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2021 Texas Orange-White Game - April 24, 1 PM, LHN


Machinator

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I like Overshown and Kerstetter, but interview them during those interminably long pre and post game shows, not during the game.   Tell us who is on the field and what they are doing or did.   We don't need some 20 minute diatribe on Coach Sark in the middle of the game.  And they hardly ever said anything about the defense other than the DL when they got a sack.     
Dumbasses trying so hard to impress with their boundless knowledge, I suppose. 
Those announcers for the V-ball tourney, they know their shit.  They know the players and the game.  Very little color and loads of tech talk.  That's what LHN needs, not this moronic Kurt Bohls type prattle.  And that includes Acho.   
Did you guys mute that shit in Discord and just do general discussion?  My Discord went all haywire today...so didn't get in.
I have no idea who Galindo has pics of, but they must be doozies.
 
I can't be the only one who thinks of small city network news sportsguy every time Galindo opens his mouth. Cringy af all around...but I'll give Sam Acho a pass since he's a noob. (Sounds just like Manny tho)
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Just watched our highlights and aggy's back to back. If the spring game is a true indication of anything, I'll just say this: if aggy is a legit top 5 team going into the season then I feel good about our teams chances this year. It's not like aggy had a bad day, but our qb's performed as well or better than aggy and they seemed to have just as many dropped passes as we did in spite of a deeper reciever room. (I dont know actual numbers) Their defense didnt really impress either... we seemed to get more pressure and defend the pass a bit better.

Of course aggy is irrelevant to our season, it's blowU (and possibly the clones) we have to worry about. If we can get Bijan going and keep Rattler off the field while we chew clock...October in Dallas could be interesting.

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For all the hooplah surrounding the spring game QB competition this year, it was probably the worst one we've had in a while. Thompson didn't look comfortable going past his first read against pretty vanilla defensive setups - if the first guy wasn't open it was mostly a) flee from the pocket b) throw it to him anyway. Card was a lot better about checking it down and was playing with a much worse OL in front of him, but Thompson would mostly just stare at his one read until things broke down and he's going to throw a lot of picks this season playing like that. In fact, that pick he threw was a similar mistake he made against Colorado (late throw to the wrong shoulder) - he got away with it because the Buffalo DB dropped a sitter. On that deep ball to Alexis he made no attempt to look off Schooler, which is another pretty big negative (he did once do it with Omeire though, so maybe there's hope). If his first read is open, he'll hit him but beyond that it's a total crapshoot. Sometimes he'll find a guy open on the run like he did with Whittington at the end of the second quarter, but most of the time the play is dead. Card bails early but that's fixable with a 1st-string OL in front of him and more reps. He's very promising but A) probably not really ready to be starter yet and B) clearly better than Casey Thompson which leaves us in a bad position.

Stupid two-point trick play aside (still not 100% sure that wasn't a hallucination brought on by my day-drinking), that first TD drive with Bijan at RB was awesome. Didn't see much outside zone but I haven't really been following spring practices so I don't know if that'll be a thing with Flood/Sark.

The WR group is awful. Drops, drops, drops. Woodard and Epps were big culprits but even Washington, when he makes catches, makes doing so look like a herculean task. So much dead roster weight and no game-breakers of the calibre Sark was slaughtering secondaries at Alabama with. Reminds me of the late-era Mack Brown days when we had Greg Timmons, Brock Fitzhenry, DJ Grant, etc. cluttering up the roster. And evidently neither Jared Wiley (who was beaten a lot in pass pro) nor Gunnar Helm can block, so that's fantastic.

DL looked really good. But a lot of that was Majors + Angilau getting dominated by Ojomo + Coburn. We've been waiting for Angilau forever to take that next step and it doesn't look like it's happened. Majors just looks too small to effectively deal with Coburn, that'll change with time but this season will be rough going. Saric got beaten by Jones multiple times on money downs, when Jones could just pin his ears back and go. And my God, Jett Bush getting three sacks as an edge rusher is not a good look for Tyler Johnson, who he was facing at RT. Giving how poorly recruiting is going at the edge rusher spot, we need some real production from them this year.

