Y’all correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve not done a very good job of recruiting these type guys for several years, now. And it doesn’t help that TX HS football is geared more towards winning 7 v 7 tournaments, than physical football games.. Last night, our track stars got bullied by road graders and plow horses. Am I missing something?
If I heard them right, the announcers said the Arkansas OL put on an average of some 40 lbs or so per man from last year. Now some of that has to be fat, but presumably much of it was muscle. We’ve got to take a hard look at our S&C and see if we’re doing the right things for our guys in the trenches. Also, while I don’t think Coburn played poorly, his hog counterpart—Big DT Ridgeway—was all over us. The Arkansas lines aren’t stacked with mostly 4 and 5 star players. They built and developed them.
Chop, Is that 40 pounds the result of Arkansas hiring a real S&C coach? I am all in on Torre Becton being on someone else's payroll before Wednesday.
You know, when I heard the announcer first say that, I thought he was exaggerating. Then he said it again later. So, they took a much smaller, weaker O line and, in one year, turned them into a unit that could match up well with the likes of Coburn, Sweatt, and Ojomo. Wish our S&C was on that level. Is Dana LeDuc still alive?
Dana was the last S&C coach we had that was worth a ****, not to mention he was good people not some lard *** Mr T wannabe. Have we had an OL or DL that could bench 500 since he left? Reminder for youngsters, Dana had 6-7 on one squad, ALL of whom went to the NFL. Last I heard, he and Bobby Jack were still good friends. They shared some RE investments together.
Wisconsin often has a top 2-3 OL unit, sometimes the best in the country. And they do it with plenty of 3 star recruits, plus some 4 stars. They’ve been the gold standard for OL for a generation or more. Maybe we should look at what they’re doing and emulate. If Sark is thinking “but my OLs at Bama sure were good”, the obvious reply is “yeah, and they were filled with 5 star, and some high 4 star, recruits cherry picked from all over the country.” Herb Hand could field a really good O line if he had five Justin Blaylocks to work with.
Man alive, we had some fearsome monsters in the trenches in LeDuc’s day. Especially our 2 techniques on D. That’s what I thought Texas football was about.
Not my take. I did not see any tract stars. 7 on 7 is not our problem. Tx high school track stars and HS OL 5 stars are in Alabama, that is the problem.
OU does a nice job with the same in state recruits we're after. Bedenbaugh is a highly respected line coach. At the onset of last year's recruiting cycle, the top 15 in state linemen had Tx in their top 5. We signed one. Hand and mensa wet the bed with OL recruiting. Hopefully Flood can correct that.
It’s been an awful long time. Even Colt McCoy had a below average OL for most of his college career. (Sometimes well below average…) We’ve had some good, and real good, individual OL players, but the unit as a whole has been weak for a loooooooooong time. And every time we get a new OL coach, so many of us think “Ah, here’s the guy who will fix our OL problems.” Then, it’s same ol same ol OL.
I am still astounded by the open lanes in our offensive and defensive lines that the piggies were able to run through. I think there must be some kind of conspiracy going on. Where is agent mulder?
A really good DC can cause that to happen. Bill Bradley did it to Bob Stoops & OU when he was at Baylor. I'm sure the Hogs threw defensive schemes, stunts, and alignments that our coaches were not prepared for, and had trouble adjusting to.
I'll tell you one thing, we are not a power running team. We don't have an OL that can create openings. We need to get away from pounding Bijan up the middle on first and second down. That was half the problem on offense Saturday. How many times did we wind up with 3rd and long after running on 1st and 2nd down? That led to poor Card getting pounded on 3rd down when he tried to pass. And even after we scored no points in the first half, they started out the second half doing the exact same thing. No adjustments whatsoever!
What did they do all spring and fall camp? Plenty of time to teach (on and off the field) what to do if this guy does this .... . A basic understanding of your offensive theory is necessary to prevent a total meltdown when the opponent starts doing stuff that your coaches did not plan for. By the middle part of the second quarter, the "what do we do now look" should have been off everyone's face. Instead, Texas gave up. Did you see them walking to the bench for the second half?
I don't know if Texas can fix their line problems this year, we will probably just have to deal with it. I don't know what we have on the bench but it might not be a bad idea to try to give the younger guys a try. This is going to have to be addressed with better recruiting but do we have the patience to allow that?
We've done a horrible job recruiting and developing on the O line. Herb Hand was a disaster. Okafor and Jones are a disaster. The fact we have 3 4L and none are on any draft boards says a lot. We can't even have a running game with a 3 man front with one of the best Rbs in the country. We are years away from competing for anything that matters. 4-5 years if everything goes well. Our QB room is desperate, our WR room have no play makers (maybe Xavier), OL and DL are pathetic, LB's weak, DB's have some depth but most are graduating this year.
I think we saw 2 problems with the OL Sat. 1. Most of you already pointed out the mediocre talent recruited prior, poor execution, confusion, poor preparation. It will take Sark at least 2-3 recruiting classes to start to correct this. 2. Sabre pointed out what I too expressed to others post game. arky DC figured out a strategy how to beat the OL block calls, confuse & get pressure on the QB, while limiting the runs lanes. Mostly with 3 down DL spread out, blitzing LB's on many plays or DB's blitzing or bringing pressure. The Horns OL had no idea who they should block on many plays.
One of my buddies also observed this ^^^ and stated to me something like: I think the fact that arky came out and hit 'em in the mouth early, they were behind 16-0 at the half with very little positive, in a VERY loud & hostile environment - many of them had or were beginning to give up in their minds...
Yep. And his predecessors were even worse. For most of the last decade or two, it seems that we've mostly been a UT/OU/USC/aOSU level O-skill positions and QBs team, with a SFA/UTSA/Rice/U Conn level OL. (yes I know our WR group is down this year...)
So not only did we get physically beaten up by Arkansas, the Hogs also out-smarted us... The team and staff should be embarrased. I'm not giving up though--FIX IT!!!
Flood and Sark showed up and took this team through Spring practice. If they recognized we really need some OL help, I would think they would look to the portal and grad transfers for OL... (We got some other position players as grad transfers/portal.) But noooooooooo... Lesson learned (hopefully...). FIX IT!!!
PK and the D also laid an egg, but I still think PK is a good coach. As pointed out by others on these boards, we probably should've stacked more men in the box and let a very mediocre throwing QB try to beat us in the air. I'm more pissed about the OL and handling of the offense in general.
Sark shared in his presser today (9:35) that their DL played a 4 man front against Rice and the OL "didn't trust their training" when they came out and played an odd front with Dime defense.