Texas Football 2021 In-Season Thread: Can we get a redo?

[mdleast 8297]

Was that a high point or low point? Not sure anymore.

[South Austin 52523]

Just now, mdleast said:

Was that a high point or low point? Not sure anymore.

It was the 2018 season, which overall was the high point. But this and the Maryland loss were two of Tom’s biggest embarrassments of the year.

[GTX Horn 1709]

37 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

It could be because Card has kind of shown he does terrible with pressure when the OL sucks (See Arkansas game and even his one pass yesterday).  Maybe Sark is “protecting him” from getting destroyed mentally and physically since our OL can’t pass or run block.  I think Card must have looked good in practice over the Summer against our defense but when he played other schools during the season he looked overwhelmed with his reads and throws.  I really have no idea but I am pretty confident that if Card played a few series yesterday or the rest of the game it wouldn’t have made a difference in the final outcome.

Wasn’t Card’s only play yesterday a handoff?

[Beantown Express 2.0 6559]

1 minute ago, GTX Horn said:

Wasn’t Card’s only play yesterday a handoff?

I thought he threw a pass but you could be right.  I was sitting in a swim up pool bar at a hotel in San Juan, many drinks in at that point and stewing over what I was watching so I may have misremembered.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Droopy said:

Accurate post is accurate.

 

And it will continue to be the same until every response to all the crap the program does is "Don't care, build a winning program."

• Oh there's a new craft vodka stand in the north end zone? Don't care, build a winning program.
• Matthew McConaughey is the Minister of Culture!!!1! Don't care, build a winning program.
• Ohh, it's Texas Longhorn Football, brought to you by HEB, Airgas, TacoBell, Community Coffee, YETI, DeWalt, Texas Lottery. Don't care, build a winning program.

But sure, let's make the atmosphere into a little kid's carnival. That's what will make the place intimidating to play. That opposing team won't know what hit them when they see stilt walkers outside the stadium. Doesn't matter. Made a lot of money. 

 

[CHIEF 5094]

15 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, your implication seems to be it's the coaching.  And I probably agree, but possibly in a different way.

At least with OU, it was pretty clear that Sark had schemed his balls off and called a good first half.  Perhaps a bit less so today.  And that includes "covering" for the disastrously weak OL, and whatever deficiencies Casey and the WR corps possess.

The question then becomes what happened in the second half.  And I fear that we just run out of options given how generally easy it is to shut down our offense.

Can you do they mythical Mack/Greg "saving it for OU" but save it for the second half?

This is exactly what happened. The only thing the Texas offense can run successfully is outside zone with Bijan. Gundy moved his defensive ends outside the tackles to take that away, and funnel Bijan back to the middle. Even with the DEs moved outside, this offensive line cannot block well enough for Bijan to at least make it back to the line of scrimmage in the A or B gap. Texas is a "one trick pony". What I'm amazed at, is why teams wait till the second half to make this adjustment. Just load up the box, Casey isn't going to beat you with his arm, because there will be no time before he is hit for a pass play to develop.

Nick Saban would be sitting at 4-3 right now, with this offensive line.

CHIEF

 

[Longboard Horn 40397]

1 hour ago, GTX Horn said:

Wasn’t Card’s only play yesterday a handoff?

 

58 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I thought he threw a pass but you could be right.  I was sitting in a swim up pool bar at a hotel in San Juan, many drinks in at that point and stewing over what I was watching so I may have misremembered.

Yes, only a hand off. Then Casey came back in. 

[Chad 1728]

All start no finish, Sark's new slogan.

[Nivek 16949]

15 hours ago, SizzleChest said:

Casey is a very mediocre QB who hasn't yet beaten a good team.  Neither has Card.  They're both very meh.  We need to hit the portal for grad transfer QB (to start in 2022).

Casey led the Longhorns to destroy OU.   Only ref-fuckery cost him that game.  He was injured in this game and it showed.   Case McCoy was a mediocre QB, Thompson is better and Card might be better than Case.   When the starting QB is hurt you put in the back-up.   Especially if they are close in skill pre-injury.

[RomaVicta 29949]

17 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i'm a no

he's not proven to be a fraud..... yet

which means until he is proven to be fraudulent, he's not

/parcells

 

he's going to need time and we are going to have to accept that we are not going to win instantly

fuck, the gomers are in year 4 of boomhauer and they have 2 quality wins in 4 seasons, florida and satan

everyone just needs to chill out a little

this has been very easy to digest with the parcells mantra i went in to this season with

Yes.

