After some years spent listening to, and reading comments by, Mack Brown, I’ve reached the conclusion that the man answers very few questions completely. Oh, I like him. I'm glad we have him. But on questions, he usually holds something back. On occasion he's intentionally misleading. Now, if he chooses to answer a question, what you get is 100 percent accurate. And he won't lie to you. Most of the time, though, he dodges the tough ones and even skirts some of the easy ones. Worse, those who ask the questions either don’t know enough – or aren’t confident enough – to ask the tough questions.

Which brings us to today’s news conference. Last question of same. The one dealing with the offensive line and its performance. I listened live this morning and read the transcript some hours later. I still haven’t figured out what he was talking about. Selected comments from Coach Brown follow the jump:

I can’t go into that here. It is too long, too big. Well, that tells us a lot. A major reason a room full of reporters was “here” is because that’s what they – and their listeners and readers – wanted to know. Either duck the question entirely, or don’t insult our intelligence. Next.

Probably, when you look at it, Chris Hall played really sore . . . didn’t get to practice at all during the week off. . . It really hurt Michael Huey, who’s had a bad ankle and been playing with it all year, so David Snow’s been playing both places. “Got that, guys? No? That’s what I was hoping.” Best I can figure, two players tried to go who shouldn’t have which means their timing is better than if they’d sat, and their ailments are hopefully no worse. Great. Also hard to argue. After an open date, timing matters, and if the players had sat out a second week, the early offensive possessions against OU would almost certainly be lousy. (Come to think of it, that’s been in the game plan anyway.) Continuing.

Protection’s been great, but running has been inconsistent. Our numbers look good, but our numbers haven’t been good. (Pause. Please reread the second sentence. Think about it. No, don’t.) Didn’t John Kerry bury his Presidential hopes with a comment like, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” Thanks, Mack. The numbers look good, but they aren’t good. I guess that means you can play bad and run up decent stats if you schedule enough ULMs and UTEPs. How’d you miss SMU? As to the "protection, great – running inconsistent,” I think we all concur. Of course, when you’re inconsistent against Sun Belt and C-USA foes, and those that allow 54 to Toledo, you’re probably looking at disastrous when OU is defending the run. (Suggestion: Knock back one of two before wading into the next one one)

So sometimes, we just think we are going to run up and down the field because we do all the time, we score a bunch of points and when you don’t, you’re in shock. We ran four or five different runs Saturday. We didn’t do much at all and should have done more. Yes. No. No. I’m not sure. Yes. I think so. What was the question again? (Match these answers to Mack’s comments as suits your fancy; I’m pretty sure he won’t hold you to your responses.) And, finally:

 . . . you line up, you try to figure out how to run it better, and whoever you’ve got, you put in there and you have to run it better. Thanks, Coach. That pretty well clears this up. You gonna bust Chris Whaley’s redshirt on Saturday?