At least the OL can run-block 🤷‍♂️ for now. Card got saddled with a pretty bad OL group, one red-zone play the walk-on at guard got beaten hilariously quickly by SGW and Card was running nearly as soon as the snap came to him.

Schooler was channeling his inner Dylan Haines all day at safety. Someone should check on that. I guess he's better off there then warming the bench five-deep at WR.

Lowell Galindo suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. So does Andre Ware. Whose bright idea was it to put them within five miles of each other, much less in the same booth?

And yes, I'm aware of all the usual caveats. Nth-team players, zero-sum game, "why are you saying [insert OL] looked bad when clearly it was because [insert DL] across from him is the next Reggie White??!?" The same excuses from the past decade. TL;DR is we've got promising players + coaches, but we're probably too weak at QB and OL to make a run to the Big 12 title this year.

 

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Lol honestly I’m so happy y’all think we’re not as good, shit every other year y’all think we are world beaters the end up in the alamo bowl. 

So maybe we might actually be good since no one will be praising the team this summer and they’ll work with a chip on their shoulder 

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2 hours ago, satyanash said:

For all the hooplah surrounding the spring game QB competition this year, it was probably the worst one we've had in a while. Thompson didn't look comfortable going past his first read against pretty vanilla defensive setups - if the first guy wasn't open it was mostly a) flee from the pocket b) throw it to him anyway. Card was a lot better about checking it down and was playing with a much worse OL in front of him, but Thompson would mostly just stare at his one read until things broke down and he's going to throw a lot of picks this season playing like that. In fact, that pick he threw was a similar mistake he made against Colorado (late throw to the wrong shoulder) - he got away with it because the Buffalo DB dropped a sitter. On that deep ball to Alexis he made no attempt to look off Schooler, which is another pretty big negative (he did once do it with Omeire though, so maybe there's hope). If his first read is open, he'll hit him but beyond that it's a total crapshoot. Sometimes he'll find a guy open on the run like he did with Whittington at the end of the second quarter, but most of the time the play is dead. Card bails early but that's fixable with a 1st-string OL in front of him and more reps. He's very promising but A) probably not really ready to be starter yet and B) clearly better than Casey Thompson which leaves us in a bad position.

Stupid two-point trick play aside (still not 100% sure that wasn't a hallucination brought on by my day-drinking), that first TD drive with Bijan at RB was awesome. Didn't see much outside zone but I haven't really been following spring practices so I don't know if that'll be a thing with Flood/Sark.

The WR group is awful. Drops, drops, drops. Woodard and Epps were big culprits but even Washington, when he makes catches, makes doing so look like a herculean task. So much dead roster weight and no game-breakers of the calibre Sark was slaughtering secondaries at Alabama with. Reminds me of the late-era Mack Brown days when we had Greg Timmons, Brock Fitzhenry, DJ Grant, etc. cluttering up the roster. And evidently neither Jared Wiley (who was beaten a lot in pass pro) nor Gunnar Helm can block, so that's fantastic.

DL looked really good. But a lot of that was Majors + Angilau getting dominated by Ojomo + Coburn. We've been waiting for Angilau forever to take that next step and it doesn't look like it's happened. Majors just looks too small to effectively deal with Coburn, that'll change with time but this season will be rough going. Saric got beaten by Jones multiple times on money downs, when Jones could just pin his ears back and go. And my God, Jett Bush getting three sacks as an edge rusher is not a good look for Tyler Johnson, who he was facing at RT. Giving how poorly recruiting is going at the edge rusher spot, we need some real production from them this year.

At least the OL can run-block 🤷‍♂️ for now. Card got saddled with a pretty bad OL group, one red-zone play the walk-on at guard got beaten hilariously quickly by SGW and Card was running nearly as soon as the snap came to him.

Schooler was channeling his inner Dylan Haines all day at safety. Someone should check on that. I guess he's better off there then warming the bench five-deep at WR.

Lowell Galindo suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. So does Andre Ware. Whose bright idea was it to put them within five miles of each other, much less in the same booth?

