That’s, um… pretty extensive. Nice job PB.

but the screen shot links didn’t make it in. I think you also forgot Chykie’s 0.5 for his blown coverage. With that out of the way - personally, I blame that play on Chykie because I’m pretty sure he was supposed to be in man — Earl Thomas came up on the slot man, while Aaron Williams was the deep safety on the play, but aligned on the other side of the field out of position to help Chykie. There’s no way he could have safety help unless the scheme just left the slot receiver uncovered, which wouldn’t make sense. It could be that he was supposed to be more in the middle of the field, but I don’t know of any zone coverages that ask a safety to defend the whole deep section of the field. I would also give Blake Gideon a pressure -1 on this play because he took a poor angle to the quarterback and should have been in Johnson’s face as he threw the ball. Maybe that wouldn’t have been enough to force an incompletion, but the way that blitz is designed, he has to get there before a deep pass can be thrown.

Couple other thoughts I’ve been saving this week:

1. I believe Muschamp when he said that he put too much on the team this week. The early practices might not have a been a great idea given the tired legs a lot of players seemed to have in this game. In addition, the third play was a look the Longhorns haven’t shown this season and one that Muschamp apparently tried to install in a short week. The touchdown pass to Fuller had Cu. Brown playing a safety position, something I don’t think he has done this year. Too much new information, too little time.

2. Relatedly, Texas played a lot of zone and showed quite a few times that they just aren’t comfortable in it, either for a lack of pure repetitions or because the coaches don’t teach it well. Considering the general inability to play zone over the years, I’m inclined to put this on the coaches. That could be a major problem if the Longhorns get past Nebraska and end up playing Florida, where they might be forced to play a lot of zone to keep Tebow contained. Hopefully a month of preparation can help fix some of those problems.

3. Missing Aaron Williams really hurt. On the touchdown pass to Fuller in the second half, he had good not great coverage and normally would have been able to elevate and have a play on the ball. Instead, the well-placed pass made it over his head. Williams not being able to play for long stretches also put Brewster back with Gideon, not a great group at safety. Had Williams been healthy, it wouldn’t have stopped all the problems in this game from happening, but it might have been worth a defensive stop or two.

4. As you posted your comment above, I was just getting ready to make a similar point to your last — Brewster is a huge downgrade from Earl Thomas and doesn’t have the speed to close on the football the same way ET does. Not making a play on the ball on the touchdown pass is absolutely inexcusable. Sell out for it. Interfere with it. Do something other than impotently tackling the dude in the end zone. Just terrible. Be aggressive, dude.

5. Teams have had some success isolating the linebackers in coverage, particularly Keenan Robinson. Not a good sign against someone like Aaron Hernandez. Really, the best thing that Robinson has done in coverage this year is repeatedly knock receivers down — that’s pretty much his only play most of the time. Hard to say how to fix such a major problem. Williams being out only exacerbated this problem, as Muschamp tried to use linebackers on Tannehill and Fuller at times. Didn’t work well for the Longhorns.

6. Sergio Kindle tackled extremely poorly in space in this game. Not sure if it was just the short week or something of a fluke, but I can’t recall him getting juked that many times in his whole career. Strange.

7. Muckelroy looked slow in this game as well and made a lot of tackles, but many of them were after pretty big gains by A&M. One of his worst games as a Longhorn.

8. The lack of pressure on Johnson was disturbing, particularly since it happened the week before against Kansas as well. Even if a lot of it was because the ends were trying to contain Johnson, they didn’t do that particularly well at times and the defensive tackles still didn’t do a consistently good job of getting pressure. The lack of depth at the position may have hurt, as Muschamp didn’t have anyone else to go to besides a few snaps for Alexander. Muschamp mentioned after the game that he probably should have substituted a bit more, but he really didn’t have much choice inside except to ride Houston and Randall as far as they could take him.