Maybe we shouldn't blame Brown, Strong, and Herman for what could be an ingrained loser mentality in the second half. I don't know.  Culture lives on even after people have gone. Herman created a physically tough team but wasn't mentally tough enough himself in games to refrain from desperately trying to run out the clock starting in third fucking quarter. 

We probably should blame Brown, Strong, and Herman for the mental illness affecting persons who are likely rather smart in their non-Longhorn lives. These pitiable souls have become addicted to outrage and down right hate. I don't envy the absolutely joyless experience they have watching the Longhorns.

Oh, so we should be joyful??!??!

No, my sad friend, that's not what I wrote. We others enjoy what we can (Bijan, Thompson when he has time, Overshown when he guesses right, slaughtering Tech and getting the TCU monkey off our backs) and are miserably circumspect about what goes wrong in Sarkisian's first season.

The pose of the cynics here supposedly comes from intellectualy detachment. It doesn't. It's just a front for the addiction described above. In this case, that detachment would lead to criticism (or praise) for what we actually see and know not tearing out of hair and demanding a nuclear strike on the whole program.

At least, that's how I see it. Hook 'Em!

 

 

[D3zii 3708]

12 hours ago, dcar00 said:

holy shit.  seriously?  tons of programs fire coaches until they find the right one.   7 win Steve is exactly what we thought he was.   CDC took a flyer that he might be successful at Texas.  he was wrong.  

Dude it’s one season?? Chill did you think he’d come in and win a national championship??

[Gravy Train 974]

2 hours ago, CHIEF said:

This is exactly what happened. The only thing the Texas offense can run successfully is outside zone with Bijan. Gundy moved his defensive ends outside the tackles to take that away, and funnel Bijan back to the middle. Even with the DEs moved outside, this offensive line cannot block well enough for Bijan to at least make it back to the line of scrimmage in the A or B gap. Texas is a "one trick pony". What I'm amazed at, is why teams wait till the second half to make this adjustment. Just load up the box, Casey isn't going to beat you with his arm, because there will be no time before he is hit for a pass play to develop.

Nick Saban would be sitting at 4-3 right now, with this offensive line.

CHIEF

 

I feared that's how Grinch would have planned OU to start the game last weekend, but their middle and LBs are as soft as ours, then Casey lit them up with the deep ball.  Thankfully, stretching out the field on homerun threats like that have kept opposing defenses from doing just that from the start.  Of course then the pass pro breaks down, Casey can't make a second read and even short screens are blown up.  When a deep ball is delivered on the first read, it's dropped.

[RomaVicta 29949]

6 hours ago, immamac said:

This is the problem with our players. They are stupid. I don’t want to pick on them, but we have a bunch of idiots who are big on the oline. 

This is what I see. They don't seem to know what to do if the defense doesn't do exactly as expected. They seem baffled by the simplest of stunts and blitzes. Then they just stand around looking stupid as the play collapses.

 

[Surly Bevo 25089]

See a few folks looking for quick read passes claiming we don't do that.  We absolutely do that.  One of those went for an 85 yard pick 6 yesterday.  Another we were deep in our own territory on 3rd down and through a quick pass that if on target/caught probably goes for a TD.  Those among others that had varying levels of success.

[dcar00 14317]

2 hours ago, D3zii said:

Dude it’s one season?? Chill did you think he’d come in and win a national championship??

Dude I know. No of course not. We didnt expect epic back to back collapses(one being the largest in the history of the series)and an ass whipping by a shitty arky team.

I also didnt expect to start walkons on D when you got transfers that u should have coached up. 

How old are you? I've seen this movie before many times. He ain't the guy but he will get at least 4 years because this is cdc's hire and the ship will have to literally crash into the rocks for him not to get 4 at least.

So chill if you are so certain.

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by dcar00

[NTVTXN 1432]

6 hours ago, GTX Horn said:

Wasn’t Card’s only play yesterday a handoff?

Yes

[hookem48 4701]

7 hours ago, Horn80 said:

Didn’t get why Sark didn’t leave Card in for a few series when Casey got injured to see if he could provide a spark.  Worked for OU.

if Moore doesn't drop Casey's pass it would have been as big a spark as we could have hoped for.

[TwiceHorn 31512]

21 hours ago, hookem48 said:

I'm just a dude watching football on tv, my high school claim to fame was getting run the fuck over by Eugene Lockhart more than a couple times so I need someone to show me all these adjustments made by OU and Okie State that we didn't adjust to, looks to me like we shot our wad in the first half on a couple of teams better than us and then they wore us out in the 2nd half.

