2024 Texas Football Coaching and Support Staff Thread

[Texasrocks 2134]

1 hour ago, kevwun said:

It's mainly a talent problem right now.

Huh? Penix would have torched any secondary playing the way he and his receivers did last night. But the Texas secondary also got lit up by Donovan Smith, Will Howard, and Rocco Becht. It's a coaching problem.

[satyanash 14474]

Meh. Look at where 3-star Sweat and 4-star Murphy are now after two years of Bo Davis' coaching. Compared with where 4-star Crawford and 4-star Thompson are after two years of Gideon's coaching. Gary Patterson helped paper over a lot of our deficiencies in the secondary, but now he's gone. We saw this with Herman's lousy position coaching hires; when the underclassmen (see Derek Williams) are the best players at a position while the upperclassmen are not improving it's a sign of mediocre coaching.

It isn't just Penix. We were 113th in the country in passing defense for a reason.

[kevwun 15764]

32 minutes ago, Texasrocks said:

Huh? Penix would have torched any secondary playing the way he and his receivers did last night. But the Texas secondary also got lit up by Donovan Smith, Will Howard, and Rocco Becht. It's a coaching problem.

Most of the defensive backs aren't fast enough to cover well.  Any receiver with decent speed gives them problems.

[tokamak 6392]

43 minutes ago, satyanash said:

Meh. Look at where 3-star Sweat and 4-star Murphy are now after two years of Bo Davis' coaching. Compared with where 4-star Crawford and 4-star Thompson are after two years of Gideon's coaching. Gary Patterson helped paper over a lot of our deficiencies in the secondary, but now he's gone. We saw this with Herman's lousy position coaching hires; when the underclassmen (see Derek Williams) are the best players at a position while the upperclassmen are not improving it's a sign of mediocre coaching.

It isn't just Penix. We were 113th in the country in passing defense for a reason.

I agree. Setting aside Penix, it feels to me like guys like Brooks and Watts have stagnated this year.

[Tex-19 2872]

Gotta agree with a lot of what both sides are saying here. The secondary needs more speed and the lack of development at safety is concerning. At the same time, Penix dropped multiple perfect balls into good coverage last night (that's what she said lol).

Brooks and Watts in particular seem like good corners but struggle to keep up on deep balls. Although again, they were right there on a few last night that were just perfect throws/catches. Not much you can do on some of those. 

No doubt the safeties are slow other than Williams. Need more speed there for sure.

[Hookem2147 21195]

2 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I think there was only 3 plays it really played poorly. 
 

the long 77 yard pass

the Brooks pi

 the touchdown that split the safeties

 

 

The Brooks PI probably saved a long completion and the drive resulted in a punt. No harm in taking the 15 yards to prevent a 50 yard completion in the college game.

[Vertigo 20276]

2 hours ago, kevwun said:

Yeah, when someone is throwing perfect darts 30 or 40 yards down the field, there's nothing you can do.  There are no magic defensive calls that would have stopped that.  It's a 6th year 1st round qb behind a good line throwing to multiple NFL receivers.  They would have done the same thing to just about every other team last night.  Michigan may be good enough defensively to make him uncomfortable and they are going to running all over the Washington defense.

Combination of both. The issue is primarily an overall lack of speed in the secondary. Our safeties outside of Williams are all slow as molasses, and our DBs are slow relatively speaking. Watts and Brooks got cooked off the line more times than I can count. They actually did a better job of making up the ground and being in a good position than I figured they would, but players with their back to the ball when it is in the air drives me absolutely insane. I hate that technique with a passion. Brooks flat out ran over a guy when he had time to turn his head and make a play on a ball. Watts had three balls go right by his earhole that all could have been batted down or intercepted. Penix was throwing some absolutely sick balls, and tip of the hat to him for hitting those insanely small windows, but he also left air under the ball and time for our guys to make plays and our techniques on the ball killed us. 

[Zhorn96 1773]

2 hours ago, SimkinsMan said:

It's a talent issue, and you also have to hand it to Penix and his receivers. They were lights out last night. I'm not sure I've ever seen so many wickedly good downfield passes along the sideline. 

