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Texas Football: The Texas Tech Post-Mortem

Posted by Scipio Tex on November 12th, 2007 under Football

This was our best effort on offense and special teams to date. A great effort not just because of each unit’s production in isolation, but because each contributed mightily to ameliorating a horrendous defensive effort inspired by Akina and MacDuff’s brain dead gameplanning. This was an important program win for building the confidence of a young team. Running the ball effectively in front of a visiting Darrell Scott with a group of Freshman/Sophomore OL leading the way was a nice touch too. It’s also nice to beat Graham Harrell, whose douchebaggery in these games is extreme (consider: Rhett Bomar, Drew Tate, Graham Harrell – all douchebags, all head coach’s kids. Doesn’t this fly in the face of conventional wisdom?)


Harrell is all about the W

Mike Leach bitching post-game was amusing. We’ve been the recipients of hose jobs (I was in Waco for Teaff’s last game). I’ve seen officials give us games – I attended our win over North Texas during The Dark Days. This wasn’t one of those. This was an offense playing with the Tech defense the way a kitten plays with a cricket. Granted, Tech toyed with our offense, but we used our special teams and 4th down conversions to limit their play time. There’s your ballgame. Time for pirate time out, Leach.


Playing Tech really is like Playstation

We had two crucial events on special teams, leading to 14 points for our offense:

1. The sky kick recovery by Curtis Brown. Hey, it was almost worth burning his redshirt! This wasn’t a routine squib kick. This was a deliberate call by our staff and a nice example of scouting. The ability to steal a possession against the Tech offense and get a short field touchdown was crucial and it put our offense in a position to dictate tempo and pace for the rest of the game.

2. The fake field goal by Shipley. Another great job of scouting. As a bonus, Shipley’s hamstring integrity remained whole. It enabled us to maintain possession, burn clock, and get 7 instead of 3.

It’s nice to see the good guys winning the film battles with the opposition.

Greg Davis had to wear two headsets on Saturday – offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. As offensive coordinator, he knew we needed 45-50 points to win. No pressure there. As defensive coordinator, he knew his job was to run clock and score on every possession…while still scoring 50 points. Punting was unacceptable. And so were quick strikes. Again, no pressure. He pulled off both coordinator tasks very adeptly: we ran 92 plays to Tech’s 55, we held the ball for 2/3 of the game, we threw up 59 on the board, and we consistently dictated to the Tech defense how the game would be played. Old Greg came through in a big way.

We also did a nice job of scouting Tech personnel. #17 Chris Parker is probably the worst starting corner in the Big 12. Apparently, we noticed. Anytime we needed to move the chains in the possession passing game, we found whoever Parker was on (usually Cosby) and flipped out the ball for an easy 8-10 yards and a fresh set of downs. Later, we began to victimize him down the field and you’ll see #17 trailing on a number of our TD passes and key 3rd down conversions like an Australian cattle dog chasing a truck on a ranch road.


Sorry Chris, I’m not trying to salt your wounds

We also noticed that despite Tech’s change to Ruffin Mangino at DC, they still play a vanilla, two safeties deep defense. Maybe vanilla just has good connotations to the guy. Why you’d choose to play our run game honestly is beyond me, but we appreciate Ruffin’s sense of fair play. They stayed in that defense for almost a full 3 quarters before they began to actively cheat on our running game (occasionally hiding run blitzing LBs in the hem of Ruffin’s pants). Until that time, we were able to run a number of leisurely zone plays and simple isos. Charles feasted. Our game plan was simple: attack Parker, run Charles. We also featured two draw plays: a delay draw to JC and a QB lead draw which sprang Colt for his TD run. We’ve continued to involve Colt in the running game and it has paid off. It was also nice to see the ball distribution in the passing game. Finley and Ogbonnaya both had their names on the roll call on key 3rd downs.

The blocking of our WRs deserves special mention. These guys are Hines Ward. I saw five knockdown blocks from Cosby and Jones – I’m sure there were another five off camera. These guys are very limited from an explosiveness standpoint, but they’re playing to the absolute 100th percentile of their potential. Not much more can be asked of any Longhorn player or the position coach developing them. I’ll miss these guys as pure football players tremendously.

Our OL situation is scary with the loss of Hills, but I did see some very nice things from Chris Hall while he was at center and then from Michael Huey when he came in to play guard. Buck Burnette is a mauler, but not blessed with a lot of lateral range – the Tech DTs made at least 2 TFLs on him when he was asked to reach them on zone plays. Ulatoski is a very solid pass blocker, but a fairly negligible presence in the running game. Dockery is probably our most consistent OL.

