Texas vs OU Game Review: Longhorns Offense, Part 2
by Peter Bean on Oct 8, 2011 10:52 PM CDT
in Texas Longhorns Football
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PrintWe'll get to the defense and what's ahead in the next post, but I want to follow up Part 1 of the offensive review with a few additional observations.
Harsin's play calling, continued. A few folks have griped that Texas abandoned the run too quickly, and though I can certainly understand how it may have seemed that way, it's just not accurate. If you want to see what abandoning the run looks like, go back and watch some of last year's games -- for example the 45 and 59 pass attempts against UCLA and Kansas State, respectively. This afternoon, even as our deficit grew Harsin continued to triy to get his offense into some kind of rhythm with the running game, but negative plays repeatedly put us in a position where we pretty much had to pass. Not counting UT's last drive before the first half (all passes because there was so little time left), the offense's rush/pass distribution through three quarters was 34 rush plays against 28 pass plays.
The thing is, Harsin's offensive approach is all about the rushing game, and all the things he can do to a defense when his offense is rushing the ball successfully. If you rewatch the game, or even spend a few minutes going over the play-by-play in the box score, you'll see that Harsin didn't abandon the run. What happened is that the run game couldn't sustain drives all on its own, and every time we passed, horrible things happened.
Sticking with that theme, others have griped that Harsin should have hit OU with more quick passes. I think that's probably right, to some degree, but as an indictment of Harsin's game plan today, it's pretty minor. First, that's easy to say after seeing how the rest of Texas' pass plays turned out; I don't know how much Harsin is to be blamed for thinking his passing offense was capable of more. And second, the fact of the matter is that we needed to do something substantial against OU's defense to prevent them from crowding the box and bringing heavy pressure with impunity. A few successful dink and dunks wasn't going to cut it.
The point is that while I'm certain that Harsin will have a longer list of things he's unhappy with about his performance today than any of us do, I'm not sure there's much more to this beyond addressing the foundational issues. Watching Texas today was like watching Ben Roethlisberger -- who's as great at making lemonades from lemons as any QB in the NFL -- and the Steelers offense the past couple Sundays: the line play allowed for so much defensive disruption that there's not much point in focusing on what the offense couldn't do in the face of it. Texas got whipped up front today so badly that there's no reason to read too much into anything that followed from that problem.
Fozzy Whittaker, hero. After four years insisting that Fozzy Whittaker was a great player waiting to happen, no one's been happier than me to see him start the season as he has, and it's a real shame that probably his finest effort to date came in such a lopsided loss. Still, give the senior credit for being Texas' lone playmaker today. He had 45 hard-earned yards on the ground, another 15 on a screen pass, and of course the brilliant 100-yard touchdown on a kickoff return. I'm proud as hell of the kid, and hope we do even more to put the ball in his hands going forward. He loosens up the defense and forces them to defend the width of the field.
Looking ahead: Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State is the most dangerous team left on Texas' schedule, but it isn't because of the Cowboys' defense. Texas should be able to execute its intended offense this week, but the pace at which the OSU offense scores may have something to say about how quickly we'll have to ask our young quarterbacks to get back on the horse and be playmakers.
That's not a bad thing, and the dicier question is what Texas should do along the offensive line. After today, I'm not sure that Tray Allen is worth starting; not only is he struggling, but he's a senior, which is to say: not a part of the next offensive line to face OU. Left guard David Snow is also a senior, but he's had a stronger year to this point, and probably helps this team win now more than younger replacements would. Whatever Texas starts with, it seems prudent to insist that the upperclassmen either play well or step aside, because the moment this team doesn't have a chance to win the conference title, it's time to start building for the 2012 season.
As for the quarterbacks, everything Bryan Harsin wants to do is predicated on the ability to run the ball and punish over-aggressive defenses with big plays down the field, so assuming they don't find themselves in any more impossible situations like today, the two most important things by which Ash and McCoy should be judged are: (1) their improvement and understanding in the decision-making department, and (2) their ability to keep defenses honest and make plays down the field. Nobody's offense will work if a defense can load up the box and bring pressure like the Sooners could today.