Penix has been doin that all year.  With that OL and those WRs, that is an offense almost impossible to stop unless you find a way to get pressure early.  Once Penix gets into a rhythm...shrug 

[satyanash 14474]

Crawford ran a 10.5 m 100 in high school. His problem isn't speed, it's that he's a headless chicken with no idea what he's doing on the back end. This despite the fact that he's a senior with 23 games under his belt and two years of coaching from Gideon. Compare his trajectory with that of Sweat/Murphy in the same timeframe under Bo Davis, and you start to see the problems. We could have really used his speed last night, but because he has no idea what he's doing in match quarters we had to roll with Taaffe and Thompson on the back end and watch them get roasted.

From a 2021 interview with Washington's radio guy shortly after we hired PK:

On 1/27/2021 at 11:37 AM, Bodacious Bevo said:

We really need Gideon to be a good coach. PK asks a lot of his safeties. It's a talented group but we're replacing a ton of snaps with Sterns and Brown leaving. Ironically I think Sterns would have been a great fit for this defense. Gideon probably has the toughest and most important job of any defensive assistant.

[utexas8 1436]

Doesn’t go here but who comes back next year.

Ewers for sure
Sanders?
Brooks?
AD- I doubt it
Worthy gone

Murphy gone
Collins gone

Hopefully blue stays he played great last night minus the fumble. The RB room is going to be crowded. Especially if brooks comes back.

[Longhornlove 4809]

People keep roasting Taaffe is comical. He has been our most reliable safety all year. 

[crash_davis 23101]

24 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

Combination of both. The issue is primarily an overall lack of speed in the secondary. Our safeties outside of Williams are all slow as molasses, and our DBs are slow relatively speaking. Watts and Brooks got cooked off the line more times than I can count. They actually did a better job of making up the ground and being in a good position than I figured they would, but players with their back to the ball when it is in the air drives me absolutely insane. I hate that technique with a passion. Brooks flat out ran over a guy when he had time to turn his head and make a play on a ball. Watts had three balls go right by his earhole that all could have been batted down or intercepted. Penix was throwing some absolutely sick balls, and tip of the hat to him for hitting those insanely small windows, but he also left air under the ball and time for our guys to make plays and our techniques on the ball killed us. 

Watts had really good coverage on those passes. Not much you can do as DB when the QB is dropping dimes. There's a reason why Penix was the Heisman runner up. He prob should have won it. There's a reason why Odunze is the best or second best receiver in college football. Yes our secondary D sucked but last night Penix would have made prob all college secondaries suck. We'll see if Michigan can fare any better. 

[ClubWhatever 12120]

I think the championship game will be pretty eye-opening as far as what a good, well coached secondary can do against Penix and these receivers.

[Danimal 339]

6 minutes ago, Longhornlove said:

People keep roasting Taaffe is comical. He has been our most reliable safety all year. 

That 3 and 8 late in the game where he gave the receiver all the room in the world was incredible. We needed a stop badly, and he didn't make any kind of a movement that resembled good defense.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10229]

10 minutes ago, Longhornlove said:

People keep roasting Taaffe is comical. He has been our most reliable safety all year. 

I would agree, but I think we have forgotten what good safety play looks like.

[Red Five 40845]

13 minutes ago, Longhornlove said:

People keep roasting Taaffe is comical. He has been our most reliable safety all year. 

This is the problem. Michael Taaffe, god bless him, should not be our best safety. 

[Longhornlove 4809]

4 minutes ago, Danimal said:

That 3 and 8 late in the game where he gave the receiver all the room in the world was incredible. We needed a stop badly, and he didn't make any kind of a movement that resembled good defense.

The defensive play call had more to do with that than the player.............Regardless, that doesn't change what I said.

Just now, Red Five said:

This is the problem. Michael Taaffe, god bless him, should not be our best safety. 

Help is on the way.

[BurntOrange&White 39930]

45 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

The Brooks PI probably saved a long completion and the drive resulted in a punt. No harm in taking the 15 yards to prevent a 50 yard completion in the college game.

Exactly. 

[Levi 2585]

7 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

I think the championship game will be pretty eye-opening as far as what a good, well coached secondary can do against Penix and these receivers.

I agree to certain extent. If Penix plays to the same level he did against us, then there’s nothing Michigans secondary can do. The amount of talent Penix and receiving core has is at times unbeatable. Luckily for Michigan I don’t think what we saw in the Washington passing game is replicable. 

[ClubWhatever 12120]

54 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

The Brooks PI probably saved a long completion and the drive resulted in a punt. No harm in taking the 15 yards to prevent a 50 yard completion in the college game.