Although it was mildly frustrating to see us bang the running game late for negative and zero yard gains against outmanned fronts on 1st down, it’s important to consider that we were converting 3rd down at will, we were burning clock, and when we did try a 1st down fly route to Quan Cosby he seperated about as well as he has all year. Not at all. Put a healthy Sweed on this offense and you’d see a different result.

I saved the worst for last. Sigh. Defensively, Akina and MacDuff ran base 4-3 (with spread modified LB spacing) against Tech with heavy reliance on zone. I was fairly shocked to see them stay in it pretty much all game. Well, it certainly dissuaded Tech from running – I suppose we wouldn’t run much either if a team lined up in a ten man front. The only problem with our defensive strategy was…everything. We still don’t know to teach zone, our upper classman LBs aren’t good in space and the weakest link on the team (so naturally we made them the lynchpin in stopping the underneath crossing routes), and we weren’t able to blitz effectively to get pressure (usually declaring our intentions 18 seconds before the snap). We tackled poorly, we were poor fundamentally, and we played with a lack of passion late when Crabtree scored his long TD. That was fairly prideless on our part.

Other than that, Akina did a badass job.


We’re fine on Defense. We won, didn’t we?

It’s impressive that we can string together three defensive gameplans that were each more disappointing than the previous. Over the last three games, we’ve given up an average of 34.3 ppg and 505.7 ypg. Tech averaged 8.7 yards per play. They didn’t manage that per play average against any team they played this year: not against Rice, UTEP, NWLA, SMU, Baylor, Iowa St – the dregs of college football. Does that put it into context for you? Had they run their customary 75-80 plays (thank you Greg Davis clock management and special teams stolen possessions), they would have had 650-700 yards and 50+ points. On the heels of Oklahoma State’s 594 yards and 35 points. If that’s in any way acceptable to you, even given the physical deficiencies in our secondary, I humbly pray that you don’t suffer from such low expectations in other areas of your life. It’s a pity to end this write-up focusing on a couple of defensive coaches who drove up to the game in a clown car, but the Akina/MacDuff regime needs serious re-evaluation.


Bobino, Dery, Killebrew – get on that slot receiver pronto

Still, a hell of an effort from several of our coaches and most of our players. A good win.

See you in Aggieland…where QB careers die more quickly than Aggie preseason hopes.

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33 Responses

  1. Gooba said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 5:29 am

    Very enjoyable as always.

    Tony Hills deserves special mention. He fought his way back from an utterly catastrophic knee injury in HS to put in 2 solid years as a starter and leader of the team. He was our best offensive lineman. To see his last home game end that way was very hard to take.

    Also, one could not watch the game and be unimpressed with Crabtree, despite our “prideless” play at the end. He can make you look prideless. He has torched every other team. He is a 1% athlete that we seem to have not even recruited.

  2. NBMisha said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 5:35 am

    Amen on both themes. Very satisfying on offense and ST. I’m running out of non curse words for the defense. The post on HF placing this D in the middle of the Mac2 era was depressing. Now its clear the efense of the last 3 weeks is the worst we’ve ever seen.

    I’m into new experiences, but enough of this. Unfortunately, this may make the aggy game interesting.

  3. TTP, Fred said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 5:36 am

    I watch Killebrew and think, seriously, is there some reason why he’s out there at all? His uninspired play and lack of production reminds me of Aaron Harris’ senior-season disappearing act.

  4. Duane Akina said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 6:11 am

    I make Greg Davis look good.

  5. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 6:39 am

    Yeah, Harrell and Leach are getting to be like those guys who crash your parties who are a complete fucking riot for around an hour and a half, and then after that point, when the beer is running low, you notice they are performing the lion’s share of “WHOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOO!”s and are bitching about the beer that’s left in the keg, and how there are no hot women (and the women remaining, some of whom are indeed hot, are getting ready to bail because of the assholes camped at the keg) and who, later, when the party thins out, insist that everyone watch “Fight Club” in its entirety, and then after that, “Predator”, because they totally wrote a paper about that rad flick for their Marxist film theorist professor who bought them Long Island Iced Teas one night.

  6. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 6:41 am

    Oh, also: Has DrJHorn officially joined Col. Kurtz with the Hmong? Haven’t seen anything from him in a while, and Cambodia was due.

  7. AugieSpiers said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 7:17 am

    That reminds me, I got a somewhat cryptic email from him recently. Here it is:

    SELL THE HOUSE
    SELL THE CAR
    SELL THE KIDS
    FIND SOMEONE ELSE
    FORGET IT
    I’M NEVER COMING BACK
    FORGET IT

    Weird.

