arrival at the stadium coincided with the Longhorns. Nine buses pulled up in front of the Cotton Bowl with a police escort, a multi-motorcycle spectacle worthy of a president’s arrival. Usually, Texas fans pack six to eight rows deep to greet their team. This time fans easily socially distanced at the barrier. As Riley would later say of OU’s bus ride in: “It was eerie, a ghost town.”

Pull the lens away from the sweeping lines at Fletcher’s, and the space in front of the Cotton Bowl did have a haunted feel. Usually, the Red River Showdown brings 200,000 people to the fairgrounds on game day. There are booths serving every fried food imaginable – and fried beer, for those thirsty types – and carnival games aplenty, stretching a quarter-mile deep. Only a smattering of booths were open Saturday and the historic coupons that usually serve as currency were grounded in favor of cash.

One Texas fan entered the gates at 10 a.m. and exclaimed: “It feels like we’re here 12 hours early, but we’re not.” She’d just walked past Texas State Fair icon Big Tex, decked out in Dickies jeans (size 434 x 240) and cowboy shirt (size 200 x 3225) This year, he had added something to his traditional western fashion: A face mask.

***

Some 15 minutes before kickoff, the PA announcer boomed over the loudspeaker: “Welcome to the Showband of the Southwest.” Yet there were no trumpets, tubas or … people in sight. The field remained empty as Texas’ show took place on the big screen, a recorded copy of the band’s 2019 pregame march.

The Longhorns took the field shortly after. Usually that run is met by a wave of insults and vitriol, Sooner fans looming over the tunnel entrance and showering Longhorn players with boos and several other more colorful greetings. Not this year. There were boos, yes. But they hardly registered in the press box. Texas’ usually long passage to the safety of the 50-yard-line went smoothly.

A year after a referee called an unsportsmanlike penalty on the entirety of the Sooner and Longhorn rosters pregame, pregame scuffles were largely avoided. Eventually, though, the usual Red River madness ensued.

Far too much occurred in a four-hour plus affair to easily summarize, but let’s attempt a quick rundown: Four overtimes, six total turnovers, 21 total penalties, a star quarterback benching (Spencer Rattler), a 14-point Texas comeback in the final five minutes of regulation, a blocked Texas field goal in overtime, a missed OU game-winning field goal attempt, a star quarterback throwing the game-winning touchdown (also Rattler), a star quarterback throwing the game-sealing interception (Sam Ehlinger to Tre Brown), jubilation and heartbreak at the end of a game that seemed like it may never end.

“It was the craziest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” Brown said. One-hundred-and-fifteen games into the Red River Rivalry, none before had ever seen close to 98 points scored. Afterward, Sooner players sprinted on the field in a mass of celebratory glee. Exhaustion may have beset Oklahoma in the final hour of a marathon, but the players partied on the field in the way only a Red River champion can: Wearing the famed Golden Hat. Flashing ‘Horns Down,’ of course.

On the other end of the heartbreak sat Ehlinger, an Austin native and lifelong Longhorn fan who lost his final matchup with Oklahoma despite a six-touchdown effort. He stood like a statue on the 28-yard-line after his arm seemed to give out to exhaustion on the final possession. Afterward, he made the long walk across the field for ‘The Eyes of Texas.’ He was the only Longhorn who remained on the field to sing the school’s famed fight song.

“Crushed,” Texas head coach Tom Herman said postgame when asked about his quarterback. “Absolutely crushed that we as a family didn’t do enough collectively for him to finish his career against these guys the way that he deserved to. I feel like we all let him down.” Elation and loss, the dueling dichotomy of the Red River Rivalry. Full capacity or not.

***

By 5 p.m., the Texas State Fair grounds are usually abuzz with postgame gloating. Texas and Sooner fans mingle, one side happier than you can imagine, the other drowning their sorrow in $7 beers and gluttonous fried food. But again, 2020. I raced over to Fletcher’s when I departed the stadium. The line had shrunk to a puddle. Only a handful of fans mingled in the shadow of the Cotton Bowl an hour after the game’s final dramatic moments.

But upon arrival, I received crushing news: “We’re done for the day.” The stand sold 8,000 corn dogs, according to a member of the Fletcher family. This is despite having just three stands, including its first ever in the stadium, and employing just 30 of its usual 200-member workforce. Most of their supplies were gone and the fans had generally departed. As an employee told me as I walked away empty-handed: “It was a good day.”

Despite my hunger exiting the fairgrounds, it was hard to argue with that thought. It was strange. It was different. But Texas and Oklahoma, as it tends to, turned into a classic. “The game,” Riley said. “Found a way to be pretty special.”

 

[satyanash 15660]

5 hours ago, Bevo VIII said:

@satyanash

You got this one? https://texas.forums.rivals.com/threads/the-sunday-pulpit-via-loewy-law-firm-chris-del-conte-must-fix-the-chaos-he-created.493423/

Don't have an OB sub, sorry.

[BurntOrange&White 42020]

Just now, satyanash said:

Don't have an OB sub, sorry.

Damn. Heard it’s a really good post/article. Someone on Twitter retweeted and said “must read”

[Burt Macklin 19230]

8 hours ago, satyanash said:

(Scipio Tex) 2020 Oklahoma Postmortem: Offense

(Scipio Tex) 2020 Oklahoma Postmortem: Defense/Special Teams

 

Really good write ups by Scipio as usual. He accurately conveys the rage I felt watching that game. We could be 4-0 right now, and I still wouldn’t have enjoyed watching basically any part of the last 3 games. Terrible coaching, terrible play calling, terrible pre-snap alignments, making the same mistakes over and over, awful fundamentals, more mental mistakes than an aggy trying to build a stadium, lack of awareness of personnel and how to use them, god awful tackling, god awful effort, celebrating after shitty plays. It’s all been horrible. This team is better than some of the teams we’ve had the last decade, but it’s probably the furthest from its ceiling of all the teams in the last ten years. We are underachieving worse than any season I can remember. 
 