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Agreeing again
The line play really was awful, and I agree that Tray Allen is not the solution. Question is, who is? Trial by fire for Josh Cochran? Put Hopkins there as a band-aid and hope Kelley can give us something at RT in the run game. We’re really making Searels’ earn his pay. The line pay needs to improve. We can’t run any of the “trick” plays if the base stuff isn’t working.
I’m glad Fozzy had a great game. He’s earned it, and it’s rewarding to see him with a strong season thus far. Hope he continues to stay healthy.
Will be interesting to see what the plan is for OSU. We CANNOT fall behind early. We didn’t abandon the run this week, but we had to convert 3rd downs and punting wasn’t an option this week. That’s where the mistakes came. The D needs to allow us the option to punt. Tall order, to say the least.
Hook 'em! @michaelpelech10 on Twitter
by The Audit Horn on Oct 8, 2011 11:03 PM CDT via iPhone app reply actions
The plan for OSU is
hope like hell, but hold on to your ass.
See ya later, alligator.
by Paleface Horn on Oct 9, 2011 10:29 AM CDT up reply actions
that may be too much to ask
See ya later, alligator.
by Paleface Horn on Oct 9, 2011 1:39 PM CDT up reply actions
Thanks for being a voice of levity
As for the QB play, I can’t get the one Case throw out of my head. He threw a 30 yd pass to a wr that was 45 yds downfield. I am not sure that works in an offense predicate on running and deep passes. He also gets happy feet and is loose holding the ball. Ash did plenty wrong today, but I just see more potential there. I certainly didn’t think he abandoned the run. My issue is there were pts I would have liked him to keep it simple and just pound it. In the end, it would not have change the results drastically.
My concern is that Case’s bad plays were heavily related to his physical limitations. And those limitations are substantial. Things like pocket presence and taking care of the ball in traffic can be fixed, but he’s still inherently limited with how much improvement can be had. People can point to Colt’s physical progression, but that’s lazy. They started from two totally different places.
A lot of Ash’s mistakes were speed of the game, youth trying to do too much, type of things. Whether trying to escape pressure, or make a play when the pocket breaks down. Stuff that can come with time.
Hook 'em! @michaelpelech10 on Twitter
by The Audit Horn on Oct 8, 2011 11:16 PM CDT via iPhone app up reply actions
As you talked about in part #1
I put the blame squarely on the OL. Their inability to protect the QB and create some space for the RB’s throughout the entire game caused fumbles and interceptions resulting in the blowout. Rival sites predicted this for months but I didn’t want to believe it. If I’m a prospective RB, do I really want to come to Texas and get tackled in the backfield on almost every play, or WR’s who never get the ball thrown to them, when we play the likes of OU? We better get this shit fixed or we could be talking about high profile flips.
Hook Em Horns!
I agree with your point about future RB's wanting to come to Texas.
There’s not a doubt in my mind Malcolm Brown was the best running back on the field today, he just absolutely had no running room. WIth his talent he should easily break 1,000 yards on the season and as of right now he’s looking at between 600-700 because of a porous OL. Ced Benson broke the 1,000 yard mark his freshman season and he didn’t start getting carries until after the OU game.
OL play is a huge weakness for this team and I feel sorry for someone as talented as Brown as he is made to look mediocre behind them.
Do not be distracted by what you see, but be transformed by what you believe.
We have to win the turnover battle
The D was holding it’s own early holding Ou to the two field goals one off of a McCoy turnover.
Kick coverage was better but still not where it should be.
Against OSU we must run the ball and keep our D off the field as much as possible.
I’m glad this one is at home.Maybe the younguns will get adjusted.
by TCB Orange Dino on Oct 8, 2011 11:36 PM CDT reply actions
I don't want to make an irrational post about anyone needing to get fired
just wanted to throw this out there: Is there any other coach who has been routed by their main rival as many times as Mack has been by Stoops. He has now been blasted by 52, 49, and 38 points. We don’t even beat A&M by this many. And we certainly never come close to beating OU this handily. In 2005 we beat OU by 33 points and in 2008 we beat A&M by 40 which is the largest margin of victory in the rivalry.