  8. ChicagoTTU said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    Very true…Graham Harrell is an ultimate douchebag…but that’s been sort of a Tech QB trend—B.J. Symons? That dude wore more knockoff FUBU and Kangol than any starting 5 at Dallas Lincoln, Carter and Skyline combined.

  9. kchorn04 said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 7:42 am

    Leach probably teared up more than Mack when they introduced our SR LBs before the game.

  10. Krueger said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 8:03 am

    At least we graduate most of our problems.

    No telling what the replacements will look like at some positions, but it can’t get any worse.

  11. utstudboy said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 8:07 am

    When does echeese graduate?

  12. 8straight said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 8:10 am

    We had two future pro DEs last year and couldn’t defend the option because of scheme and LBer play. Any guesses what these guys will do with scheme and the young guns at LB this year? They got embarrassed by a one dimensional offense last week. Let’s see what they do on the flip side of one dimensional next week.

  13. Uncle Rico said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 9:04 am

    “B.J. Symons? That dude wore more knockoff FUBU and Kangol than any starting 5 at Dallas Lincoln, Carter and Skyline combined.”

    that my friends is what you call allsome

  14. tropheus said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    I’ve got that sick feeling the defense (behind the genius of Akina) is going to cost Texas a game or two in one of the next few seasons where winning it all would otherwise be a possibility.

  15. Bobby Jack Akina said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 10:31 am

    Scipio, you’re right, the 4-3 didn’t work so well against Tech. I think we’ll ditch if for nickel and dime packages against the Aggies.

    The Aggies completed a pass last week, didn’t they?

  16. Drew said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 11:21 am

    “consider: Rhett Bomar, Drew Tate, Graham Harrell – all douchebags, all head coach’s kids. Doesn’t this fly in the face of conventional wisdom?”

    Well, Jerry Bomar is a complete asshole, so it makes sense that his son follows suit.

  17. Crown & Coke said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    Oh man, that clown car reference slayed me. It’s amazing how far bellowing laughter can carry in a maze of cubicles.

  18. Colt McCoy said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    I am also a coaches son!

  19. B.J. Symons said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    “Ughhh!!! You know how much Rocawear and Karl Kani you can buy on a NFL Europe contract? Oooh, I be tippin’ up dat cup of Purple Drank allll Night!!! Can’t wait til you get here, Graham…You been to Amsterdam? Get it twisted!! Bring yo Ho Gear though, they got Timbaland’s in Ennis? Holla!

  20. EyesOfTX said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    “It’s nice to see the good guys winning the film battles with the opposition.”

    One of the most gratifying aspects of the game, no doubt. Along about the middle of the 2nd quarter, I looked a the guy next to me and said, “Dang, we’re actually not playing stupid football today.”

    Well, on offense, anyway. Second time this year we’ve been able to say that, OU game being the first.

  21. Bert Hancock said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 2:44 pm

    I particularly liked the correlation between Freddy’s Van and the dynamic duo of Akina-MacDuff. ;-)
    Scipio, you show that a “hater” can and will give props where due with your praise of Davis. I know it kinda hurt, but that’s what us realists do. (grins)

  22. DBH said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 8:13 pm

    “I saved the worst for last. Sigh. Defensively, Akina and MacDuff ran base 4-3 (with spread modified LB spacing) against Tech with heavy reliance on zone. I was fairly shocked to see them stay in it pretty much all game.”

    Fairly shocking, indeed. It’s hard to imagine sinking beneath the low-water marks established by Reese and Chizik in the Brown reservoir of WTF? defensive game planning. But I do believe the comfort-hire duo of Larry and Moe…er…Duane, has succeeded.

    Kudos to GD for showing up for four quarters. It pains me to say it, but fair is fair.

    Thanks for another good read, Scipio.

  23. mileslong said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 9:56 pm

    it took me about a game and half to tell that gary darnell sucked at coaching. i never thought i would see anyone worse but akina has topped even darnell. honestly, if I just walked into the lockeroom prior to the game and told the defense to rush four men, cover everyone else man to man all game and do this on every play, then i retired to my luxury box, tuned into the jenna jameson network and not answered any calls from the sideline i don’t think that we would have done worse.

    worst linebacking ever that i can remember, worst defensive back play i can remember. its just so damn frustrating that mack would keep this guy in this role.

  24. LongestHorn said:

    November 13th, 2007 at 11:04 pm

    Kill and Derry made good open field tackles on Tech first series 3 and out. It’s worth reminding, is all.