And yes, I'm aware of all the usual caveats. Nth-team players, zero-sum game, "why are you saying [insert OL] looked bad when clearly it was because [insert DL] across from him is the next Reggie White??!?" The same excuses from the past decade. TL;DR is we've got promising players + coaches, but we're probably too weak at QB and OL to make a run to the Big 12 title this year.

 

Aside from that, did you enjoy the game? 😃

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4 hours ago, satyanash said:

For all the hooplah surrounding the spring game QB competition this year, it was probably the worst one we've had in a while. Thompson didn't look comfortable going past his first read against pretty vanilla defensive setups - if the first guy wasn't open it was mostly a) flee from the pocket b) throw it to him anyway. Card was a lot better about checking it down and was playing with a much worse OL in front of him, but Thompson would mostly just stare at his one read until things broke down and he's going to throw a lot of picks this season playing like that. In fact, that pick he threw was a similar mistake he made against Colorado (late throw to the wrong shoulder) - he got away with it because the Buffalo DB dropped a sitter. On that deep ball to Alexis he made no attempt to look off Schooler, which is another pretty big negative (he did once do it with Omeire though, so maybe there's hope). If his first read is open, he'll hit him but beyond that it's a total crapshoot. Sometimes he'll find a guy open on the run like he did with Whittington at the end of the second quarter, but most of the time the play is dead. Card bails early but that's fixable with a 1st-string OL in front of him and more reps. He's very promising but A) probably not really ready to be starter yet and B) clearly better than Casey Thompson which leaves us in a bad position.

Stupid two-point trick play aside (still not 100% sure that wasn't a hallucination brought on by my day-drinking), that first TD drive with Bijan at RB was awesome. Didn't see much outside zone but I haven't really been following spring practices so I don't know if that'll be a thing with Flood/Sark.

The WR group is awful. Drops, drops, drops. Woodard and Epps were big culprits but even Washington, when he makes catches, makes doing so look like a herculean task. So much dead roster weight and no game-breakers of the calibre Sark was slaughtering secondaries at Alabama with. Reminds me of the late-era Mack Brown days when we had Greg Timmons, Brock Fitzhenry, DJ Grant, etc. cluttering up the roster. And evidently neither Jared Wiley (who was beaten a lot in pass pro) nor Gunnar Helm can block, so that's fantastic.

DL looked really good. But a lot of that was Majors + Angilau getting dominated by Ojomo + Coburn. We've been waiting for Angilau forever to take that next step and it doesn't look like it's happened. Majors just looks too small to effectively deal with Coburn, that'll change with time but this season will be rough going. Saric got beaten by Jones multiple times on money downs, when Jones could just pin his ears back and go. And my God, Jett Bush getting three sacks as an edge rusher is not a good look for Tyler Johnson, who he was facing at RT. Giving how poorly recruiting is going at the edge rusher spot, we need some real production from them this year.

At least the OL can run-block 🤷‍♂️ for now. Card got saddled with a pretty bad OL group, one red-zone play the walk-on at guard got beaten hilariously quickly by SGW and Card was running nearly as soon as the snap came to him.

Schooler was channeling his inner Dylan Haines all day at safety. Someone should check on that. I guess he's better off there then warming the bench five-deep at WR.

Lowell Galindo suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. So does Andre Ware. Whose bright idea was it to put them within five miles of each other, much less in the same booth?

And yes, I'm aware of all the usual caveats. Nth-team players, zero-sum game, "why are you saying [insert OL] looked bad when clearly it was because [insert DL] across from him is the next Reggie White??!?" The same excuses from the past decade. TL;DR is we've got promising players + coaches, but we're probably too weak at QB and OL to make a run to the Big 12 title this year.

 

Liked because you clearly watched and thought about the game, even if you passed it through your ...unique... emotional filter.

