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Fearless Predictions 2021

Well, it's that time of year - the Analyst is here to tell you everything he believe will be true for the Texas Longhorn 2021 season, right from his comfy old armchair.

QB Battle: Yah, let's tackle the QB question first. Overall, the news out of Fall Ball gives me the impression Sark knows his guy and his guy is Hudson Card. While this isn't a guarantee, and I do believe both Card and Thompson will play this season, we heard Saark tell reporters he'd like to start planning for game 1 about 2 weeks ahead. We also heard Sark tell us that he calls plays that are best for the players unique abilities. (Kinda the opposite of Herman who seemed to call the same thing every game regardless of the skill sets of his players.)

But here's what I see in all of this. If Sark is game planning 2 weeks ahead and he's got to start scheduling a play call list during that 2 week prep time, it leads to a fairly logical conclusion that Sark needs to know which players skill sets he's scheduling plays for by that time. Granted, I don't believe Sark is going to tell anyone who the starter is until the 9th hour, but there have been numerous reports that Card has been stepping out with and taking significant reps with the other 1st team players over the last few practices. Which leads me to assume Sark has a guy he knows he needs to plan for. That said, we need both players and I believe Thomson will get a shot as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a different starter by the end of the season.

Defense: So far, everything out of camp suggests we're going to have a good D. I know we've got some depth at the tackle position for sure and some amazing defensive ends. But we've heard this all before. If the D can meet their super lofty goal of holding opposing offense to 20 pts a game, that would be great. I'd be happy if they held teams under 30 and let the O score 45 or better. But hey, that's just me. At the end of the day, we've heard stories out of camp that never transpired on the field. I like our D but I'm not buying stock until I see the final product on the field.

What I expect to see is a 4 down look where the 4th D line guy is hybrid enough that he can drop into coverage as a safety-net linebacker to protect against the air raid in the big 12. I think our D Line is big enough and fast enough that we'll see more disruption this year from the Texas D and it should make the quarterbacks life much more difficult on the other side of the ball. I can't say we'll see offenses held to 20 pts or less, but I think we will be good enough to compete.

Offense: I think we have to be very careful and honest about how we evaluate the offense this year. Texas doesn't have a returning starting receiver with more than 500 yds last season. Additionally, they'll be catching passes from an untested quarterback. Take Robinson too. He only rushed for barely over 700 yards last season and accounted for only 4 touchdowns. Granted, his ypc was enormous at 8.2 and I am aware Bj's one of the big reasons Herman was fired, because of how he called plays and used players. But we have to be honest about what we have. And what we have is a lot of unproven players on offense. A 703 yard rusher being of the most productive.

What I expect to see out of Sark's offense is a lot of 12 personnel (2 tight ends) to establish the run game and open up an easier passing game for untested quarterbacks and receivers. What I look for Sark to do is to run the heck out of all 3 backs until Card or Thompson start seeing some really open receivers. The question of course is, where does our O line match up in all of this? For most of our games, I think the O line will be sufficient and Bijan will carve up defenses nicely. Just remember, we had a 2000 yd rusher in D'Onta Foreman in 2013 but still lost 5 games. If Bijan rushes for more than 2000 yards, Texas wins a lot more games then 2013. But we just don't know.

Season Prediction: There are too many question marks for me to proclaim "This is the Year!" or that "Well under Sark it will be different." Been there, done that! It has nothing to do with Sark and everything to do with reality. Texas is relatively inexperienced on offense in some of the most important places. While I will post fearless predictions on each game in the future, and each prediction will be adjusted based on what we actually see on the field, if the defense plays average, I see Texas losing at least 4 games this year. And that's my guess right now.

I think the opener with Louisiana is a question mark. Louisiana returns a ton of starters on both sides of the ball. Not to mention, they oped against Big 12 #2 Iowa State and destroyed them. I'm 50/50 on this game.

Going forward, I see Texas dropping games to ISU, OU and Louisiana and TCU being 50/50 games. My one unknown game is OSU. OSU seems to be struggling at the QB position as of late, but that game follows the Cotton Bowl. So we'll see. It's 50/50 for me too.

However, if Texas can play solid defense and give Card/Thompson the ball over and over, I think Texas has a shot at being a 2 loss team. But I'm not holding my breath for this one. No Kool Aid this year, no high expectations. Just good ole wait and see/hope I'm wrogng!

Hook 'Em!

The Analyst

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