I was pretty much out on this team since the Tech game. We showed so many fundamental failures that game I knew there was no way we could come close to correcting enough of them to become even a decent team, but I still couldn’t have predicted we’d look this bad the last two weeks. I didn’t think Herman could actually do this bad as a coach. He should’ve been fired last November. Now we just have to wait to see how long it takes our AD to act. Hopefully the rumors of CDC moving quickly are true. 

[TwiceHorn 32117]

One thing that we seem to have learned with some certainty:  you can't fix bad initial staff hires three years in.  That's a fatal mistake.

It might have been slightly more interesting if they'd had a regular off-season to banish demons.

[dcar00 15005]

16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

One thing that we seem to have learned with some certainty:  you can't fix bad initial staff hires three years in.  That's a fatal mistake.

It might have been slightly more interesting if they'd had a regular off-season to banish demons.

this is the thing I keep saying about Mack.  he had a plan and list of people he wanted if he ever got the big gig.  he brought only Davis and Madden from UNC if I recall.  neither Charlie nor Herman had the plan nor the connections to get the best(or at least top guys) and Herman's plan specifically was bringing his G5 staff with him.  WTF?

And Mack had the experience level at head coach that he could probably band aid areas that became leaky.  Charlie and Tom had no such experience, especially if it wasn't their side of the ball.

TLDR: G5 coaches with 4 years or less of HC experience is a bad fucking idea.

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

9 hours ago, Bevo VIII said:

@satyanash

 

You got this one? https://texas.forums.rivals.com/threads/the-sunday-pulpit-via-loewy-law-firm-chris-del-conte-must-fix-the-chaos-he-created.493423/

Spoiler

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte is failing at his job. There is no other way to put it. It is hard to sugarcoat. Impossible to ignore.

Oh, Del Conte is good at telling jokes at fundraisers. He has a great sense of humor. If you want to drink and hear a guy tell jokes, Del Conte can provide entertainment that rivals any comedian on open mic night. Heck, Del Conte’s biggest achievement was creating Bevo Blvd., a lively street with food trucks, music and alcohol. Del Conte was responsible for creating concerts after Longhorn home games, prior to the pandemic, of course. Del Conte definitely knows how throw a damn good party.

When it comes to making hard decisions about his coaching staff (dating back to TCU), leading an athletic department, or preventing The Eyes of Texas tradition from becoming arguably the most divisive issue between fans and players in school history, Del Conte is doing nothing to justify earning $2.5 million annually until 2027.

Del Conte has created this chaos.

He has to do a better job of finding solutions.

Texas was defeated by Oklahoma, 53-45 (four overtimes), on Saturday. Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley currently has a 4-1 record against Texas’ Tom Herman. Texas could not defeat one of the worst Oklahoma programs in recent memory. We saw Riley bench his starting quarterback, the ultimate surrender decision, and the same guy was reinserted after halftime and led his team to victory.

The Longhorns are 2-2, but it took a miracle comeback against Texas Tech to prevent a 1-3 start. Texas recovered the onside kick and pulled off a victory when it had less than a one-percent chance of winning with around three minutes remaining. Nobody can take the win off Texas’ record. However, it helps to remember how fortunate this team is not to be 0-3 in the Big 12 right now.

After the game, Herman looked defeated. He reminded me of the President who aged dramatically after four years in office. Herman did not have any answers. He talked about how great practice was last Sunday in an effort to show how close his program is to winning football games like this. The coach did not understand his fan base is more concerned about the product they are witnessing each Saturday.

This is the moment when you save a fighter from himself. Herman is not winning the way he or the fan base desires. Recruiting is not going well. Literally, a player quit during the middle of a game this season. Longhorn fans are pissed about his team’s lack of participation in The Eyes of Texas. Herman will not throw in the towel, but I sensed if Del Conte tapped him on the shoulder after Saturday’s game and said they should discuss an exit plan, deep down, Herman might be relieved to get out of this situation. That is just my opinion and nothing I heard from my sources.

Herman was originally under contract until 2021, which meant both sides could have happily parted ways after this season.

Instead, Del Conte gave Herman a two-year extension in 2019, months after the Sugar Bowl victory. Herman is still slated to make $6.25 million in 2021, and Del Conte added $6.5 million in 2022 and $6.75 million in 2023. This is the equivalent of staying married until the children graduate from high school.

By the way, Del Conte also gave running backs coach Stan Drayton and offensive lineman coach Herb Hand raises back in May. Drayton was bumped up from $640,000 to $700,000. Hand’s salary increased from $515,000 to $650,000.

Only $19.5 million for Herman’s contract, plus add in a little extra for his assistants?

Just ask those big money donors to cut a check, right?

You mean the same people who are ticked off about players not participating in The Eyes of Texas?

 

Photo via HookEm.com

I received multiple messages from sources this weekend saying the athletic department has lost at least $25 million in pledges in the past two weeks. That number may not be 100 percent accurate, but longtime fans are withholding their financial support.

By the way, Del Conte expected several donors to cut checks for the south endzone project in December. The completion of that project is in trouble at this rate.

Del Conte should have resolved this issue before the season.

In July, Texas President Jay Hartzell rolled out a comprehensive set of proposals to create a more diverse and welcoming campus, including plans to allocate Athletics’ revenue to recruit and support Black students, rename the Robert L. Moore Building, and honor Black trailblazers at UT through new campus symbols. Hartzell said the university would keep “The Eyes of Texas” as the university’s song but would work to own the history of the song while reclaiming and redefining what the song stands for.

“The Eyes of Texas, in its current form, will continue to be our alma mater. Aspects of its origin, whether previously widely known or unknown, have created a rift in how the song is understood and celebrated, and that must be fixed,” Hartzell said in a press release. “It is my belief that we can effectively reclaim and redefine what this song stands for by first owning and acknowledging its history in a way that is open and transparent.

“Together, we have the power to define what the Eyes of Texas expect of us, what they demand of us, and what standard they hold us to now. The Eyes of Texas should not only unite us, but hold all of us accountable to our institution’s core values. But we first must own the history. Only then can we reimagine its future, and I look forward to partnering with our campus community to do just that.”