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5 hours ago, satyanash said:

For all the hooplah surrounding the spring game QB competition this year, it was probably the worst one we've had in a while. Thompson didn't look comfortable going past his first read against pretty vanilla defensive setups - if the first guy wasn't open it was mostly a) flee from the pocket b) throw it to him anyway. Card was a lot better about checking it down and was playing with a much worse OL in front of him, but Thompson would mostly just stare at his one read until things broke down and he's going to throw a lot of picks this season playing like that. In fact, that pick he threw was a similar mistake he made against Colorado (late throw to the wrong shoulder) - he got away with it because the Buffalo DB dropped a sitter. On that deep ball to Alexis he made no attempt to look off Schooler, which is another pretty big negative (he did once do it with Omeire though, so maybe there's hope). If his first read is open, he'll hit him but beyond that it's a total crapshoot. Sometimes he'll find a guy open on the run like he did with Whittington at the end of the second quarter, but most of the time the play is dead. Card bails early but that's fixable with a 1st-string OL in front of him and more reps. He's very promising but A) probably not really ready to be starter yet and B) clearly better than Casey Thompson which leaves us in a bad position.

Stupid two-point trick play aside (still not 100% sure that wasn't a hallucination brought on by my day-drinking), that first TD drive with Bijan at RB was awesome. Didn't see much outside zone but I haven't really been following spring practices so I don't know if that'll be a thing with Flood/Sark.

The WR group is awful. Drops, drops, drops. Woodard and Epps were big culprits but even Washington, when he makes catches, makes doing so look like a herculean task. So much dead roster weight and no game-breakers of the calibre Sark was slaughtering secondaries at Alabama with. Reminds me of the late-era Mack Brown days when we had Greg Timmons, Brock Fitzhenry, DJ Grant, etc. cluttering up the roster. And evidently neither Jared Wiley (who was beaten a lot in pass pro) nor Gunnar Helm can block, so that's fantastic.

DL looked really good. But a lot of that was Majors + Angilau getting dominated by Ojomo + Coburn. We've been waiting for Angilau forever to take that next step and it doesn't look like it's happened. Majors just looks too small to effectively deal with Coburn, that'll change with time but this season will be rough going. Saric got beaten by Jones multiple times on money downs, when Jones could just pin his ears back and go. And my God, Jett Bush getting three sacks as an edge rusher is not a good look for Tyler Johnson, who he was facing at RT. Giving how poorly recruiting is going at the edge rusher spot, we need some real production from them this year.

At least the OL can run-block 🤷‍♂️ for now. Card got saddled with a pretty bad OL group, one red-zone play the walk-on at guard got beaten hilariously quickly by SGW and Card was running nearly as soon as the snap came to him.

Schooler was channeling his inner Dylan Haines all day at safety. Someone should check on that. I guess he's better off there then warming the bench five-deep at WR.

Lowell Galindo suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. So does Andre Ware. Whose bright idea was it to put them within five miles of each other, much less in the same booth?

And yes, I'm aware of all the usual caveats. Nth-team players, zero-sum game, "why are you saying [insert OL] looked bad when clearly it was because [insert DL] across from him is the next Reggie White??!?" The same excuses from the past decade. TL;DR is we've got promising players + coaches, but we're probably too weak at QB and OL to make a run to the Big 12 title this year.

 

Satya seen after writing that:

image.png.3b657f3b2f327df3db8d36d8d940d296.png

Edited by Bevo14
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5 hours ago, satyanash said:

For all the hooplah surrounding the spring game QB competition this year, it was probably the worst one we've had in a while. Thompson didn't look comfortable going past his first read against pretty vanilla defensive setups - if the first guy wasn't open it was mostly a) flee from the pocket b) throw it to him anyway. Card was a lot better about checking it down and was playing with a much worse OL in front of him, but Thompson would mostly just stare at his one read until things broke down and he's going to throw a lot of picks this season playing like that. In fact, that pick he threw was a similar mistake he made against Colorado (late throw to the wrong shoulder) - he got away with it because the Buffalo DB dropped a sitter. On that deep ball to Alexis he made no attempt to look off Schooler, which is another pretty big negative (he did once do it with Omeire though, so maybe there's hope). If his first read is open, he'll hit him but beyond that it's a total crapshoot. Sometimes he'll find a guy open on the run like he did with Whittington at the end of the second quarter, but most of the time the play is dead. Card bails early but that's fixable with a 1st-string OL in front of him and more reps. He's very promising but A) probably not really ready to be starter yet and B) clearly better than Casey Thompson which leaves us in a bad position.