That being said I think this is now two times too many that Mack has gotten completely emabarrassed by OU. I understand maybe once but this shouldn’t happen three out of the eight times you lose to Stoops.
Do not be distracted by what you see, but be transformed by what you believe.
Gameplanning was today's problem (in addition to o-line)
One could say something similar about # of Big-12 championships, 2 for us under Mack, versus 7 (out of 8 trips) for OU under Stoops. But I blame the RRR embarrassments more on gameplanning/scheming i.e. our coordinators and o-line coaching.
Except that Mack is perhaps too hands-off on all their scheming and ingame adjustments, letting them be almost completely autonomous. (Heck he doesn’t even manage clock well sometimes). I would hope he gave more pre-game input than usual this year, since we have new coaches who are unfamiliar with OU.
Then again, Mack is not an Xs and Os guy anyway… “Ironic” how that’s true for us (and often frustrating) for head coaches of both football and basketball at UT.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a HarsinWhite fan, and like Peter said, on field execution of playcalling was sloppy and probably near-impossible with the o-line play.
It was surprising, however, that Harsin didn’t seem to adjust on offense (try more quick slot plays and QB runs) when it became apparent that we were outmatched on o-line.
On defense, both poor gameplanning/coaching and inexperience were exposed. OU saw it on film and exploited it with glee.
agreed
this is what i was most disappointed in with Harsin. He’s a great OC and will many games for us but it was obvious that our O-line was getting owned so why not throw more short slants, or roll the pocket or do more draws, screen passes maybe. Or change the tempo and go no huddle etc…
on defense, it seemed Manny was pretty confident going in that the D was prepared and they were going to dial up all this weird stuff to disrupt OU’s rhythm etc… i dunno.. this must be very humbling for him because it seemed like OU saw everything coming
agree completely on failure to adjust playcalling
See ya later, alligator.
by Paleface Horn on Oct 9, 2011 10:31 AM CDT up reply actions
You mentioned it in Part 1...
and it bears repeating: the O-line got absolutely destroyed. Lots to gripe about and lots to work on, but that is the single biggest reason for the outcome we saw.
This can't be re-iterated enough
Our O-Line was manhandled in a way I haven’t seen since we played against Suh in 2009
Both of McCoy’s turnovers and one of Ash’s turnovers came as the result of immediate pocket pressure.
The other two turnovers came from the OU secondary being more physical than our receivers.
I still remain cautiously optimistic, since I’m not sure there’s any defenses as physical as this one left on our schedule, outside a bowl game opponent.
Just think...
Not making excuses here, but Florida also got routed today by a superior opponent. Don’t freak out guys…there are a lot of very winnable games left. Anyone who thought we were gonna go undefeated this season was either stupid or just not in touch with reality. OU could win it all this year…as much as I hate to say it. Getting housed by one of the three best teams in the nation isn’t gonna kill us. Look at what happened to Nebraska at Wisconsin last week…that’s where we are. We’ll bounce back. In another year or two, we’re gonna be scary good…but it aint gonna happen overnight.
I think I can speak for a lot of us that
it’s not so much losing to a superior team, especially since we were big dogs going in, but it’s in the complete and utter lack of execution of the OL that has us up in arms.
Hook Em Horns!
I want to disagree with you PB
But your right on about the failures of today. I want to hoot and holler about how Harsin is inept. How Diaz can’t figure out how to get pressure on an imobile QB. But it’s no use. Like you said, it doesn’t matter what play Harsin called, the line sucked. It doesn’t matter what blitz Manny calls, we can’t tackle anyways. Until we can get the players to do the most basic things, like pass block on o-line or wrap up on tackles, brilliant schemes won’t matter. I will be paying close attention to what happens next week. The kids got their asses handed to them today, hopefully they learn and continue to improve. This game aside, I have every reason to believe that improvement can continue. Brick by brick, right?