At that point, the controversy should have been over.

The President did his part. Dr. Leonard Moore successfully talked players out of boycotting the season and was no longer involved in any athletic discussions. Longhorn players openly applauded the initiatives. I thought it was a very fair compromise for everyone involved.

Del Conte’s task was simple.

Inform the players they need to resume participating in the tradition. They did not have to sing the song, but he expected them to stay after games.

Simple.

Instead, Del Conte never expressed his expectations with student-athletes, which is why there has been chaos. Many cheerleaders did not participate in The Eyes during Texas’ recent home game against TCU. Several band members have said they will not play the song. The football team – black and white players – have skipped the tradition this season. The volleyball team recently stayed on the court but did not acknowledge the song.


That administrative failure is on Del Conte.

I know some fans are blaming the “woke” generation or “social justice warriors” for what is occurring right now. I get that frustration. Nobody wants to be labeled a racist when those sentiments are not in their heart. Fans view this song as a tradition. They played the song at weddings, parties, and it was a source of school pride. I understand the anger.

Yet, I look at how other athletic departments across the country handled the current climate better than Del Conte.

Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard threatened to boycott all team activities after a tweet surfaced of coach Mike Gundy wearing a One America News Network T-shirt. I was not convinced Gundy could prevent a player revolt.

Yet, they put those issues aside and unified.

Oklahoma football players decided not to practice and marched for social and racial justice. That could have ripped apart the team. Instead, there were several productive conversations between players, administrators and coaches.

In addition, the athletic department decided to place a “Black Lives Matter” and “Sooners for Humanity” patch on team jerseys this season.

Texas?

Del Conte told the football staff this week they had to participate in the tradition after games to show respect to their fans. Unfortunately, Del Conte did not have a conversation with players and express his expectations. He definitely has done nothing to publicly express any solutions to the fan base.

As a result, Sam Ehlinger and Cameron Dicker were the only players I saw participating in The Eyes after the Oklahoma loss, while everyone else was in the locker room.

That was unacceptable.

If Del Conte can receive credit for creating a carnival atmosphere, he has to be accountable for this circus.

Del Conte should tap Herman on the shoulder this week and express the importance of finishing this season 8-2, or at least 7-3, because Longhorn fans are tired of losing.

In addition, Del Conte should sit down with players in every sport and express his expectations. I am not saying Del Conte needs to bang the table in anger. Instead, he has to be the leader Texas needs at this moment.

Del Conte has created this chaos.

He has to do a better job of finding solutions.

 

 

Photo via AP

Pretty good read. Depressing but good (if it's accurate). OB/Ketch have also been saying CDC pissed off a bunch of Houston BMDs at an event over the summer by trying to bullshit/politic his way out of the eyes issues and not having answers for them

Edited October 12, 2020 by Bodacious Bevo

[jinx 2636]

I'm not going to debate the EOT issue, but there is no doubt that having Sam out there singing it by himself is emblematic of our program right now.

Not a good look regardless of the origin, and definitely something that CDC has failed on.

[satyanash 15660]

Ian Boyd: Who won Week 5 in the Big 12?

Quote

What a terrible week for Texas-based Big 12 teams in the Big 12, huh?

The Baylor Bears spent the week in quarantine after a significant chunk of their team tested positive after the road trip to West Virginia. Interestingly enough, their next game with Oklahoma State has now been delayed until the Big 12 Championship with timing of the reschedule depending on it's importance to the standings. Once the Bears are through this they should be in good shape for the rest of the season, the timing of the outbreak and how it occurred is interesting and will likely get more attention in the coming weeks.

The other Texas teams (in the Big 12) all took horrible losses that cemented their seasons as being effectively ruined. Texas Tech is now 0-3 in conference play, TCU is 1-2, and Texas is 1-2. We're also a miraculous Sam Ehlinger fourth quarter and fantastic onside kick by Texas away from the Longhorns being 0-3 and Texas Tech 1-2, for whatever it's worth. I'd evaluate the value at about $20 million.

The Midwest teams that aren't Kansas continue to roll though and their old Big 8 compadre Oklahoma may have just turned their season around with the hard-fought Red River Shootout win over Sam Ehlinger.

Mea culpa

There's a few areas where I've misfired in the last few years that I'll acknowledge here. Let's start with the preseason space force rankings. I knew two things when I made those, first that I was absolutely detailing a crucial element which would dictate big game matchups this season. Secondly, my prognostications on which space force units would be strongest would unquestionably be wrong to some degree.

I'd say my biggest miss was the wide receiver rankings. In review, my order is unlikely to prove particularly good for many of the 10 teams. The most important miss was Texas, who has been absolutely dreadful at wide receiver this season. Brennan Eagles seems to have regressed, if anything, or at the very least he has not grown beyond what he was in 2019 which is a big, fast, strong receiver that looks like Hercules until someone gets up on him and tries to throw off his route. At that point his physical gifts tend to disappear. None of the other Texas wideouts are much better on the outside, they have a number of guys with legitimate athleticism and speed who are dangerous in the slot and when schemed open but not against a good athlete outside 1-on-1.

The outside is the quintessential space force battle. The ultimate mano a mano out in space. Texas is truly terrible there. Naturally their offensive gameplan against the Oklahoma Sooners in the biggest game of the season was to make the game come down to the play of their outside receivers on play-action against tight man coverage from the grabby OU secondary. Of course it went terribly for Texas. We'll talk more on it in a moment.

Let's talk about one other thing, the "Raid bros vs Bash bros" column. The conceit of the column was the Big 12 was seeing increasing numbers of teams embrace strategies that could turn the league away from it's wild, wild west shootout nature and bring some law and order. This would happen via teams utilizing situational run game success, physical cultures, and an emphasis on defense against Air Raid teams were vulnerable to losing situational football moments where physicality and precision is king.

The following offseason after writing that column I did the better part of my work writing "Flyover Football." Over the course of studying and thinking through the league's history with offenses it became clear to me that the Raid bro vs Bash bro conceptualization was wrong. Physicality and defense wouldn't bring order to the west, only shootouts by teams with even bigger guns.

