QB Ash, UT defense give Horns launching pad for 2012
by Old School Mustang on Dec 29, 2011 8:16 AM CST
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The Texas Longhorns can never be proud of a five-loss season, but an 8-5 record after Wednesday's Holiday Bowl victory is a good launching pad for recruiting and a 2012 bid for a Big 12 championship. Now that Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M are no longer around, UT should be buying a bigger Big 12 trophy case.
The Longhorns, however, almost finished at 7-6, if not for the 21-10 win over Cal. UT proved itself to recruits by coming back after Cal took a 10-7 lead in the third quarter as freshman QB David Ash stepped up in the 13th game of the season.
In the third quarter, Ash fired a 47-yard touchdown pass to Marquise Goodwin, who hauled in a pass over his shoulder and kept going. That electric pass play put the Longhorns on top, 14-10.. ... Without that rally, a bowl loss to Cal would have been devastating because Texas had lost three of its final four regular-season games.
Ash caught a 4-yard pass from WR Jaxon Shipley in the second quarter to join BYU’s Steve Young, Texas A&M’s Bucky Richardson and Oregon’s Joey Harrington as quarterbacks who’ve caught touchdown passes in the Holiday Bowl. UT fans remember Harrington scoring against the Longhorns in the 2000 Holiday Bowl, which was a 35-30 Oregon Ducks' victory.
Bright spots: Manny Diaz had the defense looking good, especially late in the game. No let downs and the team was fighting to cause fumbles to the end. Middle LB Keenan Robinson and the 'horns created five Cal turnovers and posted six sacks (a season-high against Cal).
Key point in game: Texas scored on the first play of the fourth quarter on a 4-yard run by Cody Johnson. That took the wind out of Cali, and came right after UT had sacked Cal QB Zach Maynard, who fumbled on the play. DT Chris Whaley captured the ball for UT at the Golden Bears' 44-yard line. From there, it was all Goodwin and Johnson. Goodwin ran for 37 of the 44 yards. Johnson set up his TD with a 3-yard burst.
Notable: Cal's Golden Bears (7-6) have lost all five games against Texas, dating to 1959. ... Did Quandre Diggs look familiar on his interception. Diggs is former Texas cornerback and current San Diego Chargers starter Quentin Jammer's little brother. ... and what happened to Harrington since his days with the Ducks and Detroit Lions, he's now part of TV's Longhorn Network.
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Ash played great
Despite our O-Line’s incredible failures. I can’t believe Malcolm was being tackled before he even had the ball.
Glad we are bringing in Donald Hawkins immediately from JUCO. Our biggest problem on Offense is not Ash, it is the O-Line.
We're Texas, We're not OK.
Ash played okay...but not anywhere near great
But okay is fine, he just really REALLY needs to work on his ball placement two passes to Goodwin could have been TDs if he hadn’t underthrown them, Shipley caught an underthrown ball and missed an overthrown one, and while Davis should have made those catches both balls were overthrown. Alabama beat us in 2010 without a great QB but had a good run game and a star WR to make up for it, no reason we couldn’t do the same.
That being said a more experienced O-line with an extra year in the weight room and adding JUCO Hawkins to the OT and sliding Hopkins to OG will help immensely, and adding Gray to our two now healthy RBs plus an extra 5* receiver in Caleb Jones should allow us to win with C+/B- QB play. If he does better than that then great, but I’m not holding my breath.
The Big12 will be down next year only K St, OU, TCU, and WVU will worry me, our OOC schedule is pathetic so I’ll set the over under at 9 wins before the bowl game, 8 will disappoint 10 will be great.
"We are who we are. People say what they say. The outcome is the outcome. We are proud of ourselves." -DeLoss Dodds 9/21/2011
Espienosa was definitely over matched last night.
Me: "Hunny, how much is our Wedding budget?"
Fiance`"No, You can't have Craig Way call our wedding.."
Me: "Damnit.."
never good...
to hear your name called that often when you play on the offensive line…
"We are who we are. People say what they say. The outcome is the outcome. We are proud of ourselves." -DeLoss Dodds 9/21/2011
Ash was not good at all
I’m not sold on him. His release is slow. For a guy who is supposed to be the “runner” out of the qb bunch, he sure sucks at running. He doesn’t read the zone read well. He can’t beat d ends to the corner. If this is our quarterback going into next season, we have major problems. I’m hoping one of the freshmen has what it takes to take us to the next level. I watched alot of football this year, and we have one of the worst, if not the worst quarterbacks in the major 6 conferences. Ash’s accuracy is alarming. I’m a Case fan, but it seems like he can’t throw further than 20 yards. GD did a piss poor job in his qb evaluations his last couple of years. I like what I’ve seen out of Brewer so far. Watched some highlights and a game. Has really good footwork, quick release, accurate. Doesn’t have a cannon of an arm, but then again Garrett Gilbert had a cannon and look what he did with that. I’m so disappointed in our qb play this year.
This defense we followed in the footsteps of the dominant defenses we’ve had since 04, but we lost games we should’ve won because our offense couldn’t muster enough points. Even though we got the win last night, we were awful on offense. I think we only converted on 1 of their 5 turnovers, with our average starting field position being the 50. That’s awful. Ash threw 3 good balls all night. The touchdown to Goodwin, a pass to Mike Davis and the ball to Irby. Apart from that, he missed receivers, nearly took a sack in the endzone and made poor decisions. Only thing he didn’t do this game that he normally does is turn the ball over.
I wouldnt say he was bad
but he wasnt “impressive” either. He was efficient in the bowl game. Needs a lot of work in the offseason
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