One of the Barkers wrote that they thought Jones might be a good fit at TE when they did the writeup of the incoming recruits. We don’t need him at DE this year, and long-term the position may be stacked depending on how the Jeffcoat recruitment goes. I have no problem with that move.

Anyone know what one has to do these days to letter on the Texas football team?

Trey Graham Fr.-HS TE
D.J. Grant Fr.-RS TE
Ian Harris So.-SQ TE
Ahmard Howard So.-SQ TE
Blaine Irby Jr.-2L TE
Josh Marshall Jr.-SQ TE
Barrett Matthews Fr.-HS TE
Mac McWhorter Sr.-3L* TE
Foster Vimont Fr.-RS* TE
Dravannti Johnson Fr.-RS TE/DE
Dominique Jones Fr.-HS TE/DE
Greg Smith Jr.-2L TE/OL

So I’ll grant you that Vimont and MacWhorter are walk-ons, and I’ll even give you Johnson & Jones as converts back to DE. Smith stays as the default blocking surface in two TE sets.

That still leaves eight TE roster spots for one place on the field, and most of them were TEs last year. So yes, we do have way too many TE roster spots (and scholarships) for what this offense does.

If they aren’t making it here, they need to find another spot to make an impact – whether that is at another position or another school. If it’s not an issue of being short on talent, then we need to look at why they are not developing in a way that makes a meaningful impact to the team.

Again – what is Bruce Chambers adding here?

I will respectfully disagree.

There is no support for taking up nearly 12 percent of the scholarship roster to stock a position that will have – at most – one spot on the field and which has arguably been misused/underutilized more often than not in this offensive scheme. I’d even grant you that some special teams players could be stockpiled as ‘depth’ here, but I haven’t seen too many of these guys making big impacts on punt & kickoff coverage, and most haven’t seen the field in any meaningful respect (if at all).

By contrast, we have 15 guys (18 players with three of these likely walk-ons) to staff five slots on the OL, and seven LBs to cover two positions there. And we all know about the depth issues at DT. I guess I should be happy that we don’t have seven fullbacks on scholarship.

The trial & error approach to evaluating and developing the TE position needs to be re-evaluated. If it was working, we would be doing better than a 10-20% hit rate, and we wouldn’t have to shelve the position when one guy goes down for the year.

Time for Bruce Chambers to move along?

If we can’t find a TE to take at least some of the beating for Shipley, then I can’t imagine he’ll survive the entire year. He still needed shoulder surgery this spring, if that tells you what kind of a beating he took. Therefore, Mack and Davis’ 10 TEs are logically supported. Most of them are hybrid TE/D* or TE/WR anyway. They’re giving everyone with any potential a shot at it in the hopes of finding someone who can catch enough balls to keep Jordan alive through this season, which hopefully will be fourteen games.

I have four years of eligibility left. If I report to Mad Dog, will he give me bacon and chocolate. Ummm, bacon.