Most all of the "bash bro" teams have already worked this out for themselves, Texas is really the sole exception. In the postgame press conference, Tom Herman uttered the following line: “Maybe we turn into one of those teams that tries to win games 65-55,” Herman said. “That’s not what I envision, and I don’t think that’s what anybody envisions around here. We’ve got to find a way to be able to at a normal tempo sustain drives and stay ahead of the chains. We haven’t done that here in the last couple of weeks.”

Yikes. Go read some real history, Herman. The Texas Rangers didn't conquer the state and beat the bow and arrow and horse with well formed infantry, but by also saddling up and arming themselves with the colt revolver. This league won't play by your rules, you bought into a myth about your own rise.

 

 

[satyanash 15660]

(Chip Brown) Morning Brew: Texas' list of things to clean up is growing

Quote

Good Morning Horns247!!

— The list of things for Texas to clean up is growing.

Texas is giving up 36.2 points per game, which is on pace to be the most points given up in a single season in school history. That distinction right now belongs to the 1997 Longhorns, who gave up 33.3 points per game. Following that season, John Mackovic was fired after six up-and-down years. The Longhorns are next to last in the Big 12 in sacks with four (just ahead of Kansas' three), and two of UT's four sacks came in garbage time of a 59-3 blowout of UTEP by linebacker Marcus Tillman Jr. and freshman Alfred Collins. On offense, Texas is No. 2 nationally in scoring (49.5 points per game), but can't seem to sustain drives without using tempo.

The Longhorns also only seem to run the ball effectively when Sam Ehlinger is a huge part of the running game. Through three quarters against Oklahoma, Texas had 17 carries for 29 yards. Then, Ehlinger exploded for eight carries for 90 yards on UT's final two scoring drives and in overtime. Ehlinger finished the game with 23 carries for 112 yards (4.9 yards per carry) and four touchdowns on the ground. His late heroics gave Texas 141 yards on 34 carries (4.1 ypc) and the appearance of having a decent day on the ground. But again, through three quarters when Texas was trailing 31-17, the Horns had 17 carries for 29 yards (1.7 ypc).

Keaontay Ingram was the team's most productive running back coming into the Oklahoma game, averaging 5.4 yards per carry (32 carries for 173 yards), just ahead of Roschon Johnson's 5.0 yards per carry (29 for 145 and two TDs). But after Ingram fumbled on UT's second offensive play against OU, giving him back-to-back fumbles on his last two carries, dating back to UT's loss to TCU, Ingram spent much of the next three quarters on the sideline and finished with just three carries for 15 yards (5.0 ypc) while catching four passes for 21 yards, including a 2-yard touchdown reception with 14 seconds left in the game.

Johnson left the OU game with three carries for minus-3 yards after aggravating an AC joint sprain in his shoulder while also having a rib injury suffered against Texas Tech. When Texas turned to freshman running back Bijan Robinson against Oklahoma, like a lot of young backs, Robinson tended to bounce runs outside instead of getting north and south between the tackles. Robinson finished with five carries for 17 yards (3.4 ypc) while catching two passes for 39 yards, including a 26-yard, catch-and-run.

So does Texas need Ehlinger to go back to being Tim Tebow as a ground gainer if the Longhorns want to run the ball consistently? Under new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, the hope was probably to cut back on some of Ehlinger's rushing attempts considering Ehlinger carried it 164 (2018) and 163 (2019) times each of the past two seasons. Through four games, Ehlinger leads the team in carries with 50 for 242 yards (4.8 ypc) and five touchdowns. Like most of 2020, including a 2-2 start to the season, that's probably not what Texas was expecting.

 

[CurlyDumps 4665]

 

11 hours ago, Burt Macklin said:

Really good write ups by Scipio as usual. He accurately conveys the rage I felt watching that game.

I now understand more than ever why watching this team is such a joyless, miserable experience.

The last straw I clung to was that the mass coaching turnover suggested our dipshit coach had some sort of wake up call. But no, i guess the directive from this clueless buffoon was, “same but better.”

Edited October 12, 2020 by CurlyDumps

[Burt Macklin 19230]

1 hour ago, CurlyDumps said:

 

I now understand more than ever why watching this team is such a joyless, miserable experience.

The last straw I clung to was that the mass coaching turnover suggested our dipshit coach had some sort of wake up call. But no, i guess the directive from this clueless buffoon was, “same but better.”

I don’t think a coach who fires 70% of his staff in year 3 can ever be slavagebale, but it’s definitely clear now the firings were a way to save his own ass rather than any type of self-reflection or analysis of why things failed to that point. Herman’s most defining game characteristic seems to be stubbornness/a refusal to learn or change. 

[Mdhorn 6166]

https://texas.rivals.com/news/the-sunday-pulpit-chris-del-conte-must-fix-the-chaos-he-created-1

a few excerpts...

This is the moment when you save a fighter from himself. Herman is not winning the way he or the fan base desires. Recruiting is not going well. Literally, a player quit during the middle of a game this season. Longhorn fans are pissed about his team’s lack of participation in The Eyes of Texas. Herman will not throw in the towel, but I sensed if Del Conte tapped him on the shoulder after Saturday’s game and said they should discuss an exit plan, deep down, Herman might be relieved to get out of this situation. That is just my opinion and nothing I heard from my sources.

Herman was originally under contract until 2021, which meant both sides could have happily parted ways after this season.

Instead, Del Conte gave Herman a two-year extension in 2019, months after the Sugar Bowl victory. Herman is still slated to make $6.25 million in 2021, and Del Conte added $6.5 million in 2022 and $6.75 million in 2023. This is the equivalent of staying married until the children graduate from high school.

By the way, Del Conte also gave running backs coach Stan Drayton and offensive lineman coach Herb Hand raises back in May. Drayton was bumped up from $640,000 to $700,000. Hand’s salary increased from $515,000 to $650,000.

.....

I received multiple messages from sources this weekend saying the athletic department has lost at least $25 million in pledges in the past two weeks. That number may not be 100 percent accurate, but longtime fans are withholding their financial support.

