Now I’m depending on you and the rest of BON’s talented writers to carry me through the offseason.

“Small Game Stoops” ‘cause if we’re honest nobody is as good at him at running up the score to 60 against joke opponents…

Along the lines of “Take Dead Aim” “Just do what you do” and " Consistently Good to be Great".

Next year’s theme needs to be “Leave No Doubt”. To hell with 10 wins. Screw the Big 12. Leave no doubt who the best team in the land is. Mack needs to let this team know that anything less than undefeated is unacceptable. Leave no room for the Sooners or Red Raiders, leave no opportunity to be screwed out of what is rightfully ours. Leave the polls no wiggle room. Next year we need to line ’em up and destroy everyone.

Really hope he stays because he is more than a good enough recruiter and coach to keep the Sooners a dominant superpower which consistently looses to Texas and in BCS games. And thats the way I like them because its a lot more fun being Texas when you have a chance to pound a glmarous but utlimately not good enough team than some 8-10 10-20 ranked mediocraty.

I know it doesn’t matter, but I still bristled at the final poll with two teams leaping ahead of us.

I know this rehashes a lot of similar points that have already been made, but all of this talk about Texas’ win in the Fiesta Bowl being “unimpressive” exemplifies exactly what is wrong with the BCS. It’s no longer enough to win, or to show moxie or resiliency in battling back or slugging it out in a tough game with a tough opponent, or trading scores between two great offenses.

It’s all about “style points” now. And college football has become no better than figure skating or gymnastics in terms of basing everything on someone’s subjectivity.

Congrats to Florida. They are a deserving “national champion.” But there were three other teams that had a case to be playing them last night. And any of those three teams could have easily won. I don’t see how anybody watching that game last night could unequivocally state that those were the best two teams in the country.

to show how good they were not because of their play but because of circumstances. The one loss was later in season and it happened on a highly rated national broadcast compared to USC, OU and Florida. Florida and USC were humiliated but it was early enough in the season and did not have the huge national audience.
I think that Texas has a slightly better defense than OU and having a QB in McCoy that is slightly more efficient than Bradford which would be the difference if the horns played Florida. A few more stops by a slightly better defense means less consistent drives by Florida and less scores and slightly better execution on offense means more consistent scoring drives and a higher score.

The point of saying that is Texas was good enough to be the National Champion this season. They could of achieved that with out a strong running game. You don’t need a strong running game if your passing game is consistent. Last night Florida won because even though they had a less consistent passing game ( 60% tebow 63% bradford) The florida running game was better. The reason the Texas-Ohio St. was so close was McCoy was only was only 69% with a running game producing only 72 yards.
Ohio St. had 203 yards rushing but the combined pass percentage was only 40% so they needed a good rushing game to make up for a inconsistent passing game.
With McCoy at QB playing at the level he did this season there is less need of a running game. If Texas had a real threat at tight end the need to run would have been even less.

Texas was covering new ground as far as College football fundamentals go. When your passer can compete over 70% of his passes the need for a running game diminishes. The main factor that determines the effectiveness of the offense next year will be McCoy. His play over came the other deficits on the offense and what ever happens with the offense next season if he plays like he did this year the Horns will be a top five team.

This point about McCoy’s play over coming the other deficits of the offense was the reason he should have won the heisman trophy. Bradford is a great QB but the reason OU was so potent had less to do with Bradford than the other talent they had on Offense

Here in Houston, they brought up the point of “should Texas have been in this game instead.” I think they settled on yes. That doesn’t matter. What got to me was the when they were comparing UT and OU and they came to defense. The comment was something like:
“Well, the Ds are about the same. I’d probably give the edge to OU.”

I hear this EVERYWHERE. Did they watch the Fing games? Do they not realize that OU gave up 23.8 points per game? Texas only gave up 18.8. That is 5 less ppg. When you look at the 6 common opponents for a stronger correlation, OU gave up 4.7 more points per game.

How the heck can you say they have the better D?!?!?! STUPIDITY! My blood pressure is too high…

1. Offensive line. Run-blocking is only half the story. The Texas offense does not TRUST the line, and hence Colt doesn’t even look down the field much because he doesn’t believe he will have the time to wait for the receiver to break on a double move, post, or other deep pattern. The Horns have a growing, not shrinking, problem at offensive guard and center. Weakness in the middle led to major problems against OKlahoma State, Texas Tech (the OL made Colby Whitfield a star), and Ohio State, not to mention the gradual dissolution of the running game as the season progressed. Tanner may be the strongest person on the line, but he still struggles in figuring out who to block in both pass protection and run-blocking. I hope David Snow beats him out next year. Who will replace Cedric Dockery, who underachieved in 2008? Michael Huey was not ready this year. Adam Ulatoski needs to get his elbow fixed – this year after he injured it again (dislocated same elbow in 2007), his performance dropped off considerably.