I think the main adjustment was figuring out that Worthy and Bijan are the only real threats on the team and they won't go wrong never losing sight of them, and maybe whoever's tripped wide.  When that happens to be true, there's not a lot of counter-adjustments you can make.  I think it was Scipio that pointed out or implied that even the defensive scheme becomes mostly irrelevant when you key on two players and pin your ears back.

Edited October 17, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31512]

Just a point of order.

Fraud involves misrepresentation.  I don't think Steve Sarkisian has misrepresented himself.  He certainly hasn't pimped himself in any public way.

He wasn't really on anyone's radar before we hired him, except as having achieved exceptional results at Alabama, and that's pretty factual.  

To the extent he was pumped up by anyone, it was post-hiring, and mostly by us.

[ATLLonghorn 857]

The way football has changed over the past 5 years in particular I think the areas you want to be really good if you want to be successful are quarterback, receiver, offensive line, defensive line. You can succeed without being good at one of those areas, but you need to compensate elsewhere. For example, having generational talents in Watson and Lawrence allowed Clemson to get away without a great offensive line. Georgia gets by with great line play and whether or not they have the QB and skill guys are going to determine if they win a title this year. 

The point is, we aren't good at any of those positions.

The jury is out if we have *THE* quarterback on campus, but the early indications are no. There's no need to beat a dead horse with our offensive line. We haven't developed the talent at receiver and defensive line. The defensive line isn't as lacking as our linebacking corps, but you can get by without great linebackers if you have a great defensive line and we don't. We've been subpar with that group as a whole. We just aren't good enough at the pillar spots you need to be good at to win. In the micro, the collapses are obviously concerning, but the fact of the matter is, Sark can be the greatest mind in football (hypothetically) but it's putting a band-aid on a bullet hole. How he handles the next 12-18 months are going to determine everything for his tenure. I know it's frustrating to have to wait that long for it, but that's where we are. 

[LTtxfan 49320]

The Day After: Texas-Oklahoma State concerns

[D3zii 3708]

3 hours ago, dcar00 said:

Dude I know. No of course not. We didnt expect epic back to back collapses(one being the largest in the history of the series)and an ass whipping by a shitty arky team.

I also didnt expect to start walkons on D when you got transfers that u should have coached up. 

How old are you? I've seen this movie before many times. He ain't the guy but he will get at least 4 years because this is cdc's hire and the ship will have to literally crash into the rocks for him not to get 4 at least.

So chill if you are so certain.

 

Oh I’m sorry I didn’t know you saw the future to know he’s not the guy. Shid since you see the future, you should go to CDC himself and tell him who we should hire.  
Smh

[DanTheHorn 4938]

On 10/16/2021 at 7:12 PM, Nivek said:

Casey is a pretty good QB. Card should have played though.

That was yet another coaching mistake.

I have yet to watch the TV broadcast of the game but I heard from someone that Casey looked out of it after the interception and they never saw Sark get on him and get his head back in the game. I thought Tom threw his players under the bus for his mistakes but man Sark makes Tom look like an amateur.

[DanTheHorn 4938]

16 hours ago, PassiveAggressiveCoach said:

Stages of grief. Are we in anger or denial with Sark? 

Some are in denial some are in anger and some of us have already hit the bargaining stage.

[6th Street 6444]

I think for the majority of us, we have seen this before and apathy is setting in. This is not a well coached team, nor is Sark recruiting well enough to fix the massive problem areas at OL, LB, and CB. He has gotten throughly outcoached in the second half repeatedly with no answers. 

The others are acting out of blind optimism in hopes that things can improve even though history suggests otherwise. Sark's best season was a lone 9-4 USC team and failed to achieve more than 8 wins in any other year as a HC.

[DFW Horn 6133]

7 minutes ago, 6th Street said:

I think for the majority of us, we have seen this before and apathy is setting in. This is not a well coached team, nor is Sark recruiting well enough to fix the massive problem areas at OL, LB, and CB. He has gotten throughly outcoached in the second half repeatedly with no answers. 

The others are acting out of blind optimism in hopes that things can improve even though history suggests otherwise. Sark's best season was a lone 9-4 USC team and failed to achieve more than 8 wins in any other year as a HC.

 

[Atticus 3978]

7 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Just a point of order.

Fraud involves misrepresentation.  I don't think Steve Sarkisian has misrepresented himself.  He certainly hasn't pimped himself in any public way.