By the way, Del Conte expected several donors to cut checks for the south endzone project in December. The completion of that project is in trouble at this rate.

 

[satyanash 15660]

Geoff Ketchum: Ketch's 10 Thoughts From The Weekend (On The Eyes of Texas)

Quote

Somehow Sean Adams and I ended up inside the seating area of the Texas band. Honestly, I can't even remember how it happened, other than we had seats separated from each other and as the second half of the national championship game between Texas and USC was set to begin, we both decided that it didn't matter where we sat, as long as we watched the game together.

Part of me wants to say that a member of the band was a member of Orangebloods and welcomed us into some open seats, but that might be making things up 14-plus years after the fact. What matters is that on the most important night in the modern era of the Texas football program, we had a chance to watch the second half together within a section of current (at the time) university students.

Outside of standing on the sideline, it felt like the closest thing to being involved in the game as one could feel. On a night when there were so many ebbs and flows within the game, being inside the band meant that you were inside the pulse of an entire fan base every time one of the ebbs and flows went a certain kind of way. When it was over ... after the defense makes the stop ... after VY scores on 4th and 5 ... after the clock finally expired ... I witnessed something even more impactful than any play that occurred.

As the players walked over to the band and the school song started to play in their direction, emotion took control of the moment. I turned around to Sean to say something to him and I noticed that tears were in his eyes. Oh, he was smiling like his life depended on it, but something about the moment flat out got him.

At that exact moment, someone in the band (who wasn't playing their instrument) jumped into the arms of a friend and they screamed at each other in a way that suggested that they should have been sitting together for the duration of the second half like Sean and I had decided to do. Everywhere I turned was beautiful raw emotion. Some tears. Lots of smiles. Plenty of screams. Everyone united in one of the greatest moments of everyone's lives through the playing of one song.

The Eyes of Texas.

Black, white, brown, pink, green, male, female, gay, straight, religious, atheist ... together. The rest of the world didn't exist, except for all of the people back home that you wondered about, wishing they could share this moment. Honest to God, if we take away the moments in my life involving my wife and kids, it probably ranks as a top-five all-time life moment.

This boy from Waco, who grew up rooting against Texas as a Baylor fan until fate stepped in and switched his future, looked directly into the eyes of a former kid from Oakland, who had adopted The University of Texas as the home school he always wanted and never knew existed until he arrived in Austin to work as a grown-up in the real world. Both of us were bastard burnt orange children to some degree and yet the reality of neither of us having a degree from the school simply didn't matter in the moment.

It was just beautiful and I might live another 200 years and will never live it again, partly because Sean isn't with us anymore, which means I won't ever have that moment with HIM because it's an impossibility (I hated typing that sentence).

What it means is that when I think of Sean, I always think about this moment. When I think about the moment, I think of Sean. The thing that tied it all together was The Eyes of Texas. The song is the ultimate connector to literally millions of people and it's the following truth that makes what's happening with the song a mixture of anger, depression, dismay ... did I mention anger?

For countless Longhorns, you simply cannot tell the story of their lives without including moments where the song was at the forefront of them, whether we're talking about a wedding reception or graduation or a trip to an out of town piano bar or to a funeral.

Full confession - I've been to multiple funerals where "The Eyes of Texas" is the final sound before a person says goodbye to his or her loved ones forever in the physical form. When you think it about it for a while, the weight of its importance is incredibly heavy. All of this brings us to this moment in time when the song seems to hang in peril with the realization that its origins are less than ideal to say the least.

Now, before I go any further, let's acknowledge an elephant in the room, which is that I'm pretty much viewed as the resident snowflake liberal trouble-maker on the board. I've taken time to try and explain the player's feelings, in part because I acknowledge that I'm in no way, shape or fashion in a place where I can tell a Black person how insulted they should feel about something born in a minstrel show. I've acknowledged the complexity of the issue countless times.

However, in acknowledging its complexity, I'm going to require everyone to use their brains a little and acknowledge the following ...

a. Meredes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen (Hitler's dream car) all have ties to Nazi Germany.

b. Hugo Boss literally designed shirts for the Nazis because he was an actual Nazi.

c. Old Disney movies are historically filled with racist imagery and stereotypes.

d. U.S.A. Today's parent company (E.W. Scripps and Gannett) was linked to the slave trade.

e. Aetna and New York Life Insurance insured the lives of slaves and reimbursed slave owners when their slaves died.

f. Henry Ford was a leading anti-Semite. Same with Coco Chanel.

g. Adidas, Nike, Gap, Urban Outfitters and Victoria's Secret all still use products made in sweatshops and with child labor.

I could go on and on and on and on and on, but if you need more examples, let google be your friend. The list of companies and institutions with non-ideal backgrounds is longer than America's history itself. Yet, Mercedes found a way to get over its Nazi ties. Disney is still Disney. Nike literally outfits the Texas football program. As American people, we universally forgive in the name of the Ford Expedition that I personally drive or the movie that I play on the Disney Channel for my kids or the newspaper that I buy when I'm in an airport (but only when I'm in an airport).

Every single one of us, including the young men and women that attend The University of Texas, make little concessions all the time when it comes to our moral compasses and when/where we decide to use them.

For some reason, this has become a line in the sand moment, but I have to ask why? If I can acknowledge the existence of the song's beginnings and the wretched visual that is generated when it's discussed, then why can't they acknowledge the millions of people that have turned the song into something much more significant than a joke aimed at a school president? Doesn't that history matter, too?

I'm all for these kids fighting the good fights ... all of them. I just don't view this situation as fighting the good fight as much as it’s applying misplaced pressure for sport. I don't believe these kids have been swayed by their college professors. Hell no, I give them way more credit than that. They haven't been hypnotized. Instead, these are frustrated young men and women that want to fight back ... against anything they can get their hands on. The Eyes has been sucked into the fray, perhaps even deservedly so.

Let's be clear - the history deserves to be discussed. Yet, there's a difference between having a discussion and trying to render something so personal to so many as completely useless moving forward. There are people rolling over in their graves right now and not all of them were racist. Hell, there are people headed to their graves that are rolling over in them before they are even in them.