Stupid two-point trick play aside (still not 100% sure that wasn't a hallucination brought on by my day-drinking), that first TD drive with Bijan at RB was awesome. Didn't see much outside zone but I haven't really been following spring practices so I don't know if that'll be a thing with Flood/Sark.

The WR group is awful. Drops, drops, drops. Woodard and Epps were big culprits but even Washington, when he makes catches, makes doing so look like a herculean task. So much dead roster weight and no game-breakers of the calibre Sark was slaughtering secondaries at Alabama with. Reminds me of the late-era Mack Brown days when we had Greg Timmons, Brock Fitzhenry, DJ Grant, etc. cluttering up the roster. And evidently neither Jared Wiley (who was beaten a lot in pass pro) nor Gunnar Helm can block, so that's fantastic.

DL looked really good. But a lot of that was Majors + Angilau getting dominated by Ojomo + Coburn. We've been waiting for Angilau forever to take that next step and it doesn't look like it's happened. Majors just looks too small to effectively deal with Coburn, that'll change with time but this season will be rough going. Saric got beaten by Jones multiple times on money downs, when Jones could just pin his ears back and go. And my God, Jett Bush getting three sacks as an edge rusher is not a good look for Tyler Johnson, who he was facing at RT. Giving how poorly recruiting is going at the edge rusher spot, we need some real production from them this year.

At least the OL can run-block 🤷‍♂️ for now. Card got saddled with a pretty bad OL group, one red-zone play the walk-on at guard got beaten hilariously quickly by SGW and Card was running nearly as soon as the snap came to him.

Schooler was channeling his inner Dylan Haines all day at safety. Someone should check on that. I guess he's better off there then warming the bench five-deep at WR.

Lowell Galindo suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. So does Andre Ware. Whose bright idea was it to put them within five miles of each other, much less in the same booth?

And yes, I'm aware of all the usual caveats. Nth-team players, zero-sum game, "why are you saying [insert OL] looked bad when clearly it was because [insert DL] across from him is the next Reggie White??!?" The same excuses from the past decade. TL;DR is we've got promising players + coaches, but we're probably too weak at QB and OL to make a run to the Big 12 title this year.

 

They may be able to eek out some wins via ball control offense with Bijan and playing field position and good defense. But this terrible offense isn't going to win any shootouts.

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(Scipio Tex) Spring Game Quick Impressions: Offense

Spoiler

Same caveats as the defense. I haven't done a re-watch yet. These are all first impressions.

OFFENSE

Pretty vanilla concepts with a lot of formations. Everyone told me that Sark worked the run game hard this Spring and it showed. Must have worked the passing game less hard - and it showed!

QB

The QB debate is settled.

Kai Money had the best stat line and the most explosive single passing play. 1/1/41 yards. 100% completion percentage. Also showed that he can take a hit. And how about his receiving ability on gadget plays?

OK, you're not sold...

Both Card and Thompson did some good things, both have improvements to make. We won't really know either player's potential without multiple starts.

Thompson made some nice throws on the move and in the middle of the field and he checked down patiently when warranted. His best throw of the day was on 3rd down rolling right to Jordan Whittington. He also should have had a touchdown on the dropped Joshua Moore ball. Thompson's lack of arm showed outside the hashes, specifically on the 92 yard pick 6 to Jamison. That was a ball placement issue caused by arm, not inaccuracy. If Thompson wants to be the man, he has to understand his limitations as a passer.

