Texas Football is like the Vietnam War right now

It's not getting any better despite throwing more resources at it. It has less and less popular support every year. Our offensive plans have been a disaster. We are focussed on winning the hearts, the minds and the culture. We have a bunch of Westmorelands telling us to hang in there because there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

The only light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.

 

Fire everyone but Wickline, Robinson and possibly Watson. That's the best solution.

We could possibly give Traylor one more year (based on his success at what was mostly 3A Gilmer? lol), but he hasn't done much this season. The Special Teams have largely been poor, and we have seen highly insufficient contributions from the Tight Ends that he has put on the field. (And we haven't even seen Garrett Gray out there, which I have to chalk up as Traylor's fault as much as anyone's. Granted, Gray almost certainly should have stayed at Receiver, but the move again has to be looked at as Traylor's fault as much as anyone's.)

Daje Johnson consistently fielding punts inside the 10 this year? The kicking game? The punting game? The return game overall, with Boyd, Thomas, etc. considering the options available on this roster (including one of the greatest high school PUNT--not kick-off, PUNT-- returners of all-time in Newsome)?

I don't want to hear any more b.s. about Traylor and supposed recruiting, by the way. Any good coach will be able to recruit at Texas. It's absolute nonsense the know-nothings who are assigning him some kind of great importance in that area, lol. David Snow? lol. He and Curtis were all that Traylor ever sent us, along with apparent major problem-child and possible team liability at this point Boyd. Coaches from other high schools are not going to "send" us their players or not based on whether we fire Jeff Traylor, lol. And probably just as many dislike him as like him, lol. One more year, based on a high winning record at Gilmer, and that's it. He doesn't get the special teams and tight ends in order next season, and he's out--period.

By the way, does anyone not realize by now that it doesn't make any freaking difference whether you recruit well if you play the wrong ones or play guys out of freaking position? If you clog up numerous positions with holes for 3 or 4 years, what freaking difference does it make if you have someone on the bench who could do better? Those of you touting our underclassmen, lol: you think we look good with Omenihu and Jefferson for 4 years? With Davante Davis and John Bonney? Even Hall is an underclassmen, lol. With Boyd at corner if they leave him there? With Ford and Nelson playing defensive tackle? With Hager out there, for crying out loud (and does anyone think Townsend wouldn't have stopped Mahomes on 3rd down at the crucial end last night if he had been out there instead of gay little Hager? lol.)

And do you think maybe Norvell got our guys hurt last night by putting them in positions where that was possible when he could have personnel and plays out there that would have made things easier? Trying to run Kirk Johnson for several plays like a battering ram after his good run, when battering ram is not Kirk Johnson's game? Giving Heard no reliable, big receiving targets on 3rd down and getting him hurt with the foolishness that he put out there? Come on, get real, man. Get freaking real, for crying out loud.

 

Wait.... why we would keep watson?

 

I'm not sure that Watson has been given a fair shake. Everyone tried to make him the scapegoat after game 1 to avoid blaming Strong, it seems to me. Ultimately, it is the head coach's call as to who to start at quarterback, and we don't know that that was Watson's call. For that matter, we don't even know that his West Coast style would have been any worse than what we have seen--seems to have worked pretty well for Bridgewater. I'm not sure where all of the Watson hate came from, to be honest, unless it was from people trying to ingratiate themselves to people who liked Norvell or something. The whole thing came off as an exercise in mob justice, to me--who's to say that Watson couldn't have made adjustments after the first game, for example? And what has Norvell's real effectiveness been, overall, when he hasn't even figured out how to convert on 3rd down? Watson put Bridgewater in the NFL, and it looked to me at West Virginia that he had really started to develop Heard, if the proper 3rd down receiving personnel and play calls would have been there to help him along, a bit.

I just thought the Watson lynch mob was juvenile at best, and possibly something worse than that. Possibly like those who try to get credibilty and popularity by attacking some kind of generalized unpopular figure, whatever the ill-considered motives and kind of lack of honor and honesty behind it. Just came off as an embarrassment to me, quite honestly, and it still does, frankly. Still comes off that way every freaking day that it goes on, lol.

 

Watson had a very bad offensive record at Nebraska and Colorado. His Louisville offenses struggled to score with Bridgewater against bad defenses. Bridgewater is the only QB of his to develop in about 20 years of coaching.

Our current QBs are not developing.

http://www.hornfans.com/threads/when-is-watson-going-to-step-up-his-game.96771/

 

Watson is what Patterson allowed Charlie to get. Charlie wanted Chad Morris. Patterson wouldn't approve the buyout to get him.

Patterson went cheap and we've been dealing with that ever since ... not to mention the culture clean out.

I think that changes in the 2nd or 3rd week of December.

I think aak is in error on who needs to be replaced.