9. Overall, a poor job by Muschamp, his first poor effort as a coordinator. He made a major miscalculation by trying to play so much zone when his team wasn’t ready for it. The pressure he tried to bring didn’t get there, causing him to abandon it almost entirely — earlier games this year showed that Johnson could get flustered and out of rhythm with pressure in his face. It never really happened in this game and I’m not convinced that selling out with more blitzes would have worked, but it’s his job to find those answers and he didn’t. I imagine he was as upset with himself as he was with the players after the game and I bet he didn’t sleep much this weekend. Does it mean that the honeymoon is over with Muschamp or that this game exposed some flaws in his philosophy or playcalling? No, but it was certainly unexpected.

10. PB, you raised the question about whether or not this defense got exposed in this game. I think to some degree it might have considering, as you mentioned, the poor quarterback play the Longhorns faced this season. That being said, Texas can still win a national championship by beating Zac Lee, who is terrible, and then possibly Greg McElroy, who isn’t as good as a quarterback like Zac Robinson the Longhorns contained, or Tim Tebow, who can be indecisive and inaccurate if you can take away his first read and keep him in the pocket. In other words, even if A&M did expose the Longhorns, I’m not convinced that Florida provides a greater challenge given the amount of time to rest and prepare for them. Once again, if the Longhorns get past Nebraska.

11. How in the #$%#$ did Aaron Williams not make the All-Big 12 first or second team? Those awards are stupid as shit anyway, but that’s an f’ing travesty. When he’s healthy, the dude has to pray for quarterbacks to try to complete a pass against him. He didn’t give up more than 15 completed passes all season. He intercepted a pass jumping 40+ inches in the air when the quarterback was trying to throw it out of bounds. You can’t even throw the ball away in his vicinity!

12. It would be better for Texas to have a bye week before this game, especially since it’s now back on Thanksgiving instead of the day after. Don’t really care to look at the schedule to see if the open date is back before the game, but it could be a problem if it’s not.

Just look at the starting field positions for aggy. Just about every drive they had started @ the 35 yard line. One first down and your basically at midfield. Two and you are in scoring territory. Imagine if they had to start at their 20 yard line instead. I think it would have been a different game.

The hours of work you put into this are sincerely appreciated.

BON has made me feel like I’m a better Longhorn fan because now I know so much more about what is actually happening on the field. I watch the game with a whole new perspective as a fan and I am grateful to y’all.

I also appreciate you giving your opinions in summation because some of this is simply over my head.
 
On the poor defensive play-my summation was that they simply looked tired. They were all a step slower than normal and it showed how the smallest hestitation can lead to disaster. I am also dismayed at the very poor special teams play that allowed the Aggies to control field position. We simply have too much talent for that.

And, hats off to the Aggies who did really play at the max of their ability. I watched them several times this year and they did have their best game against us, as usual.

Charts?

Charts.

Also, seems a bit light on the +/- numbers compared to normal. Just be glad you’re not doing one of these for a team who is awful. Many it gets ugly.

is what this game was. Several site editors and contributors on this board eluded to this fact last week. The combination of short week, Muschamp’s overthinking scheme, and hostile environment were major contributors. The defense learned they cannot just roll out their helmets. IMO, a good scare leading into the post-season will make this unit all the more dangerous. Kinda like a cornered cat with claws sprung and teeth bared. Can’t wait to see these kids unleashed against the huskers.

You know you are facing a shotgun-spread team, so they’re going to be in the shotgun most of the time. Instead of writing ‘shotgun’ as part of the formation, leave that blank as it is implied. Just write “Under” to indicate any plays where the QB is under center where it isn’t implied, i.e. I-formation.

Knowing how long it took you to do this, and for only one half of a game, imagine having to travel anywhere from two to seven hours home from a game, line up two different views of game film to make sure they match each play, then fill in down, distance, formation, back placement, personnel, hash, motion (you have any idea of how many different types of motion an offense can use? I once saw a sheet that listed thirty different types of motion. THIRTY!!), play type, and result. Then, if you want to get technical, you also have to add line splits, hands down (literally, which hand does the offensive lineman have down), and QB feet (some QBs telegraph which way the play goes and if it is a pass or run by their stance and/or foot placement). You have to do all that, and have it on the desk of all of the defensive coaches the morning following the game. Now you have an idea of what some defensive GAs do following games.