He wasn't really on anyone's radar before we hired him, except as having achieved exceptional results at Alabama, and that's pretty factual.  

To the extent he was pumped up by anyone, it was post-hiring, and mostly by us.

He definitely turned down a few solid openings before taking this job. This is his redemption story, he's not a stubborn guy. He knows the team's deficiencies and I have no doubt that he'll work to figure something out for this season. Even if it's only 7-8 wins this year, we start the roster churn and see what happens the next two years.

[Gidnik 3284]

23 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

He's obviously the greatest offensive Texas coach ever because we scored 48 points against OU. Attack it!

 

he scored 10 in the second half with 7 on the second to last drive of the game.  until that point against oklahoma he had less than 50 yards in offense the second half. 

he has proven in the last 2 weeks that he doesnt know how to finish.  we cant run out the clock and we lose. 

[RomaVicta 29949]

1 minute ago, Gidnik said:

he scored 10 in the second half with 7 on the second to last drive of the game.  until that point against oklahoma he had less than 50 yards in offense the second half. 

he has proven in the last 2 weeks that he doesnt know how to finish.  we cant run out the clock and we lose. 

The point was that you can't isolate a limited time in history (lifting it out of context) to prove a point. I don't actually believe Sark is the greatest offensive coach in Longhorn history. I was mirroring Xian's silly form of argument.

Our second half offense has been shit the last two weeks.

[theBlackJuanba 71]

To answer your question: no, he isn’t a fraud. Everyone outside of Bijan and Worthy are frauds though. Team is full of losers. 

[Longboard Horn 40397]

3 hours ago, theBlackJuanba said:

To answer your question: no, he isn’t a fraud. Everyone outside of Bijan and Worthy are frauds though. Team is full of losers. 

It's literally the same group of kids that got the Herman staff fired. 

[Nivek 16949]

3 hours ago, Longboard Horn said:

It's literally the same group of kids that got the Herman staff fired. 

Sark's mistake was hubris.   He didn't watch film and he brought in a RB (the one position we are good at) and thought he could fix the line with a little coaching.   Maybe reality has hit him in the face but he really needs to be more dynamic on offense.    Tom went away from what worked.  Sark doesn't adapt in game it seems.   At this point the pom squad would make for a better nO-line.   

 

[Guest Lobo]

Coach Shithead's PC starts in an hour.  We gotta get the usual thread going for it.  OSU is a good team, but our two straight second halves need some 'splainin

I like this guy but we're going 8-5 this season.  And that's an expensive 8-5 considering the payroll/G&A we're carrying.

[Js1 85449]

4 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Coach Shithead's PC starts in an hour.  We gotta get the usual thread going for it.  OSU is a good team, but our two straight second halves need some 'splainin

I like this guy but we're going 8-5 this season.  And that's an expensive 8-5 considering the payroll/G&A we're carrying.

No we fired Tom. 

[Eggo 3978]

11 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Coach Shithead's PC starts in an hour.  We gotta get the usual thread going for it.  OSU is a good team, but our two straight second halves need some 'splainin

I like this guy but we're going 8-5 this season.  And that's an expensive 8-5 considering the payroll/G&A we're carrying.

James Franklin went 7-6 in his first two seasons at PSU. Let's just relax a little.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Eggo

[ousux 5601]

Sark's mistake was hubris.   He didn't watch film and he brought in a RB (the one position we are good at) and thought he could fix the line with a little coaching.   Maybe reality has hit him in the face but he really needs to be more dynamic on offense.    Tom went away from what worked.  Sark doesn't adapt in game it seems.   At this point the pom squad would make for a better nO-line.   
 

Maybe Flood convinced him the pieces were there on the O-line, just needed coaching?

[ousux 5601]

James Franklin went 7-6 in his first two seasons at PSU. Let's just relax a little.

And now he's mentioned for every major program coaching job coming open..including ours before we made a hire. I'm trying to be patient with Sark, not throwing in the towel just yet.

[The Ace of Aces 5193]

20 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Coach Shithead's PC starts in an hour.  We gotta get the usual thread going for it.  OSU is a good team, but our two straight second halves need some 'splainin

I like this guy but we're going 8-5 this season.  And that's an expensive 8-5 considering the payroll/G&A we're carrying.

You think this team beats Baylor and a amped up/pissed off WVU team on the road? I wish I had your faith. I'm not sure they get to 7. K State is garbage but that's the last game and this team might very well be completely checked out. 