Card showed much better velocity and generally better ball placement on contested routes which translates directly to the RPO game. He can credibly threaten the whole field. I also liked his eye level on a couple of pressures - he kept looking downfield instead of taking off. His feet are active, at times bordering on happy, and he self-sacked at least once. Card also played better with inferior talent. One of his scoring drives featured Marcus Washington, Kai Money, Gunnar Helm, and Malcolm Epps as his primary receivers. His best throw was the "throw him open" touchdown strike to Marcus Washington in the red zone, but he also had several tight window throws that featured his ability to spin it. Threw some heat on a couple of shorter dropped balls that would have been better served with touch.

Casey got the first series, played with the best personnel, and got the most work (43 passing attempts). One could argue that's because Sark is trying to give the more senior QB the opportunity to take the job. An alternative view is that Sark is trying to level the playing field and keep the QB competition close so that his September depth chart deck doesn't consist of a single Card.

I think Texas could win with either. The question is upside. With very limited data, I'd give Card the edge on that metric.

RB

You don't need many descriptives here.

If you had asked me Bijan Robinson: 14 touches over/under for Spring game? I'd have gone hard under, but I guess they wanted to trot the bell cow around.

Bijan looked terrific with wicked cuts that 215 pound guys shouldn't be able to make. Roschon is still a very capable #2 who will see heavy spot action. Gabe Watson is a plow horse inside runner and unreliable receiver who can act as a middle reliever.

WR

They started ugly with some high profile drops, but settled in and played better.

Troy Omeire caught a ball and showed his fluidity and size despite the knee brace (he kept touching it and freaking me out). He's bigger than most of our linebackers, but he moves well and you can see the strong hands. Boy, do we need him.

Kai Money was the leading receiver, notching 6 for 79 and throwing a 41 yard completion to Gunnar Helm. Another walk-on earning his stripes.

Jordan Whittington played fine. 5-56. Didn't show his elusiveness much, but I'm just glad he's healthy.

Joshua Moore, Marcus Washington, and Al'Vonte Woodard all had some notable screw ups, but also made some nice plays.

TE

Jared Wiley was quite average outside of his two catches. Surrendered a sack to a guy 55 pounds lighter, run blocking was only OK. If his starter value proposition is "the most complete TE" he didn't show that Saturday.

Cade Brewer has trimmed up a lot, is moving better, and still blocking comparably to his higher weight.

Juan Davis moves much better than I anticipated. Tricky Juan.

Gunnar Helm is a big dude with some athletic ability. Might have undersold him.

OL

Good news: run blocking was a plus for all units. Good coordination, low pads, active feet. It's clear they've been working it hard. It showed. Good job.

Bad news: pass blocking. A work in progress.

Fortunately, the worst pass blocking miscues were largely delegated to the 2nd and 3rd team OL, but Flood has some work ahead of him for all of his athletes.

We saw a lot of 12 and 20 personnel for a reason and Sark and Flood will both do their best to create favorable pass blocking match-ups with the running game and various tricks to take the heat off until these guys can progress their skill level or suitable solutions can be cultivated.

 

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8 hours ago, Machinator said:

(Ian Boyd) 5 quick thoughts: Spring game 2021

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hile the spring game was indeed somewhat vanilla for Steve Sarkisian, Texas showed a fair amount on film today. They were obviously running their base schemes and sparing the motion and tempo but still mixing in a lot of concepts and looks. They picked up a third and two early in the game running the famous "duo" scheme from 12 personnel and still mixed in some spread RPOs of the sort they were often hesitant to run under Tom Herman.

Given the format, effectively pitting the first team defense (White team) against the first team offense (Orange team), the narrative could be about the relative strengths of either unit but there was a rather jarring factor to this game which it's going to be hard to overlook. Despite playing behind shoddy (worst than first team, even) protection and without the top weapons on offense, Hudson Card was able to guide the White team to a 20-12 victory.

The Orange team had a number of weapons in the fold including Jordan Whittington, Josh Moore, Troy Omeire, Cade Brewer, Jared Wiley, Juan Davis, Gabe Watson, and of course Bijan Robinson all working with the first team offensive line. Hudson Card worked primarily with Marcus Washington, Al'Vonte Woodard, and Kai Money with Roschon Johnson and Danny Young handling the run game.

