That said, they run-blocked pretty well as DeMarco Murray had 58 yards on 10 carries. Of course, when you find yourself in a vicious low-scoring cockfight there is no place for running the ball. Especially when you have a terrible, inexperienced quarterback throwing to a new cast of receivers missing their best player (Jermaine Gresham). Good job, Big Game Bob.
Oklahoma St. looked pretty solid. They punked a poor Georgia offense and their offense looked about like it did last season, very good if not quite elite. Perrish Cox looks phenomenal and the D-line was better than adequate. They’re still giving up loads of points against the Big 12 offenses and perhaps will hold down OU’s weak looking squad prompting undue credit to the new DC and further trashing of Todd Beckman.
Of course, we must talk about the Horns as well. Let’s start with
1). Special Teams:
I think our special teams will be a big difference maker this season. Potentially a game changing play will be made on special teams in Stillwater or Dallas. The punting is good, and all our kickers are as good as you might expect from college players. The return game is looking very promising. Earl Thomas wasn’t the greatest punt returner but he’s merely a placeholder. Jordan Shipley will play there when it matters most. DJ Monroe is perhaps the fastest player on the team and his participation on kick returns is pretty exciting.
2). Offense:
McCoy was McCoy. He threw a terrible INT but it’s early in the year. He’s going to be the best quarterback in the country. He still has some happy feet in the pocket and drifts out when it isn’t necessary to do so but overall, he was excellent and spread the ball to a big cast of receivers.
Speaking of the receivers, they look phenomenal. When Texas used the 4-wide receiver set with Dan Buckner in the TE-Flex spot they were picking up huge chunks of yards over the middle of the field. Jordan Shipley was used in that role last year and took some heavy punishment while torching OU and the rest of the Big 12. That Buckner can already occupy that role so well will mean great things for the offense. Kirkendoll looked over the middle as well.
The outside is very interesting. We didn’t see much of Malcolm Williams, which would be a great disappointment if not for the reason. The reason is John Chiles. He’s cut the the 15 pounds he needlessly added to play QB and he looks good in the open field. He’s a fantastic weapon for teams to account for, and teams just don’t have the resources in the back 7 to account for Chiles on the edge while defending the middle and the lethal Jordan Shipley.
Jordan might be the most underrated WR in the country. He’s really, really good. I don’t know what else to tell you. He does everything that WR’s are supposed to do well. He’s not huge and tall, that’s his only weakness.
The Texas running game pleased me greatly yesterday, except the fumbles. Greg Davis wisely chose not to scrap our zone-running game as I predicted in this space earlier. Instead, he did exactly what I proposed and expected and employed the inside and outside zones from a no-huddle offense with Vondrell McGee and successfully moved the ball down the field. He made 2 other tweaks that also generated some real results.
They moved Colt under center in the traditional 11 personnel (1 TE, 1 RB) formation we usually run from the shotgun and employed the zone-runs and play-action. We’ll see more of this later in the year. It’ll be a nice way to punish the over-aggressive Sooners.
Finally, they played DJ Monroe at RB and ran the old counter we really haven’t seen since Jamaal Charles left. I suppose they feel that you need great speed to the outside to run if effectively. At any rate, Monroe was a monster on the outside zone and counter and should see a lot of action in that role.
Between the 4 and 5 wide offense, the no-huddle under-center offense, DJ Monroe and the unstoppable jumbo package Texas has too many strengths on offense for any team to be able to handle.
On defense we showed a few interesting traits. We gave up some big plays, but the fact is that Texas will do that all year. Muschamp is going to play aggressively against what teams are running and leave Corners in single coverage and attack upfield. Now, there will be better execution down the road and you’ll see this defense play better and tighter but still give up some big plays in the running game or passing game as the competition intensifies.
The secondary looked pretty solid, barring the one play where Chykie blew coverage one on one and gave up a 75 yard TD pass. Ben Wells made a huge hit late in the game, hopefully this will give him confidence along with Christian Scott’s possible absence this season due to academic issues.
The Linebackers looked like an elite unit such as Texas hasn’t had since I started watching them. Roddrick Muckelroy picked up where he left off. Norton (hopefully not seriously injured) was good and a great inside back in our new 3-3-5 look. E. Acho and Keenan Robinson are fast strikers who can play in space or inside as necessary. I like them all a great deal.
Defensive End seems to have been the underrated strength of the team. Sam Acho might be better than I even dared to hope. Texas played the option last night about as poorly as they did when A&M used it to pull that disgusting upset in 2006 with the exception of Acho. When they ran it at Sergio he ran straight at the quarterback hoping to deliver a killing shot and set them up for the pitch that yielded some good runs. Acho played contain on the pitch man, forced the quarterback to keep it and created a fumble. He plays smart but is very athletic and gets in the backfield. Kindle, while a little over-aggressive on the option, is going to be phenomenal this season. He’s relentless in his pressure and athletic enough to punish teams on every play because of his pursuit. He might end Sam Bradford’s life this season. Alex Okafor also looked very good, and more importantly, he looked great against the run. Coming into the season he was supposed to be another pass-rushing weapon to rotate in against the hapless Big 12 quarterbacks we face but he demonstrated the know-how to use his penetration and athleticism to blow up the LA Monroe running game.
Houston played well but it was hard to evaluate DT play from the upper deck where I sat. Texas used the 4-2-5 under front they used for much of last season and also mixed in a lot of 3-3-5. I intended to write about the 3-3-5 before the season started but didn’t fully grasp what we’re doing with it.
Last season the front looked like this:
This year as follows:
Last season, Muschamp used the first front to create one-on-one matchups that paid big dividends for the pass-rush. The ends line up against the guards (who aren’t typically selected for their ability to defend the quarterback from quick rushers) and avoid double teams. Kindle could rush from the same side as Orakpo and prevent the Left tackle from coming to double Orakpo. If a team asked a guard to help double team Roy Miller they then had to also ask a tackle to slide inside 2 or 3 yards in time to block Orakpo or Houston, which is a little more useful than asking me to suit up and block Orakpo or Houston.
This season the ends are in the more traditional 5-tech, meaning they are lined up over the tackles instead of the guards. I’m not clear on the reasoning for this change but evidently Muschamp is not as interested in creating matchups for Kheeston Randall or Ben Alexander as he was with Roy Miller and I sympathize. Instead the linebackers we’ll have to take on guards inside more often and the ends have more responsibility, perfectly acceptable terms since these are team strengths. We’ll see how this front develops over the course of the season and what advantages it lends to Muschamp’s squad. Overall, I feel great about the defense, despite the 20 points allowed. They are fast and aggressive and will certainly create some turnovers. It also warrants mentioning that despite allowing 20 points, the defense only gave up 298 yards for the game yesterday.
So far so good, bring on Wyoming…
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