I don't understand "t-sip" as an insult. I like drinking tea, and when is being classy a bad thing?
Thanks for the stats on the run game
That’s why reviewing the game always helps. I thought Harsin abandoned the run game a tad early, but I had no desire to rewatch that game or go through the box score to find out if I was correct. Not that I blamed Harsin for this loss anyway, because I’m not exactly sure what he could have done to save the offense today.
by TheElusiveShadow on Oct 9, 2011 12:39 AM CDT reply actions
brick by brick
needs to start with rebuilding the Oline. It won’t matter how good our backs are or how McAsh play if our O-line can’t pass protect and run the ball. Obviously we made some terrible recruiting errors in the past several years and we are paying the price for it now. I think Searles is doing a good job but we need the right players.
i’m just so shocked that our highly touted D-line couldn’t do diddly squat today and put any consistent pressure on Landry. I think i saw him on the ground like twice the whole day
It's on the O-Line!!
If the O-Line improves and only one of the TO’s is returned for a touchdown and let us score a touchdown or two, then the score’s “only” about 45-30. I reckon the O’line is responsible for more than half of that scoring margin. I thought we were a year away, but maybe it’s more than that. I’d think about getting a developed JC O-Line stud for next year who can help out now.
I thought the D-Line wasn’t so bad—stopped the run except for Whaley’s 64 yarder. To me it was more about the greatness of Landry rather than gross inadequacies in the D-Line.
Adjusting to the speed of the game.
This isn’t necessarily a reference to your 40 time as most of us are aware. In the RRS, the speed of the game is turned up a notch. While our team looked pretty comfortable handling middling opponents, they looked overwhelmed against OU.
The only way Texas will start to play faster is by gaining experience. Experience manifests itself in two ways on the field. One is anticipating what is going to happen, the second is playing with instinct instead of thinking then reacting (that’s not to say you shouldn’t leave your brain on the sidelines). None of those things can be taught. It comes naturally through feel and time on the field. That is why OU’s players seemed to be playing faster than us all over the field.
I expect after getting thoroughly embarrassed, these guys have their wake-up call. Everyone on the roster knows how much better they need to be and quick. I’m really looking forward to the OSU game to see how the team reacts.
This team needs to have their signature win. A catalyst for them to rise up to that elite level of play. That’ll be the game when Texas starts to look different. It’s when the swagger comes back and the offensive and defensive execution looks effortless.
My source close to the program can beat up your source close to the program!
Ironically enough...
if Greg Davis was calling the plays with his quick, horizontal passing game, UT would probably be in it all game due to the low probability of turnovers. The quick, horizontal throws are pretty easy for Ash/McCoy and would significantly lower the potential damage as a result of our pathetic offensive line. We also have some decent playmakers unlike last year (healthy Fozzy, Brown, Shipley [where was Goodwin?]). Even the check down to the TE would be an improvement with Grant (where was he today?) and Irby.
You always want to put your team in a position where your weaknesses are hidden as much as possible, while the strengths are highlighted as much as possible. I didn’t feel like we did that today, but this change in play-calling with Harsin will work out for us over time.
Oh well, while 55-17 final score will bother me beyond belief, let’s be real… going into the season, would you be happy with a 4-1 start? Abso-freaking-lutely.
by goingforthecorner on Oct 9, 2011 2:29 AM CDT reply actions
I hate to say it, but I thought the same thing about GD.
However, I would rather play to win, than play to lose by not very much.
See ya later, alligator.
by Paleface Horn on Oct 9, 2011 10:34 AM CDT up reply actions
We have a stable of solid running backs and one great (freshman) receiver
That’s essentially it. That’s the entire scouting report for our offense. A defense like OU’s will destroy us because (despite our “balance” against weaker opponents) they don’t have to risk getting burned by anything other than the run and keeping an eye on Shipley. With that very simple gameplan, they can play 100 MPH and just see what happens.