    Jamaal has turned his game completely around in the last few games. He is simply sensational. Shipley’s catch in the back of the endzone was clutch and our first lead. His roomie has looked as good as ever lately.

    The personnel injury defense firm of Kindle, Kelson, Norton, Foster, & Jones could use the week to prepare for The People vs. Farmers.

    That said, I like this team, their fight and will to win football games for us to enjoy as fans.

  25. Doperbo said:

    November 14th, 2007 at 8:01 am

    DrJ was unfortunately mauled in the Singapore Halloween Candy Riot of ‘07. He is recuperating in a hospital in Katong, and appreciates your concern and support.

    In lieu of flowers please send Brunei dollars.

  26. LittleVic said:

    November 14th, 2007 at 8:19 pm

    Who can we hire for DC? Is Phil Bennett any good or was that just Snyder? What about a position guy from the Titans staff? They seem to play good “D”. Would Robinson want to come back?

  27. TLR said:

    November 15th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    A little note from Mack for all you “experts” who whine about our more experienced LBs. But don’t let this stop you from making asses out of yourself.

    “MB: Yeah. There’s no question that for my ten years, you all have criticized me over what you call “loyalty”, what you call “playing some guys that have been around for a while when there are some younger ones better”. You don’t have the advantage of practice. You don’t know when guys are hurt with a sprained ankle and sore shoulder and they won’t practice and those are things I have knowledge of. You don’t know when a guy busts and assignment. You don’t know when they don’t know enough about coverage and I feel like there’s two great advantages we have here. Number one is our coaches and our players and our fans feel like we’re going to win every game and that’s been build by our seniors who think we’re going to win every game. Freshmen, sophomores aren’t sure yet. They’re getting there, but they may not handle the pressure in certain situations than others. The other thing is depth. If you throw all your seniors out and play your young ones and your young ones get hurt, you’re not going back to the same senior. So to me, we have a great advantage with depth and if we can play guys half the time, you keep a fresh guy. I’m really concerned about the 12 games. I really concerned about injuries more since we’ve had 12 games than I’ve ever been involved with, since the early days at North Carolina. In fact, I’m not sure next year that we won’t look at not redshirting anybody, because we could have players right now that could be playing that are redshirted because we’ve had so many hurt. So to me we should be playing two deep more than ever with the 12 games than before. Unless a sophomore is Derrick Johnson, who played ever play, then, make him earn the right to play, make him practice hard, make him study, make him help us with depth and his day will come too. We’ve won a lot of games with those linebackers y’all’ve been trying to get rid of, a lot of ‘em, and they’re great leaders and they’re really good football players. The unknown is a great thing for sports. The one we don’t know as much about is the one we like. It’s 100 percent, been that way for 100 years, and that day will come, but our motto this whole year has been “Earn the Right” and that’s why we’re not even talking about BCS or bowls or anything else because we haven’t earned that right yet. We’ll talk after the game if we have a chance to talk about it.”

  28. HenryJames said:

    November 15th, 2007 at 8:47 am

    You’re still posting?

    TLR

    ChrisApplewhite, I notice you and others like to say Pongetti doesn’t know anything but then you never answer why he keeps proving your statements wrong with simple video, especially Texasfootball here, who was making all kinds of ridiculous claims that are clearly false. HAHAHAHAHA is not an answer. Texasfootball was talking out of his rear end, Pongetti proved it, and now Texasfootball suddenly is nowhere to be found to comment on his own mistakes.

  29. LonghornScott said:

    November 15th, 2007 at 8:50 am

    That lil missive from Mack reminds me of an email I was forwarded about the advantages of dating ugly chicks.

  30. Woody Bombay said:

    November 15th, 2007 at 9:28 am

    “If you throw all your seniors out and play your young ones and your young ones get hurt, you’re not going back to the same senior.”

    So if Killebrew gets benched for Kindle, and then Kindle gets injured, Killebrew loses his eligibility?

  31. BigSatan said:

    November 15th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    “So if Killebrew gets benched for Kindle, and then Kindle gets injured, Killebrew loses his eligibility?”

    No. His feelings are just too hurt, and he’s become a broken man. Broken men can’t play linebacker.

  32. Squirrel said:

    November 15th, 2007 at 10:11 am

    “we ran 92 plays to Tech’s 55″

    That is the most amazing stat, for sure.

  33. TLR said:

    November 20th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

    Why wouldn’t I still be posting? Pongetti kicked Texasfootball’s ass on that issue and Mack is kicking your ignorant asses all over this one.

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