 

Shark,

I have never, and never thought I would say anything positive about Stevie Patterson, but paying the Sons of Klem $5 million to get Chad Morris would have been a total *** show. Morris may be good in college, but no OC is worth a $5 million buyout plus his salary.

Knowing Patterson, I think it was more a case of Patterson saying, "I'm smarter than you, have more power than you, and by damn I really like me"", than it was about saving money. Besides, Strong probably would have gone directly to Morris and not used Powers & Patterson's beloved KornFairy

 

Maybe so ... But do you think this offense has caused 5 million in damage ... By the choice of OC?

I Do. Now that presumes a Morris offense would have at least been good enough to turn 4 or 5 of these losses into wins.

I do.

I could be wrong.

Nice comment on Patterson.

 

There are a lot of coordinators better than Watson. It did not have to be Chad Morris. I mean Greg Davis, Bryan Harson and Applewhite are all better than Watson. The choices were not limited to Morris or Watson.

 

Bryan Harsin coming back was a choice?

 

^ No, my point was there are a lot of coordinators out there better than watson. I mean the last 3 were all better.

 

This argument makes no sense. The following week Heard started and has started since. I think it was totally Watson's call on who started. Watson, like Strong, live in a different era when it comes to college football offensive strategy.

Strong needs to control-alt-delete this staff except for a few coaches and pray we win next year.

 

Gotcha. Surely he wouldn't go back to O/C again if he can help him, and maybe he wants to stay at Boise regardless of money, but ....

While I think Charlie should get a 3rd year, if we do go a different direction I hope we give Harsin a look. Our offenses weren't great when he was here but he generally got the most he could out of what he had, resurrected Fozzy's career, utilized freshman/sophomore Jaxon better than anybody else utilized upperclassman Jaxon, and knew the right time to stay basic and the right time to spring something finesse.

The Brothers Foreman, Warren, Heard, Swoopes, Kirk J., John Burt, that's plenty enough for Harsin to work with, especially with another year for Vahe and Connor Williams giving us likely a better OL than we had when Harsin was here last.

 

Agree there should be plenty of experience left for someone to win 8-9 games in their second year provided they can find a QB.

 

Actually, my reading of Watson's performance, and the performance of his units and his quarterbacks, is that he was pretty strong at all of those 3 schools--Colorado, Nebraska and Louisville. His teams seemed to perform, his offenses seemed to perform (particularly during many of those years on 3rd down conversions and passing efficiency), and they all seemed to improve under his tutelage. Frankly, his record appears to go back even further than that, with Illinois, Miami (Ohio), Southern Illinois and Northwestern, and most, if not all of it, looks pretty positive to me.

 

Good analogy. I am hoping that this is more like April 1862, and we're the union army. Its been a series of demoralizing defeats and the victories are fleeting.
The amputated limbs of running backs and Linebackers gets tacked like cordwood, and we still have some useless West Point generals who have proved that they can not lead in battle.

But Strong is Ulysses Grant, and Shiloh is on the horizon.

 

One does not even begin to follow the other as to Heard's starting, and to pretend that Strong's comments weren't adamantly negative toward Heard leading up to the Notre Dame game is frankly dishonest. It was almost certainly--read, it's a hundred--that it was Strong's call to not start Heard. "We are going to play Jerrod some, but if he makes one single mistake, he needs to keep on running right past the sideline and into the locker room", was a comment that Strong made in the days just before the game, for example.

There is no way in the world that Strong gets a pass on it, and Watson has a pretty strong record on quarterbacks almost everywhere that he has gone. Strong put Heard in there in Week 2, extremely reluctantly, only because the fan-base was calling for his head if he didn't. It was Strong's failure, at least as much as Watson's and quite possibly moreso, to not have Heard starting in Week 1, quite possibly the greatest failure of the season in a season littered with them.

This appears to be one of of the only seasons of Watson's coaching career at major colleges where he hasn't led a team to a bowl game--the others maybe being his first year at Nebraska; one year out of 6 at Colorado; his single year at Northwestern, apparently; and one year out of 3 for an Illinois team that hadn't been to a bowl in 20 years before he joined the staff (15 bowl games in those 20 years coaching at Texas, Louisville, Nebraska, Northwestern, Colorado and Illinois). I will take that level of performance over Norvell, at this point, and over many others who we would likely hire.

 

Some of the other failures might have us at better than 4-7 right now, so no.

 

Aak09, please click on that link I posted and read that thread on Watson. He has had a pretty bad career.

 

Aak09 must be related to Watson.

 

that's true, but it's evidently true Strong wanted Morris and the former AD refused.

So, Charlie didn't get the support ... and that's become evident, too.

 

And we saw the success and production that getting to a bowl game produced last season right?

 

Uhh sorry, but Watson should be one of the first to go IMHO.

 

As a VIetnam vet, I fail to see the comparison and frankly, it is offensive as hell. I hope you never have to see your buddies blown to bits over a football season.