Harsin arrived on campus and quickly realized that we had a (soon to be transfered) quarterback who couldn’t get beyond his initial read, a happy feet quarterback who physically can’t throw a ball downfield, a (freshman) quarterback with lots of tools but zero experience, and a (now transfered) quarterback with major accuracy problems.
Our o-line is what it is. Our receiver corps is nothing special outside of Shipley.
With all that in mind, anybody who thinks that the 2-QB thing is some flawed experiment is wrong. Harsin has two guys who can’t do the job today. So he’s going to play them both not as a competition but as a hedge: he gets a little more experience and (possibly) fewer boneheaded mistakes with McCoy and he gets upside with Ash. But it’s clear that neither guy is the answer today.
If Ash is the guy tomorrow, it’s best to limit his minutes for now while letting him build confidence and get more comfortable, rather than feed him to the wolves, potentially destroy his confidence, and have the team abandon him… Lots of people on here want Ash to get 100% of the snaps but that’s primarily because nobody has seen him press prior to Saturday. He looks like a much different (and more human) player when he’s faced with some big time adversity. And Harsin has known this (much better than many of us did).
These things are not fixable in the next six days. We’ve been working on them since spring football. Like it or not, we’re in for that rebuilding year. With seven games left, I’m actually wondering (aside from Kansas) where we manufacture additional wins. Missouri? (The team that put 28 on OU.) Tech? (Averaging nearly 50 a game.) Not to mention OSU, A&M, KSU and Baylor, where we will undoubtedly be underdogs.
After yesterday’s debacle, a (meh) 7-5 and a (disaster) 5-7 look equally possible.
Sigh.
5-7? No way
name me 6 teams we could legitimately lose to the rest of the season. KU and Tech at home seem like certain Ws to me. All the other games could go either way. If these uncertain games are ALL losses (probability says this is unlikely), then 6-6 is the absolute worst case scenario at this point.
by goingforthecorner on Oct 9, 2011 12:02 PM CDT up reply actions
I would bet money that we don't lose more than 2 more in conference play
We got rocked by a physical defense. There’s not many of those on our schedule.
We will compete with everyone else left on our schedule.
I'm not nearly as upset as most of you
Look, this OU team is really, really good. And, we are basically playing freshman at qb, rb and wr. And, most of our secondary are young.
We implemented entirely new systems this year. Yes, we’ve had a pretty good start, but let’s give the Sooners the credit they deserve.
And, to win we were going to have to get a few breaks go our way. A funble, or int, etc. Instead, they all went the other way and we made a bunch of mistakes. I hope we don’t let this get us down, we have a lot of positive things happening. We need some more WRs to step up (Darius White), but we will be fine. OSU will be tough, but we are going to be fine.
We're Texas, We're not OK.
Oh stop it.
We don’t want to feel good right now. ;)
See ya later, alligator.
by Paleface Horn on Oct 9, 2011 10:34 AM CDT up reply actions
Why I am as upset as most of you...
…but for only four reasons, really:
1) pussies in the OL;
2) pussy receivers who let the DB take the ball away from them (this, IMHO, is a cardinal sin);
3) defenders who don’t tackle;
4) DB’s who don’t catch the football when they have their hands on it.
Db?
They have been great making ints this yr, problem yesterday is they weren’t 10 yds within the ball. Davis seriously needs to toughen up to get to the next level
three times...
…in the end zone, looked like our guy had a palm on the ball and great body position to pull it down into his chest, but was content to down it in the end zone…
…Vaccaro had his hands on one, or maybe it went between his hands…
… and didn’t one of our LB’s have one hit him in the shoulder pads?…
when we’re giving up first downs at 3rd and 25, 3rd and 21, etc, we couldn’t afford to waste opportunities.
One thing to note.
On a running play the O line goes out and blocks and on a passing play it drop back and picks up the rush.
One big problem is on pass rush the O-line has to read the pass rush. I think OU did a good job making it hard for the Horns O-line to read the rush. Bad Reads Bad Blocking. You may be a good blocker but if you block the wrong guy you fail.On the other side of the the ball the more experience OU O-line handled the Horn’s decent rush much better. Speeding up the tempo also keep the defense from setting up complex rush patterns and bringing in the personal to carry them out.