The point is he was beaten badly by sluggo or stutter and go or whatever it was.   It's been a recurring problem for him.   He recovered and made the correct play but overall the play was poor.

[SarkAfterDark 1688]

We had good coverage last night on the majority of the deep balls, the issue is our DBs are always chasing the WR and not looking for the ball. Watts had the ball go right by him a few times last night in instances where if he just turned his head and looked for the ball he could have made a play on it. I agree with those that are not a fan of that technique. Not sure if that is how it's being taught or our players just don't have the confidence. Manny seems like the only CB we have with that skill.

[BurntOrange&White 39930]

19 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

The point is he was beaten badly by sluggo or stutter and go or whatever it was.   It's been a recurring problem for him.   He recovered and made the correct play but overall the play was poor.

I think it was a coverage bust that wasn't on Brooks....he just tried to recover. I'd have to see the play again.

[USMCHorn 1369]

Two of our top DBs (Muhammad and D. Williams) are true freshmen. We cannot win a championship like that. The good news is the incoming class of DBs are good in coverage. Like we did with Michael Huff, you can teach physicality, but you cannot teach natural coverage ability.

[NoName 16351]

2 hours ago, satyanash said:

 We were 113th in the country in passing defense for a reason.

god, of course you use something that is totally and completely useless like total passing yards given up as an example of coaches being shitty.

yes, Texas is 113th in the country in passing yards given up per game. they have also faced the 3rd most passing attempts of all teams in the country - 63 behind Washington and 4 behind Liberty so of course they are going to give up a ton of passing yards. they face way more attempts!

yes, there are plenty of reasons to get after the DB coaches but use real reasons not lame ones like this.

Texas has faced something like the 11th fewest rushing attempts in the country. using your logic, maybe that is why Bo Davis looks so good - right? Texas for example faced 65 fewer rushing attempts than OU did. using your logic, the rush defense wasn't that good - they just faced fewer attempts than 120+ other teams, so their YPG given up was lower than most teams.

Edited January 2 by NoName

[NoName 16351]

1 hour ago, Danimal said:

That 3 and 8 late in the game where he gave the receiver all the room in the world was incredible. We needed a stop badly, and he didn't make any kind of a movement that resembled good defense.

that's a scheme issue magnified by a player (talent) issue.

the scheme had him playing that far off, and that was the mistake. then he magnified it by his slowness compared to the guy he was up against.

[Burt Macklin 19020]

2 hours ago, tokamak said:

I agree. Setting aside Penix, it feels to me like guys like Brooks and Watts have stagnated this year.

Watts is what he is at this point. He has improved and developed since he got to Texas, but he’s more of a safety than a CB. He’s got inherent agility/quickness limitations that really show themselves against future NFL WRs. The coaches did a good job of making him work at boundary CB the last two years.  He’s not a point against our DB coaching. 

1 hour ago, satyanash said:

Crawford ran a 10.5 m 100 in high school. His problem isn't speed, it's that he's a headless chicken with no idea what he's doing on the back end. This despite the fact that he's a senior with 23 games under his belt and two years of coaching from Gideon. Compare his trajectory with that of Sweat/Murphy in the same timeframe under Bo Davis, and you start to see the problems. We could have really used his speed last night, but because he has no idea what he's doing in match quarters we had to roll with Taaffe and Thompson on the back end and watch them get roasted.

From a 2021 interview with Washington's radio guy shortly after we hired PK:

I’m not convinced anybody could develop Crawford. He probably just doesn’t have it mentally to be a good DB. 
 

With that said, CB and S coaches are definitely the weak spot on the coaching staff, and I’d like to see at least one fo them replaced. I doubt that happens. The silver lining is we’re bringing in enough talent this year to remove the talent excuse and know for sure whether Gideon or Joseph  can develop/coach their positions. My expectation is they can’t, but hopefully at least one of them will surprise us next year. 

[Burt Macklin 19020]

30 minutes ago, USMCHorn said:

Two of our top DBs (Muhammad and D. Williams) are true freshmen. We cannot win a championship like that. The good news is the incoming class of DBs are good in coverage. Like we did with Michael Huff, you can teach physicality, but you cannot teach natural coverage ability.

People were also saying Brooks might be our best CB at this time last year, so Muhammad and Williams’ progress will be a key point to watch next year.
 

Charlie and Tom both had very talented true freshman DBs flash and then they regressed the next year. Williams and Muhammad have to keep improving for our secondary to have a chance. 