Card got substantial help from the first team defense, particularly Moro Ojomo who had multiple sacks and pressures, and D'Shawn Jamison who made a pick-six backed up on his own goal line. Neither offensive line offered the sort of timely protection you'd prefer to see as a fan of both teams and Hudson Card was able to drive the ball late only to take a sack to force a long field goal which Cameron Dicker missed.

We'll have an offseason and fall camp for this team to iron out some of the issues on display in this scrimmage and settle battles like quarterback one but this game certainly suggested where things are headed.

Quick thought No. 1: The game was settled on two goal line throws

Casey Thompson made several nice throws, especially over the middle, to set up a chance at a touchdown before the half while running some two-minute offense. Then Thompson stared down Jordan Whittington outside, forced the ball in, and was pick-sixed by D'Shawn Jamison to give the White team a 13-9 lead going into the half.

This is the "vision quarters" coverage by the defense with Jamison playing with zone eyes on the quarterback and some freedom to break on the flat route if you stare it down. Thompson did and the Orange team couldn't recover.

In the second half, Hudson Card led the White offense down to the goal line and on a third and four zipped in a brilliant, anticipatory throw to Marcus Washington for a touchdown to make it 20-9 for the White team.

Man coverage from the defense and Card saw it developing and zipped the ball into a very narrow window before the wide receiver had broken up.

Between those two throws you have 14 points in a low scoring game and this was the difference. The White team (first team defense, second team offense) didn't have much of a path to victory other than keeping the score down, scoring on defense, and getting some number of points and play-making from Hudson Card but they got it. More on the overall White team in our other thoughts, but Hudson Card certainly outplayed Casey Thompson in this game.

On the day, Casey Thompson was 25-43 for 253 yards at 5.9 ypa with zero touchdowns, and two interceptions.
Card finished 16-24 for 188 yards at 7.8 ypa with one touchdown and zero interceptions.

The battle will continue into the fall, but Card certainly "won" the scrimmage by posting better numbers, making more plays, and earning the win for his unit while playing with less offensive talent.

Quick thought No. 2: The first team offense is really is about the run game

While Sark gave Casey Thompson the chance to throw the ball 43 times and try to get the win back from Card, they were clearly doing their best work in the run game emphasizing Bijan Robinson. In fact, Gabe Watson also had several nice runs moving downhill on the first team defense.

The best drive for the offense was the first one, which was heavy on a variety of 12 personnel runs for Bijan Robinson. The drive ended with this beauty:

This is a power run from 12 personnel and the cutback by Bijan is ridiculous. Schooler really didn't think he'd turn that back in but Bijan can turn on a dime and maintain balance before having some burst. On the day Bijan had 10 carries for 54 yards at 5.4 ypc with one touchdown and seemed to have equivalent production in the passing game catching endless check downs from Casey Thompson.

The Orange offense was at their best under Casey Thompson when emphasizing the run game and then throwing the football on rollouts. Thompson has improved considerably since he first arrived in Austin and made a few nice throws from the pocket, particularly when throwing crossing routes over the middle. But he's at his best on the move with the ability to throw a deep crosser, a check down, or scramble. When he was trying to push the ball outside from the pocket, there were some issues and some apparent arm strength problems. Hudson Card executed a few more RPOs than Thompson and was able to hit some outside throws, including an out on third down to Kai Money to a tight window.

Quick thought No. 3: Moro Ojomo was a disruptive force

Ojomo had at least two sacks by my count and potentially could have had a few more. He was blowing by Texas' guards, occasionally Hayden Conner but sometimes the first team guards as well. Texas showed a few different fronts in this game but their use of the tite front is certainly something to monitor heading into the season.

Jacoby Jones is a good player who will get his snaps, but a tite front with Moro Ojomo and Alfred Collins at the 4i defensive ends with Ray Thornton on the edge is certainly a look Texas may want to mix in heavily next season. Collins and Ojomo are both great 3-techniques and they'll use them as such but they could put both of these guys on the field at the same time as well if they like and really deal some damage to opposing offensive fronts.