2.Tight End As has been posted before, the Horns need desperately to find a tight end. Some of the worst plays Texas’ offense made this year (Colt getting a new mouth at Tech, for example, because Greg Smith whiffed in blocking McKinner Dixon) could be attributed to poor play at TE. Greg Smith and Peter Ullman could neither run-block, get open, nor catch passes. Irby is not likely to be ready, and Marshall is an unknown proposition. Texas cannot get away with running 4 wide receivers every play, because there’s no one to seal the DE on sweeps or counter running plays, which further reduces Texas’ versatility, increases their offensive predictability, and improves the chance that Colt will get sent to an alternative universe by a blitzing linebacker. Furthermore, Texas got into trouble against Texas Tech because Shipley and Cosby were too beaten up from catching 5-7 yard passes in front of linebackers the previous 3 games. Finally, a TE is necessary for an occasional max protect scheme when the Horns want to try a deep pass, especially off play action. It was no accident that several deep passes to Limas Sweed in 2006 came on plays with two tight ends in the game.

3.Linebackers Even if Sergio Kindle returns, this is a position with major questions. Oklahoma State, Baylor, and Ohio State embarassed our linebackers by going with two tight ends (or one great one in Pettigrew for OSU) and forcing the LB’s to read plays while getting off blocks. Muschamp’s defense is built on the concept of linemen slanting into gaps to incrfease disruption, but this depends heavily on the LB’s to fill the gaps left behind. Norton and Muckelroy can get off blocks, but they often take the wrong side, leaving them to make arm tackles or just simply out of the play. Something (injury?) happened to Muckelroy during the Tech game – he was a shadow of himself after that and in the Fiesta Bowl. We’ve thankfully seen the last of Bobino, and Keenan Robinson must step up and Kindle must become a complete linebacker. The Horns’ defense is designed to stop the spread, but the universal Law of Trade-offs (you can’t be great at everything) means that the defense is vulnerable to power running.

The 2009 team will have amazing speed and skill in the passing game and in the secondary and at DE, but without improvement on the OL, at TE, and among the LB’s, this team has a real risk of becoming “soft” in 2009. This will rear its head in the RRS and against Oklahoma State in Stillwater. If the Horns survive those, they may rear again against USC or Florida.

McCoy would have found a way to be there in the end and win this game. Even against Tech he made it happen, just that we lost it on defense when we gave them too much time to come back again. They did it against OU and they did it against Ohio St. I just don’t see why they wouldn’t have done it against UF. Tebow is more like McCoy in that sense so I think it definitely would have been a “whoever has the ball last” type of scenario.

he does a lot better when the outcome is determined by voting…

Will Rogers never met Barry Switzer. Fox never has been my favorite network (can we see a replay before the commercials?), but I can’t stand Switzer as a commentator. Especially after OU jumped us in the polls late in the season. Talk about being biased. Last night he kept referring to OU as ‘us’. Not very professional, Fox. At least we didn’t have to see that ridiculous “cat just ate the bird” grin of his.

Here’s what I think about the top talent in the Big 12 and their future.

Crabtree leaves. If he stays he’s an idiot. He’s an amazing WR (amazing might be an understatement) but he’s losing his QB. I’d say he’s accomplished more than enough in the college game. He’s gonna be at best the 2nd pick in the draft and no worse than the 10th.
Maclin is a redshirt soph I think and he said if doesn’t get a first round grade he’s staying. Pretty smart. But with Chase Daniel graduating, if he comes back next year he probably won’t have that great a year receiving next season.
After the national title game I think Gresham leaves. He scored both OU TDs and he was just uncoverable. I think he’s a first rounder. And with Gresham leaving I think Bradford leaves as well. He’s losing most (all?) of his receiving threats and most (all?) of his OL so if he comes back he’ll probably not put up the gaudy stats he put up this year.

While Florida is the “BCS champ” I’m not convinced that they are the best. If that bad OU defense who gave up 35 and 41 to UT and OSU, respectively, then I think USC’s great defense would be able to shut down Florida. Don’t say that they gave up 24 to Penn St because like everybody in LA they were looking to beat traffic at half time. I though USC would win in a playoff. But since we don’t have a playoff and the whole thing is based on “resume ranking” then my vote goes to Utah. They went undefeated and had the same resume as Florida.