[PassiveAggressiveCoach 118]

16 minutes ago, Eggo said:

James Franklin went 7-6 in his first two seasons at PSU. Let's just relax a little.

Herman and strong sucked in their 1st yr too. Which analogy fits better?

[Guest Lobo]

17 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

You think this team beats Baylor and a amped up/pissed off WVU team on the road? I wish I had your faith. I'm not sure they get to 7. K State is garbage but that's the last game and this team might very well be completely checked out. 

We lose @ISU, @BAY.  Beat @WVU, KSU, and Kansas.  That's 7-5.  We win our bowl game which will be at best-Cheez It Bowl, at worst---the Liberty BOwl.  8-5.  

[Eggo 3978]

25 minutes ago, PassiveAggressiveCoach said:

Herman and strong sucked in their 1st yr too. Which analogy fits better?

If you go by W-L columns alone, you won't know until next year or the year after. If you look a little closer and realize we're winning games we should win (blowouts even), nearly winning games we shouldn't win (with Arky maybe being an exception), and recruiting is going well, I'd say we're doing okay. I've been caught with my pants down saying "We're on the right trajectory" in the past, but it will take scandal or a Kansas loss for me to jump off the Sark train until after Year 2. 

[dcar00 14317]

6 hours ago, Longboard Horn said:

It's literally the same group of kids that got the Herman staff fired. 

Herman got fired because he was a douchenozzle, a walking Human Resources violation and wasn't hired by CDC. the guy could have arguably won 10 games last year.

CDC was likely delighted he lost to ISU at home so that he had complete freedom to fire the guy.

at this point Sark is failing to meet expectations and looks very much Herman-like as it relates to the football part.  I'm hoping he doesn't go full Charlie but we'll see how he ends up.

We wasted massive growth opportunities playing walk on's on D for half the season.

[Nivek 16949]

Maybe Flood convinced him the pieces were there on the O-line, just needed coaching?

Then Flood is dumber than a bag of hammers. Multiple coaches, all whom were doing fine until they came here have failed with this group.

Those guys all know each other.

[Eggo 3978]

This is from NSD when asked about O-line. 

Quote

PROCESS OF EVALUATING O-LINEMEN WITH COACH KYLE FLOOD

Offensive line coach Kyle Flood (Photo: Courtesy of Alabama Athletics)

“There are real specific positions generally in football that I think are a lot easier to play early, to play as true freshmen. You see a lot more running backs or wide receivers, or you see corners, safeties, maybe a defensive end or defensive tackle — those guys have a tendency to play a little early.

“I think at the offensive line position — because of the body type, because of the maturity — we have to forecast a little bit more.

“You have to look down the road from a developmental standpoint. When you're starting five guys on the offensive line, very rarely are you starting two or three true freshmen on that offensive line at the start of the season. You may have one, you may have one that shows up halfway through the year, you may have one by the end of the year or you may have none. So you have to think down the road when you start looking at the offensive line position.

“How big are his hands? How long are his arms? Can he bend at the waist? Does he bend at the knees? What's his ankle flexion look like? Does he have power? Does he have room? Maybe he's a 275-pound kid coming out of high school, but his growth potentials 315 (pounds) or 320 (pounds). Maybe he's a 350-pound kid — can he lose the weight to get down to 320? So there are a lot of pieces to what is he going to look like a year from now, two years from now that help us shape the decision, and it's a delicate one.

“I think recruiting offensive line is a really delicate task because when you miss, it's hard and if you miss a few different times, now all of a sudden that room isn't looking the way you want it to look. I think Coach Flood’s the best in college football. I trust his eye. I have a pretty good idea of what I look for and then we put our ideas together and we start formulating that board and then going after the guys that we want.”

 

[BabaYaga 15302]

2 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Those guys all know each other.

I think there is a high level of over-estimation of these coaches biases that they can "fix" the problem.  They double down on this confirmation bias loop that spirals out of control.  

[Stunns38 3538]

Sark actually had a rare off-week presser today and much of the stuff we’re bitching about was addressed. Notably, saying that staying married to a scheme may have to change, or along those words. We shall see.

[PassiveAggressiveCoach 118]

What is even a fraud these days? We are all frauds in some way. Very deep philosophical question the OP has presented us with. Good work. It's a duality of man question.

[LTtxfan 49320]

 

[Eskimohorn 5642]

Ouch...
 

TOP is usually a worthless stat. But that is catastrophic.

[BurntOrange&White 39934]

Posting this here because it’s exactly why we struggle and our players are the way they are while Bama is the complete opposite.