Texas clearly has a lot of guys on the defensive line who can blow up blocks and get pressure on the quarterback. Prince Dorbah flashed a few times and got into the backfield while Keondre Coburn was his usual self owning the middle of the field. We'll see a variety of fronts and looks designed to force offenses to execute when it matters while blocking superior athletes.

Quick thought No. 4: Welcome Xavier Worthy!

Texas secured a commitment from 2021 4-star wide receiver Xavier Worthy, who will be in Austin as opposed to Ann Arbor. Beyond the fact Texas needs sub 11.00 second 100m sprinters in this offense to really nail Steve Sarkisian's vision on offense in general, there were a few hangups in this game from the wide receiver corps.

Things got off to a slow start with Josh Moore dropping a nice post from Casey Thompson in the end zone and then several second team receivers dropping otherwise strong Hudson Card throws. Eventually Jordan Whittington was able to show some of what has people excited for his spring, namely the ability to reliably bring the ball in and be hard to tackle, while Troy Omeire flashed some.

There is an opportunity for talented wide receivers to force their way into the offensive rotation come the fall though and Xavier Worthy is the first to throw his hat into the ring.

Quick thought No. 5: Team identity is coming into focus

The winning side was able to win this game by playing effective red zone defense, getting their eyes on the quarterback in the secondary, making disruptive plays with the defensive line, and hitting on some RPO throws in the passing game. This is a good formula for winning in the Big 12, especially with a running back like Bijan Robinson featured in the run game and a field goal kicker like Cameron Dicker (4-5 in this game with a 58-yarder), provided they can protect the ball on offense.

Therein lies the trick.

It can be difficult to protect the ball with young quarterbacks and inconsistent pass protection. The offensive line had a few miscues keeping Thompson upright and Jared Wiley had a particularly ugly moment covering the backside against a nickel blitz. Both quarterbacks are good at keeping plays alive with their feet but if Texas can't protect them neither will be able to consistently protect the ball and probably neither of them will stay healthy either.

For this coming offseason Texas needs the various components of the passing game to continue to improve, perhaps infuse some extra talent at wide receiver, and then be ready to lean on a special running back and athletic defense to carry them through the season. If they can keep their quarterback clean early in the season and avoid losses, there's a chance they could be a terrifying team later in the year.

 

Hahahahaha. I swear, I wonder if you guys are faking shit when you post this guy’s stuff. There is no fucking way he can stay that on-brand 100% of the time. “Quick Thoughts”. Right. 

4 hours ago, Voluminous Banality said:

Aside from that, did you enjoy the game? 😃

That was actually sarvanaash fully admitting he enjoyed the game. 

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52 minutes ago, Dennis Taylor said:

Was at the spring game so just now watching the broadcast,  and my first thought is

 

 

WHY THE FUCK IS ANDRE WARE ON THE LONGHORN NETWORK???!!!

I thought he did a great job. He called the Texas job the best job in the country and provided good insight. He has a hard on for Card

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6 minutes ago, EZ$ said:

For our OL being so average, I don’t recall Alfred Collins making any plays. Did he play?

He was on the second team DL. Seems like he's still working back from injury, but I agree that I was expecting to hear his name called more.

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8 hours ago, Burt Macklin said:

They are not.

I didn’t read all this but the first sentence gave me a good chuckle. Never change, satya. 

I think we should have a reality show where wonderful things happen to satya and we watch him react like grumpy cat and find the worst possible aspect to take the joy out of whatever cool happened. 

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30 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Satya on the evening of January 4, 2006. "We're not going to amount to shit next season if our defense keeps giving up 38 points like they did tonight."

“oh great, Vince was our entire offense and he’s gone now. All we have is an overrated Jevan Snead and some shitty 3 star that none of the SEC teams offered. We’ll be lucky to score 14 points per game next year.”

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27 minutes ago, Dennis Taylor said:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion,  regardless of how fucking wrong it may be 

I kind of agree with Rays.  He added to the broadcast without, for once, openly rooting for the other team to win (only because there was no other team).   I do hope they keep Acho for the season.  He seems better than previous sideline guys they’ve had.  

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