The students at The University of Texas, not just the football players, need to ask themselves a question of importance. Is the mostly obscure history of the song more important than all of the good that the song has lived inside of over the last 100 years? Does a little bit of hate outweigh a hell of a lot of love? Are millions of past and future memories rendered completely moot because of one?

At the end of the day, if this is something a student can't get behind, why are they at The University of Texas? Just go. You can't go inside any of the historic buildings without some sort of racist stink on them, so why give them the decency of acknowledgement when you won't do it for something others are begging you with their heart and souls to give the same consideration?

Understand, I don't want any of these kids to leave, but I don't want them to be unhappy, either. However, I also don't want to tell others that their own happiness is being cancelled out by young people that haven't lived long enough to know how precious the memories associated with this thing with an unfortunate origin truly are. If love, acceptance and equality are the end goal, then it's time to get together and find a better answer because what's currently happening isn't it.

 

[satyanash 15660]

Pat Forde: Losing Magnifies All Problems for Texas

Quote

A freak show of a Red River Showdown(31) provided a panoply of entertainment elements: comedy, drama, tension, athletic excellence, dysfunction, joy and sadness. The sadness came last: a photo went viral of Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger (32) standing by his lonesome, just a few staffers in the frame, Hook ‘em Horns raised, while the band played the school’s alma mater, “The Eyes of Texas.”

A struggling Texas team losing the annual rivalry game to a struggling Oklahoma (33) team didn’t hit home as hard as the picture did. In times past, Texas players stood 100 strong for the playing of the song after every game, win or lose. But that tradition has come under fire for the song’s racist origins—both as a modification of a pet phrase of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, and as an element of student minstrel shows at Texas.

In June, Texas athletes asked that “The Eyes of Texas” no longer be played at athletic events—one of many requested changes, some of which were adopted. The school decided that it would still play the song, but launched an effort to fully vet its origins and provide that information publicly. Athletes were given latitude as to whether they wanted to participate in the postgame tradition, and many have chosen not to. Almost none of them did Saturday in Dallas, other than the team’s star quarterback.

The “Eyes of Texas” situation has reportedly inflamed a number of the school’s boosters and fans, who have voiced displeasure to athletic director Chris Del Conte (34) about the players’ response. Others have voiced support for the players who do not feel comfortable being party to the playing of the song.

In the middle of this delicate situation sits embattled coach Tom Herman (35). At his Monday press conference, Herman read a statement on the team’s response to the controversy. It said in part: "I've encouraged our staff and team to join me in participating after games, if they are comfortable doing that. I do believe it's important that we acknowledge and thank our fans after a hard-fought game. Sam Ehlinger and some of our team did join me in standing with the fans who had cheered us so hard, and helped us greatly in our comeback against Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. And I applaud them and respect that. Many of our coaches and staff also remained on the field with them to show appreciation to our great university, and our fans. And we will continue to encourage participation for all of those that are comfortable doing so. That said, some members of our program have concerns and aren't comfortable participating at this time. And I respect that as well.”

Really, there are no wrong answers here from the players—those who want to participate in the tradition have the right to do so, and those who do not shouldn't face any backlash for it. Not everyone on a team has to do the same thing, in lockstep, all the time. But the resulting visual Saturday was a picture of a team that is not united. Herman said Monday that’s an inaccurate assumption, and that the more fair picture of his team was its fourth-quarter comeback to get the game against the Sooners into overtime.

“The level of unity is phenomenal,” he said. “It's great right now. You don't see that kind of effort and tenacity and belief from an outfit that is not unified. A team that is divided, a team that's fractured, a team that has lost faith or hope, they don't play like that.” Is this still an issue if the Longhorns are 4–0 or 3–1 as opposed to 2–2 and on a two-game losing streak? Maybe it still is, but assuredly it is a much smaller issue.

When things are going wrong on the field, every ripple off the field is considered a sign of program failure. Of course, coaches bring this on themselves to a degree by touting things like “program culture” as keys to success. Thus, when teams aren’t successful, the assumption is that there must be something wrong with said culture. This is the kettle of turmoil in which Texas currently resides.

STAT OF THE WEEK

The game that started the grumbling among Longhorns fans was the upset loss to TCU on Oct. 3. But that game was a pyrrhic victory for the Horned Frogs, because it led to their customary Texas hangover (36). The good news for TCU fans is that their team has beaten Texas six of the last seven seasons. The bad news for TCU fans is that they have then turned around and lost the last five games that followed beating Texas, while failing to cover the spread the last six games that followed a victory over the Longhorns. The list:

In 2015, TCU pounded Texas 50–7, then beat Kansas State 52–45 as a 9 1/2-point favorite.

In 2016, TCU upset Texas 31–9, then lost to K-State 30–6 as a 3 1/2-point favorite.

In 2017, TCU beat Texas 24–7, then lost to Oklahoma 38–20 as a 6 1/2-point underdog.

In 2018, after losing to Texas 31–16, TCU beat Iowa State 17–14 but failed to cover the 10 1/2-point spread.

In 2019, after beating Texas 37–27, TCU lost to Oklahoma State 34–27 as a three-point underdog.

And this year, after beating Texas 33–31, TCU again lost to Kansas State—which was breaking in backup quarterback Will Howard (37) after a season-ending injury to starter Skyler Thompson—this time 21–14 as a nine-point favorite.

 

[BabaYaga 15632]

On 10/11/2020 at 9:48 PM, dcar00 said:

this is the thing I keep saying about Mack.  he had a plan and list of people he wanted if he ever got the big gig.  he brought only Davis and Madden from UNC if I recall.  neither Charlie nor Herman had the plan nor the connections to get the best(or at least top guys) and Herman's plan specifically was bringing his G5 staff with him.  WTF?

And Mack had the experience level at head coach that he could probably band aid areas that became leaky.  Charlie and Tom had no such experience, especially if it wasn't their side of the ball.

TLDR: G5 coaches with 4 years or less of HC experience is a bad fucking idea.

