two words. OFFENSIVE LINE. Missing 3 of our 5 starters. When by BYU game our starters had 10 total career starts COMBINED. Nobody will run well. You have good OL. Then it makes anybody look like an All American at RB
You can blame the offensive line all you want. However, I believe both of our RB's are average at best. This is shocking considering that JG rushed for a billion yards in HS! I thought JG would be a Heisman winner when we signed him. However, he cannot break tackles. Another example of a tremendous HS talent fading away at UT (i.e. G. Gilbert). The running backs have to help out a little bit. Especially when the line is weak.
I think the running backs are really good and our offensive linemen have talent. Watson's predictable offense is the problem, but I think Wickline can improve this line to open some holes for the backs. Should have a good practice against Kansas.
REALBIG....you are correct, SIR..... He cannot break a tackle...you touch him...he goes down...period.... no drive to miss and get down the field....
Malcolm Brown goes down too easily as well. Im amazed watching what seems to be every other big time D1 school have running backs that take a hit and stay on their feet, yet ours fall down without giving much of a fight. Its very perplexing.
Our OL is below average but Gray and Brown have been truly disappointing. Look at last year, most of the better teams had better play from their RBs than we did. Both of those guys appear to have peaked in HS. Hope the new staff is better at evaluating players.
"Gray and Brown both did pretty well against OU last year..." Further proof that the 2013 OU game was as flukey a win as we've had in about as long as I can remember. If that game showed us what Brown & Gray could do, then why have they never been able to come close to replicating it? The KU game last year was probably the next-closest effort they had as a tandem, and they managed a "respectable-but-meh" 4.9 ypc in that one. Jamaal, Cedric, and Ricky called to say "ONLY 4.9 ypc?" In Dallas, either they were stoked beyond imagine to go up against a superior team, or it was the perfect storm of OL execution plus Blake Bell's inexcusable QB play that kept us in charge.
I think Gray and Brown are pretty darn good. As good as Selvin Young, to make a comparison, who played some in the NFL. We haven't really had better RBs other than Ricky Williams, Cedric Benson and Jamaal Charles in the past 20 years, and we won plenty of games on teams that didn't have those guys. They just aren't the problem, in my opinion.
This is the biggest problem with our RBs. They are zero threat to dominate a game. You simply cannot give them the rock play after play after play. None of our opponents fear our RBs.
Both are average power conference RB's. Brown has no speed burst to pull away. Nor does he show any exceptional ability to break tackles. Certainly no special knack to make people miss. J Gray has a good burst of speed, but is not shifty, and does not break tackles with consistency or make many folks miss. They are serviceable, but somewhat disappointing, considering their high school stats.
I remember the comment the Oregon player made last year about how surprised he was how little talent that Texas team had. I don't think there's one player on offense that an opposing defensive coordinator stays up at night worrying about how to stop. And it isn't just because of the offensive line woes because it's been that way for a couple years (at least) now.
almost all football games are won by the team with the superior offensive line. A great runner will do little without one. Remember Vince Young? Watch the winning TD run in the championship game. Don't watch Vince. Watch the right tackle, Blaylock. I think he gave up two sacks in three years. There was a reason why Vince liked running to his right. We have the weakest O line in the 55 years I have been watching Texas football. By far. Maybe they will be good by the end of the season but not right now. Nobody could run behind that line with much success. The OU kid makes a lot of yards after contact but the contact occurs when he is running through the line. He already has some push and some velocity. You don't get velocity if you are hit in your backfield or approaching the LOS. This season is probably going to be a long training session and weeding out of weeds type season. The team will be much stronger next year. Lay back and enjoy it for the lessons and quit the pointless whining. Some of you sound like Aggies or Notre Dame sheep,
C'mon man. Our O-line is young and and decimated by injury. We have had no passing game to speak of. Opponents just stack the box with 8 or 9 players and what are our RBs to do. We start completing some balls on a regular basis and watch that running game open up. If that's all you have then it's easy to stop. I think that's what happened with GGilbert. Just the opposite, we had no running game. All they had to do was stop the pass. And as GG pressed to make something happen he was picked off. If he had stuck around long enough to experience playing with Grey and Brown I think you see a much different QB. Remember the old counter trey we used to run with Ricky? I would like to see that run with Brown.
Charles had this problem and both Gray and Brown have it, you have to hit the line of scrimmage at full speed whether the hole is there or not!!!! Charles learned that about half way through 2007 and he was phenominal.(sp) Sometimes that hole only opens for a split second but you have to hit it hard,no dancing or ***** footing!!!! Eventually the big uglies will get tired of you running into their backs and they will start to move some people!!!