[caliHORNia 44]

10 hours ago, Hank_Hill said:

When was the last time we had a well coached secondary? I don’t think I’ve seen a DB turn around in 10 years

This

[HenryJames 66038]

Teaching a DB to turn and look for the ball is easier said than done.

[Fico 1778]

And nobody coaches it…. Unless you are in a controlling position, ie on top of the receiver, or at the very least, truly even is the only time you look and not a moment before.

You can not run fast with your head turned backwards.

There are more issues with our guys getting confused by shift/alignment and not getting lined up than “man coverage” technique.

Its a tiresome trope at this point.

Edited January 2 by Fico

[tokamak 6392]

It looks like NFL corners do turn and look at the ball most of the time (at least in highlight reel plays), but not necessarily always. In the first half of this video there are plays by both Sauce Gardner (0:08) and Trevon Diggs (2:12) where they never turn.

One thing I learned from a little YouTube film study is that top NFL corners are incredibly handsy. Especially Gardner. They are pushing boundaries on basically every play.

Edited January 2 by tokamak

[Fico 1778]

You also are not allowed to face guard in the NFL and you are in college. It’s a different game, with different rules and different technique's. 
 

Physicality at the line depends on scheme and individual physical ability (strength / recover speed). 
 

We were playing 3 NFL receivers with an NFL QB who was extremely hot - I mean some of the passes Penix was dropping in were incredible. There was not much more we could do there. Penix’s mobility in the pocket was fantastic and if a couple of our pressures landed or if MM didn’t cut hit fingernails things might have gone a different way. 
 

Edited January 2 by Fico

[Atticus 3973]

4 hours ago, satyanash said:

Meh. Look at where 3-star Sweat and 4-star Murphy are now after two years of Bo Davis' coaching. Compared with where 4-star Crawford and 4-star Thompson are after two years of Gideon's coaching. Gary Patterson helped paper over a lot of our deficiencies in the secondary, but now he's gone. We saw this with Herman's lousy position coaching hires; when the underclassmen (see Derek Williams) are the best players at a position while the upperclassmen are not improving it's a sign of mediocre coaching.

It isn't just Penix. We were 113th in the country in passing defense for a reason.

People are not of the same talent level just because they are both rated 3-star or 4-star. You are giving the recruiting services way too much credit.

Sweat is very talented, but his body and mentality transformed during college and that has helped him really start being impactful on a more regular basis.

Murphy is a bulldog with less than ideal physical traits for his position. He wins with leverage, big time strength, some quickness, and sheer determination.

Safety is a mental position and Thompson would need to be clairvoyant to be impactful with his athletic profile.

Crawford plays dazed and confused out there. He's fast, but tight and plays even slower due to his Pentium III processing speed. 

 

But, they're all horns and each one made big plays that contributed to this amazing season. I wish them all the best in their lives and careers going forward.

[Burt Macklin 19020]

1 hour ago, Fico said:

And nobody coaches it…. Unless you are in a controlling position, ie on top of the receiver, or at the very least, truly even is the only time you look and not a moment before.

You can not run fast with your head turned backwards.

There are more issues with our guys getting confused by shift/alignment and not getting lined up than “man coverage” technique.

Its a tiresome trope at this point.

Yep. There were a good number of plays where Brooks or Watts were in decent position, but they were trailing. You can’t look back while trailing, and asking them to be in a position to look back while 1 on 1 with UW’s receivers would be completely unrealistic. Playing Quarters, especially at the college level, means your DBs won’t be able to turn and find the ball very often, because they don’t have safety help over the top. 

Penix made perfect throw after perfect throw to NFL WRs. Not much we could do about that part. 
 

Like you said, the real issue was coverage/alignment busts or getting beat by Grubbs before the snap. 

[NorLa Horns 1458]

9 hours ago, NoName said:

god, of course you use something that is totally and completely useless like total passing yards given up as an example of coaches being shitty.

yes, Texas is 113th in the country in passing yards given up per game. they have also faced the 3rd most passing attempts of all teams in the country - 63 behind Washington and 4 behind Liberty so of course they are going to give up a ton of passing yards. they face way more attempts!

yes, there are plenty of reasons to get after the DB coaches but use real reasons not lame ones like this.

Texas has faced something like the 11th fewest rushing attempts in the country. using your logic, maybe that is why Bo Davis looks so good - right? Texas for example faced 65 fewer rushing attempts than OU did. using your logic, the rush defense wasn't that good - they just faced fewer attempts than 120+ other teams, so their YPG given up was lower than most teams.