I still assert one of Mack's best hires was Bruce Chambers from Dallas Carter.  It was an immediate infusion of support from the state HS coaches to put rocket fuel into his already strong recruiting.  It was a strategic victory like no other

[LTtxfan 50039]

Bobby Burton...    (Horns247)

TUESDAY

Quote

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Sam Ehlinger standing alone among a smattering of coaches and support personnel while the school’s Alma Mater is played at the Cotton Bowl was the final straw.

In my correspondence with sources from within the Board of Regents all the way to megadonors who write large checks to complete capital projects currently underway, it is the appearance of sheer dysfunction and disrespect as much as it is the poor play on the field that could very well cost Tom Herman his job.

Those in power do not expect players to sing the song, or even raise the Hook’em sign to it. Perhaps teammates could link arms while it plays.

But a modicum of respect, like staying on the field after the game to respect the student body who just cheered for them, is expected. Perhaps the entire student body could link arms.

The University has not only acquiesced to several more-than-fair requests from its student-athletes, but President Jay Hartzell has gone further still by creating a larger commitment to full-hearted efforts to address social inequities that go well beyond any previous requests.

While some have erroneously tried to lay the blame at the feet of the athletic director for the football team’s lack of respect to the Alma Mater and its fans, any such idea is beyond the pale. Other sports, like volleyball, have found a way to treat the Alma Mater and the fans with respect. So this is not about the AD, it’s about the football team and the football coach who, I think, has overplayed his hand yet again.

I believe Tom Herman felt like winning would cure all ills. And he had a fourth-year starter at QB and his most talented team yet in Austin.

So he minimized the requests by his superiors to create some sort of team unity around the Alma Mater. Instead, he tried to play both sides. It’s not working out for him.

Herman has overplayed his hand so many times at Texas that it should come as no surprise to anyone. Mensa thought he had a great offensive line heading into his first year at Texas, telling boosters privately he thought the Horns could win the conference. Boy, did he misread that, going 6-6 in the regular season.

The following year, he felt the team was ready to turn the corner. But they summarily got sent back from our nation’s capital with a big fat L in a season opener he didn’t have his team prepared for.

Then there is the idea that Herman just doesn’t get it. He routinely overestimates the strengths of his own team while simultaneously underestimating those of his opponents. Well-coached teams win more close games than they lose. Well-coaches teams play with a sense of urgency all game long. Not Herman’s.

His hubris also often makes him misread key recruiting situations, like that of the Brockermeyers this campaign. The minute Herman sent James Brockermeyer home with the talk of just a walk-on offer while Iowa called him with a scholarship for he and his brother on the very same day, their recruitment took a turn from which Texas never recovered.

Coaches are well-known for their egos. Perhaps it is well deserved in some ways. After all, they are the ones making seven millions dollars a year.

But the best coaches, the championship coaches, live and operate in reality. They execute to their own strengths and dissect and attack their opponents weaknesses. They don’t actually genuflect and buy into their own BS.

Outside of the OU regular season game in 2018, can you recall Texas going after another team’s weakness with any precision?

Maybe you can, and maybe he has.

But the larger point remains valid nonetheless.

Tom Herman’s job security is tenuous at best. And it’s because of his own actions (or inaction) and shortcomings. Attempts to pass the buck won’t work, not with the Board of Regents, the UT administration, and not with the Texas fan base either.

 

[BabaYaga 15632]

1 hour ago, LTtxfan said:

Sam Ehlinger standing alone among a smattering of coaches and support personnel while the school’s Alma Mater is played at the Cotton Bowl was the final straw.

[satyanash 15660]

Joseph Cook: Herman has "so many things" to fix before Baylor, including four specific problem areas

Quote

Over the last few weeks, several aspects of Tom Herman’s Texas program have been exposed as deficient, and those deficiencies have cost the Longhorns opportunities to take winnable games in a wide-open Big 12. “Our focus, rightfully so, has to be about us,” Herman said in his press conference Monday. “We’ve got so many things that we need to clean up. So many things that without a spring practice, without a normal training camp, and trying to install new systems on both sides of the ball, we need to practice. We need to work.”

Any team playing college football in 2020 is facing the challenge of limited practice time. Herman has a point that two new installations were derailed by pandemic interruptions, but his own middling results throughout the first three years of his tenure led him to the point to where two new coordinators were necessary. Regardless of reasoning, that was the one of several issues Herman specifically identified as needing to be fixed prior to Texas’ (potential) home game versus Baylor on October 24. The others were red zone defense, rushing defense, rushing offense, and beating man coverage. “This is about us and fixing the things that are fixable that we are deficient at right now,” Herman said.

Red zone defense

Texas allowed opponents to score on 10-of-13 red zone opportunities entering the Red River Showdown in Dallas. When they got back on the bus to Austin, they did so after a defensive performance where 6-of-7 Sooner red zone opportunities ended in a score. Texas has allowed opponents to add points on 16-of-20 red zone trips. Twelve of those scores were touchdowns.

Oklahoma’s lone red zone failure came in the third overtime via a missed field goal. Up until that point, the Sooners added points to the scoreboard every time they were inside the Texas 20. In the Big 12, teams are expected to post gaudy yardage numbers considering the coaches and quarterbacks leading offenses. Holding teams to field goals can be minor victories so long as your own offense can set its own pace.

Texas allowing teams to score on 80% of red zone trips is nowhere near the bottom of this metric. That honor belongs to TCU, who has allowed points on all eight trips inside the 20 by opponents. Among Power 5 teams that have played, Texas is one of four teams who have given opposing teams 20 red zone opportunities.

Ultimately, red zone defense was the straw that broke the camel’s back versus Oklahoma. Herman acknowledged other defensive problems, but in an overtime game the ability to hold an offense in the red zone becomes paramount. Teams must only travel five yards to get to create a red zone opportunity. If red zone defense is a weak point, overtime will accentuate it.

