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“F*ck it. I’m voting us number one.”

Posted by HenryJames on October 12th, 2008 under Football

That was my text to Scipio as the game ended yesterday. Part of my thinking wasn’t really thinking at all. I had just watched the greatest Texas-Oklahoma game I’ve ever seen, and I was fucking exhilarated. But after the dust settled, both polls have us number one. Deservedly so.

This is a different Texas team and one I haven’t seen since Vince Young was our QB. They don’t rattle. They don’t quit. And they always play hard. Always. Every play.

I can’t give enough credit to Greg Davis. He was fantastic. This wasn’t sandbagging. This was creating a gameplan to attack your opponent’s weaknesses. He maximized our talent, and that becomes even more important when you just might not be that talented. By spreading out OU’s defense and moving Jordan Shipley around, he kept the Sooners from being able to double Shipley and Quan Cosby.

Cosby and Shipley aren’t the biggest or fastest guys around, but they catch everything, they block relentlessly and they don’t take plays off. And they’re great at finding openings against a zone defense.

When Texas lost to Texas Tech in Lubbock back in 2002 I blamed the offense. Our injury depleted defense could not stop Tech so they needed the offense to control the clock and shorten the game. They didn’t, and we lost. My point is that offenses and defenses have to work together. Oklahoma’s do not.

Their offense will try to score as quickly as possible without taking into account whether or not their defense is fatigued. It caught up to them in the end. Their pass rush wilted, and their pursuit was nowhere to be found.

When Texas got first and goal, they could bring in a two pairs of fresh legs in 300 pound Roy Miller and 255 pound Cody Johnson. Johnson’s last two touchdowns were through holes I could have run through. Texas just blew holes through the tired OU defensive line.

We won the both the turnover battle and the kicking game. You win those two, and you’re in good shape. Our guys on special teams know their roles. Whether it was Curtis Brown tackling the punter short of the first down on the fake, or Eddie Jones making a great block on the kickoff to spring Jordan Shipley.

We had some breakdowns on defense, no question about it. We’re very young in the secondary so there will be more breakdowns to come. But we made OU one dimensional (not that hard, really) and didn’t allow them to sit on lead and control the gameclock. Our front seven is as good as any in the country, and it’s the best I’ve seen at Texas since the early 80s.

We’ve now won 3 out of the last 4 against OU, but that’s not enough. We need to finish this thing and win the conference. That should be the goal. If we do that, everything else will fall into place.

We’re all going to have so much fun watching this team.

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7 Responses

  1. Facebook User said:

    October 12th, 2008 at 7:57 pm

    I agree. Win the conference. Show me vs. Show me.

  2. Hippie Killer said:

    October 13th, 2008 at 6:09 am

    Is there any chance that we could play OU in the MNC(if we make it)?

  3. TXinDC said:

    October 13th, 2008 at 6:34 am

    No. Either they make it to the Big 12 championship game, or we do. There’s no way we’d both have the same record and still be in the running for the MNC.

  4. WhoooTex said:

    October 13th, 2008 at 6:53 am

    Why couldn’t this happens:

    * OU runs the table
    * Tech and OSU lose two conference games each
    * We drop one to let’s say Missouri by a point
    * We win out from there, tying for the B12 South and go to the B12CG via head to head tiebreaker
    * Through attrition, OU rises to #1 in the country (not far to go from where they currently are), we’re let’s say #3 behind Florida
    * We blow out Missouri and Florida loses to push us back to #2

    All of the above presumes that the remaining potential MNC contenders (Penn State, Alabama, USC) lose games in a convenient enough fashion to allow OU to get to #1 and us to get to #2. In the above scenario, at the end of the year, OU and Texas are the only one-loss teams in America.

  5. WhoooTex said:

    October 13th, 2008 at 6:55 am

    “* We blow out Missouri and Florida loses to push us back to #2″

    This is what happens when I’m not posting on a message board that allows me to surreptitiously edit my posts to appear immediately coherent. Those two events (UT over Mizzou, Florida losing) take place in the respective conference championship games.

  6. TXinDC said:

    October 13th, 2008 at 9:15 am

    “In the above scenario, at the end of the year, OU and Texas are the only one-loss teams in America.”

    So you’re saying the powers that be wouldn’t consider it a loss for OU if UT won in a Big 12 South tiebreaker?

  7. WhoooTex said:

    October 13th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    “So you’re saying the powers that be wouldn’t consider it a loss for OU if UT won in a Big 12 South tiebreaker?”

    Why would they?