Neither of the UT QB’s show very good judgement, they don’t seem to read the defenses well which means a lot of plays get run against defensive formations that has no chance. I guess that’s to be expected.
We do pretty well running the ball. My suggestion is stop bring new personal in and speed up the tempo so the defenses get no time to adjust. With all the unorthodox formations Harsin has the defense can’t read fast enough if the plays go off in under 10-15 seconds. Beat down the defensive line and make them run to wear them out and control the ball. This keeps the other team from scoring if they don’t get the ball. It slows the rush in the second half so the young qb’s can operate.
Disagree PB
You said it: “every time we passed, horrible things happened.” At some point you have to put the responsibility on your coordinator to also realize this. Just because he didn’t “abandon” the run relatively, doesn’t mean just criticism doesn’t exists that he should’ve done more to mitigate a glaring weakness of the offense (passing) and focus more on the strength (running). There were plenty of 2nd and shorts and mediums where the run was eschewed for sake of basic pass plays, at least make it a play action bomb.
It's just not true
Go through the box score, and show me where we abandoned the run on 2nd and short. We had five such 2nd and shorts, and only once did we not convert it to a 1st down (the reverse that got blown up).
I’m sorry, but if you go back and rewatch this debacle, it’s just not a play calling/scheming failure. Everything we tried got blown up at some point. When we tried to keep it going with the run, we got blown up. When we tried QB draws, it got blown up. When we tried to pass, it got blown up. I know it’s easier to say that Harsin just “missed” what needed to be done. I’m sorry, but that wasn’t the problem. No need to create a problem that doesn’t exist.
75-37-5. Now GTFO.
Not saying it was our main problem
…by an stretch, so maybe I wasn’t your target audience for this article, just saying that Harsin’s calling wasn’t above criticism in this area. It wasn’t just 2nd and short, I said medium as well,.
I wonder if anyone has insight
The QBs seemed to have no recognition of the blitz. OU didn’t really hide it. I was wondering if that was because QBs just didn’t see it or the coaching staff didn’t trust the QBs enough to audible? (plea be the the latter)
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The aftermath
This weekend is what happens when lack of experience, combined with lack of preparation smacks head-on into a team that hates your f*cking guts and wants nothing more than to rip your head off and sh*t down your neck.
OU was beyond a doubt a better team today, we had no business being on the field with them. We were overmatched at every position. From that standpoint, some of you say, well we knew they were better, it sucks but it’s okay.
Some of you think that we’re Texas and there’s no excuse for ever getting beat that bad, especially three times to the same team in an 11 year period. You see us outrecruit them every year and then watch their 3 star recruits whip our 5 star recruits and think it shouldn’t happen.
I agree with all of you. It should never happen. We should be able to turn our 5 star recruits into the type of team that reloads, not rebuilds. We don’t do as good a job as OU in developing talent and we don’t seem to have the long term plan they do. (Remember, their worst season came when Bradford got hurt, forcing Landry Jones to play earlier than they planned.)
Unfortunately, it has. Our previous staff fell down on the job and now we are paying for their failures. Fault Mack for not seeing it earlier (I saw it in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State when we should have mauled them and kept shooting ourselves in the foot.) It took 5-7 to make him see.
Now we have no choice but to ride it out, though. I hated to see us go down like that too, and I think some things could have/should have been done to try and stop the bleeding, but they weren’t. Crying about it won’t help, all we can do is hope that out guys grow from it and improve. That’s not saying that it’s ok that we lost by 38, just saying that we’ve got to deal with it and move on.
by amarillotxhornfan on Oct 10, 2011 1:54 AM CDT reply actions
Where are the Lost Generations?
I counted 17 Freshman and Sophomores starting for the Horns on defense, offense, and special teams. Mack Brown has been recruiting 5 star players every year for a decade. Where are the Lost Generations of 3rd, 4th, and 5th year 5 star recruits that the Horns have been stock piling? Why aren’t they on the field?
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