Rushing defense

The Longhorns currently rank 36th out of 76 teams who have played a game in 2020 in rushing defense, right in the middle of the pack. Texas’ current ranking is undoubtedly boosted by its season opening performance against UTEP. The Longhorns gave up 43 yards on 33 attempts by the Miners and forced UTEP to go backward for 31 yards on 8.0 tackles for loss.

Chris Ash’s defense held two of Texas’ three Big 12 opponents under their season rushing average. Texas Tech tallied 110 yards, 31.5 yards under their current season average. TCU ran for 152 yards, almost 20 yards under their season average.

Though the numbers appear to show consistency, individual plays belie those statistics. Texas allowed a 75-yard SaRodorick Thompson touchdown run late in Lubbock, putting the Red Raiders up 56-41 with three minutes to play. If it weren’t for Sam Ehlinger’s two late touchdown passes to Joshua Moore, and a fortuitous deflection on an onside kick, Thompson’s running play would have been the backbreaker.

Texas’ attempt to win the game versus TCU was made more difficult after failing to stop Horned Frog quarterback Max Duggan on the ground. Duggan rushed 17 times for 105 yards and two scores, including the 26-yard game-winner through a porous defensive alignment with 4:01 left in the game.

Where Texas held its first two opponents under their season average, Oklahoma ran right by its typical numbers with a depleted depth chart at running back. The Sooners, led by TJ Pledger’s 131 yards and two scores on 22 attempts, found easy yardage early on the ground versus the Longhorns. OU tallied 78 yards in the first quarter on its way to a 193-yard performance in regulation, well over its season average of 144.0.

The Sooners ran 55 times for 208 yards and four of their seven touchdowns in the four-overtime affair. The UT defense limited Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler to 5.97 yards per passing attempt, well under his 10.4 ypa mark he possessed entering the Cotton Bowl. The UT defense did give up several touchdown passes, including two in overtime, but the Sooners were able to consistently finish drives in which the running game was featured at the beginning, middle, and end.

Running the football

Texas is averaging 4.78 yards per carry in Big 12 games, but in those games a Longhorn running back has eclipsed 50 yards one time. Ehlinger leads the Longhorns in rushing attempts, yards, and touchdowns through four games. He has tallied five of the Longhorns’ seven rushing touchdowns. Plenty has gone wrong with the running back room during conference play, outside of Keaontay Ingram’s 89-yard day at Texas Tech.

Ingram is struggling with ball security. His pivotal fumble versus TCU at the goal line was his final carry against the Frogs. His very next carry was on the opening drive versus OU, and he fumbled yet again. Roschon Johnson has a banged-up shoulder that has not limited his drive but has limited his effectiveness and availability. Bijan Robinson is acclimating to the college game, a process that slowed after an awkward fall versus Texas Tech.

It’s not just the players touching the ball. The offensive line isn’t performing. Herman remarked Monday that “nobody up front” played a good game against the Sooners. Texas’ best offensive moments have come as a result of Ehlinger finding open receivers. Those moments have coincided with a desperate need to come back in every Big 12 game. The amount of positive in the run game is limited, with it too focusing on Ehlinger in short yardage.

Herman said Saturday he needed to find a way to sustain drives at normal tempo, and the running game is an integral part of that strategy. It hasn’t been there consistently through the Longhorns’ first four games. “You’ve got to be able to run the football efficiently,” Herman said. “Doesn’t have to be every snap, certainly, but you’ve got to be able to run the football efficiently to win championships.”

"We’ve got to find ways to get our receivers open versus man coverage.”

For as long as Herman has been the head coach at Texas, the slot (known as H) receiver in his offense has been the most productive. Lil’Jordan Humphrey eclipsed 1000 yards at the position in 2018. Devin Duvernay did the same in 2019. Jordan Whittington, in his first extended action at receiver in a Longhorn uniform, played well at the position Saturday versus the Sooners.

Whittington caught a game-high 10 catches for 65 yards, continuing the tradition of successful Longhorn slot receivers under Herman. But Texas needs more than just production from the slot, it needs production from every receiver. Ehlinger and his predecessor Shane Buechele both said to the media in the past they consider receivers covered one-on-one to be open. It’s faith Texas has recruited wide receivers on the outside who are better than opposing corners.

That only seemed to work regularly when Texas would throw to Collin Johnson, who is now catching touchdown passes in the NFL. Texas’ leading receiver this year is Joshua Moore, who has 19 catches for 283 yards and five touchdowns. Several of his catches have been the result of using his athletic ability to leap over defenders for the football. The same goes for Brennan Eagles, second on the team in receiving yards and touchdowns.

Again, those plays often came as a result of the Texas receivers having to out-athlete the opposing defensive back on the outside. Eagles had one open breakaway thanks to a double-move, but the rest have been Texas receivers winning one-on-one matchups. They simply haven’t happened consistently enough to Herman’s liking. Whittington, Jake Smith, and even Kai Money have the luxury at H of being schemed open, or rarely facing man coverage. Moore, Eagles, Tarik Black, and Brenden Schooler are tasked with winning one-on-one.

Andre Coleman’s room is filled with highly-ranked pass catchers, but none have been able to separate and beat coverage at a high level. Its why Herman noted they needed to find ways for those players to get open. Some available methods are concepts like mesh, crossing routes, wheel routes, and switch routes. It’s likely those will be utilized to help a wide receiver room that has faced problems getting open on the outside during Herman’s entire tenure.

 

[BigHorn'13 3494]

How people continue to watch this team and think it's the defense that's losing us games baffles me. Name one team that won this conference this millennia that runs a "control the clock" offensive philosophy? 

This offense sucks and there's no excuse. 

[Valmy77 13626]

1 minute ago, BigHorn'13 said:

How people continue to watch this team and think it's the defense that's losing us games baffles me. Name one team that won this conference this millennia that runs a "control the clock" offensive philosophy? 

This offense sucks and there's no excuse. 

I watch this team and have a hard time not concluding that defense, offense, and special teams are all disasters. I know the offense scores points somehow anyway.

I hold my breath on every play. I know it is going to be a fucking circus every time. Every punt, every extra point, every block, and every tackle are adventures.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Valmy77