    I’m saying OU would have climbed back up to #1 through attrition. Maybe in my scenario, UT jumps OU back to #1 since we beat them head to head, but either way, if OU is #1 and idle during Championship Week, #2 loses, and #3 UT wins impressively to jump up into the top 2, I don’t see any way those two teams don’t end up in a rematch in the BCS title game.

    In other words, if OU and UT finish as the only one-loss teams in America, and if chronologically the scenario plays out as I wrote it (OU becoming #1 prior to going idle during championship week), I can’t imagine the voters would drop them out of the Top 2 slots to prevent a rematch.

    I guess I should also point out that I am not anticipating any unbeaten non-BCS teams out there (e.g., BYU or Utah running the table).

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    Barnes’ three “strengths”:

    Defense, rebounding, recruiting.

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  • skymonkeyhorn commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   1 hour, 41 minutes ago

    a Good System will usually beat a talented team that does not play together and are thinking instead of playing basketball ,over a season the system wins more then they will give away.
    A team that is scared to make a mistake and thinks before they react is going to lose to a confident but

  • Patrick Bateman commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 15 minutes ago

    Nordberg,

    Ironic indeed……teachable moment, I guess….

    NY Horn,

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  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 19 minutes ago

    Egg, that’s fine, but at what point do you blame Barnes? Seriously, man. You’ve thrown players under the bus left and right, but at a certain point, doesn’t the buck stop somewhere. I know you’re more of an NBA guy so it begins and ends with players there, but we need fucking

  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 19 minutes ago

    Egg, that’s fine, but at what point do you blame Barnes? Seriously, man. You’ve thrown players under the bus left and right, but at a certain point, doesn’t the buck stop somewhere. I know you’re more of an NBA guy so it begins and ends with players there, but we need fucking

  • Patrick Bateman commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 21 minutes ago

    Trips,

    I hear ya. I’m frustrated as well. I guess I just don’t prescribe to such a black and white characterization of the situation. I do know that no matter what happened in the huddle, JCB made a dumb play. If Rick didn’t explain or remind him of the situation, then I

  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 28 minutes ago

    Pat, know I don’t, but I’ve had coaches draw up plays to free up the best foul shooter and then tell that guy they’d put their foot up his ass if they passed the ball. It’s funny, but as a fans of football we nitpick blitz pickup and shit like that. Shit that’s

  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 28 minutes ago

    Pat, you know I don’t, but I’ve had coaches draw up plays to free up the best foul shooter and then tell that guy they’d put their foot up his ass if they passed the ball. It’s funny, but as a fans of football we nitpick blitz pickup and shit like that. Shit

  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 28 minutes ago

    Pat, you know I don’t, but I’ve had coaches draw up plays to free up the best foul shooter and then tell that guy they’d put their foot up his ass if they passed the ball. It’s funny, but as fans of football we nitpick blitz pickup and shit like that. Shit that’s

  • Patrick Bateman commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 31 minutes ago

    Shitty season…..Rick needs to hire some offensive help and someone needs to say it to him. Deloss?

  • Patrick Bateman commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 33 minutes ago

    Trips,

    Do you know that he didn’t? JCB has made bad decision all season, why would this be any different. Barnes coached a shitastic game, but on the teams I was the best FT shooter, I never game up the ball unless it was an uncontested layup…..It’s not hard and it doesn’t take a

  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 34 minutes ago

    mcpayne, yes, you don’t leave that shit to chance. You don’t let your guys break the huddle or dead ball not knowing precisely what’s expected from them. Barnes doesn’t get 2 mil for coaching PE where he’s hoping the right guy gets fouled.

  • uthookem commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 35 minutes ago

    mpayne, I’d agree with you if J’Covan had been playing all season and had been in situations to make that decision. Like, you know, against Baylor, when he played all of 3 fucking minutes thanks to rick.

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    With 15 seconds left, out of a dead ball, most coaches would make it perfectly clear who they wanted to be fouled.

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    Pat, if you were making 2 million a year, would you leave that up to chance?

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    Actually, if your a PG and the best FT shooter on the team and played basketball your entire life, you’d pretty much know not to give up the ball if you had any brains…..Such a dumb play…..

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    Oh, and a stupid decision by Brown in giving up the ball to Johnson.

  • Trips Right commented on the blog post Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest Open thread   3 hours, 41 minutes ago

    Be nice if we’d coached our 90 percent foul shooter not to give the ball up.

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    Ransom,

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    The line kills us, as it should have.

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