Geez. Its almost like teams with bad pass defense get thrown on more. 

And teams with good run defense don't get run on as much. 

Crazy!

[pacman 7355]

8 hours ago, Fico said:

 

There are more issues with our guys getting confused by shift/alignment and not getting lined up than “man coverage” technique.

 

Amen

 

 

[HtownHorn 14668]

14 hours ago, Texasrocks said:

Huh? Penix would have torched any secondary playing the way he and his receivers did last night. But the Texas secondary also got lit up by Donovan Smith, Will Howard, and Rocco Becht. It's a coaching problem.

Everyone claimed it was a coaching problem in year one as well, when it turned out to be our players were just shitty. Gideon may not be a good coach and may not match what Kwiatkowski wants from the secondary, but the talent in the safety room is one of the lowest on the team overall.

[TheMailBox357 213]

22 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

It’s time to cut bait on Joseph and Gideon.  Secondary needs better players, better fundamentals and frankly a better connection to the front 7. 

Honestly I'd be fine with bringing back Duane Akina as DB coach the way Rod Babers always talks him up.

[Huckleberry 32848]

11 hours ago, Fico said:

You can not run fast with your head turned backwards.

The receivers they're covering seem to do it okay. 

[Mother mopar 3318]

Honestly I'd be fine with bringing back Duane Akina as DB coach the way Rod Babers always talks him up.

No, just no. There are better DB coaches nowadays.

[SydneyCarton 48056]

5 hours ago, TheMailBox357 said:

Honestly I'd be fine with bringing back Duane Akina as DB coach the way Rod Babers always talks him up.

I’m shocked a fat lazy sloth who’s bad at his job and thinks of himself as a glorified radio personality would defer to the opinions of a glorified radio personality on the subject of who the coaching staff should hire. 
 

why the fuck do you post here, you worthless piece of shit? Go steal content from elsewhere. It’s obvious you’ll suck it on from any fucking source. 

[WBT 20561]

17 hours ago, Fico said:

And nobody coaches it…. Unless you are in a controlling position, ie on top of the receiver, or at the very least, truly even is the only time you look and not a moment before.

You can not run fast with your head turned backwards.

There are more issues with our guys getting confused by shift/alignment and not getting lined up than “man coverage” technique.

Its a tiresome trope at this point.

Thank you.

It is not a "technique" problem.  It is running top speed trying to catch up after you're beat.

Edited January 3 by WBT

[Gut Wagon 8065]

19 hours ago, Levi said:

I agree to certain extent. If Penix plays to the same level he did against us, then there’s nothing Michigans secondary can do. The amount of talent Penix and receiving core has is at times unbeatable. Luckily for Michigan I don’t think what we saw in the Washington passing game is replicable. 

In retrospect, what puzzles me is how a team with Washington's QB, WR, OL, OC and DL found itself having to win so many nail biters this year. 

[BurntOrange&White 39930]

I'm re-watching the OTF Live from last night and Bobby said that he has heard that Nansen has been offered the job. 

[Tex-19 2872]

Has LSU hired a DL coach yet? If not, makes me a little nervous about Bo

[Levi 2585]

3 hours ago, Gut Wagon said:

In retrospect, what puzzles me is how a team with Washington's QB, WR, OL, OC and DL found itself having to win so many nail biters this year. 

I believe they were dealing with some injuries and close games are a part of the game. Outside of Michigan, all playoff teams had close games. Ultimately Monday night came down to Penix playing the best game of his life. It was also his highest PFF grade of the year. 

[kevwun 15764]

They also limit possessions because they run so much clock to protect their secondary.  If they played at normal pace, they would have scored a lot more points and also given up more.

[BornAndRaised 12281]

26 minutes ago, Tex-19 said:

Has LSU hired a DL coach yet? If not, makes me a little nervous about Bo

I think someone said earlier in the season the entire staff is in line for raises. I'm sure it's just a bargaining chip. Flood and Bo are worth their weight in gold. I can't see money being the issue there.

[BurntOrange&White 39930]

 

 

 

[Tex-19 2872]

1 minute ago, BornAndRaised said:

I think someone said earlier in the season the entire staff is in line for raises. I'm sure it's just a bargaining chip. Flood and Bo are worth their weight in gold. I can't see money being the issue there.

He played at LSU. Doesn't have to be about money