Got into an interesting discussion with a co-worker about who was the most underused player that we could think of that rolled through the forty acres. Here are my thoughts: 5) Ivan Williams: This one will get me some grief. I know. It's not that I think that Ivan should have started over Cedric Benson. I know that he shouldn't have. But there was a role for him that we never exploited. A Ritchie Anderson/Larry Centers type role. One of my favorite road trips was the 2002 Nebraska game. My lasting memory was how on several critical third downs, Simms found Ivan out of the backfield for big gains. Good balance. Great hands. 4) Sloan Thomas: He just seemed to get lost behind Roy Williams and BJ Johnson. He was a great sized WR with good hands. He reminded me alot of Kwame Cavil. If not for Roy and BJ, I think that he would have been a stud for us. 3) Jermichael Finley: This has been my greatest criticism of Greg Davis during his tenure. Finley was awesome. When we actually drew up gameplans to feature him, he was dominant (see 2007 OU). Great size, great speed for a TE. For whatever reason, it seemed like our offense just never looked at TE as a weapon and too often he would be left out. He came across as a douche by bitching about his role when he left, but face it - he was right. 2) Drew Kelson: Really enough has been said about the mismanagement of Kelson's career. Too many coordinators. Too many changes of position. He showed that he could be a dominant force on a January evening in 2006. 1) Priest Holmes: Yes, I know, he missed the entire 1995 season with a torn ACL. But he came back from that injury running a 4.3 in the 40 by spring drills in 96. For the life of me I will never understand why a team with both Ricky Williams and Priest Holmes had Shon Mitchell as its starting tailback. No offense to Mitchell (who replaced Holmes well in 95), but come on. My personal honorable mentions: Jamaal Charles until his junior year; Eric Jackson who had real deep threat capability; Ahmard Hall who's posiition was never really developed; Tony Brackens because the _arnell 3-4 stifled his ability to be one of the truly dominant DEs of all time
1.Roy Williams 2.Marcus Wilkins I'm not GD bashing, GD has made impressive strides and as long as he runs our offense we will score points. That being said, Roy was a freak of nature and that offnes stymied him more than any defense ever could. Zero TD's in 4 OU games. That is a travesty. As for Wilkins, there's plenty of Longhorn fans who still to this day have never heard of the guy, but last I had checkes, and this was a while back, he had like a 4 or 5 year career he was workin on in GB.
Robert Crenshaw The reason I say that is because the 1995 defense should have been a 4-2-5 and not that stupid 3-4 with those slow-as-molasses linebackers, and thus Crenshaw would have been the 5th starting DB.
T.J. Dilworth, DB 1979-1982. Great speed, good hitter, always made plays whenever Akers got around to putting him in the game. Nice to see that the University finally got around to retiring his number...well, after some kid named Ricky Williams wore it for a couple years.
Ivan Williams is the only one of those I agree with. Sloan was a third receiver, simple as that. He did a great job in that role but I think he was used about as much as you would typically use a No. 3 receiver. Should BJ or Roy have gotten fewer touches? Finley owns the TE record book. Could he have gotten more balls thrown to him? Probably, but if we'd thrown 10 balls a game to him people would have complained even MORE that we don't throw the ball downfield. Drew Kelson. The legend continues to grow based on a few plays in one game. I don't have any question that he was a good player, but a dominant force? Come on! It amazes me that so many fans saw this guy as a "dominant force" and yet the people who worked with him every single day were completely oblivious to it. He could definitely have done more if he had gotten the chance, but I don't buy the hype about him being a dominant force. Priest Holmes was hurt, like it or not, and it slowed him down. By the time he got back he was No. 3 on the chart, and diss Shon Mitchell all you want, but he was performing. He played well, he did a great job for us. Priest's injuries really did hurt him here - I watched him in the Bluebonnet Bowl where he litterally took over down the stretch against UNC,a nd I don't doubt if he'd have had four healthy years he would have been a feature back. But I don't buy that he was held back or wasted in some way.
I agree with Marcus Wilkins, and would put him at the top of the list. How often does a non-starter and almost never used player go on to solid success in the NFL? If he was athletic enough to play five years in the league, then he was grossly underutilized while at Texas.
1) Lawrence Sampleton, an incredibly gifted receiving tight end during an era when the tight end was not featured much in the receiving role. 2) Ricky Williams during the fourth quarter of the 1996 Notre Dame game when all we had to do was keep feeding him the ball to run out the time on the clock with a 10 point lead, thank you John Macovic, ok I shouldn't have brought that up. 3) The linebacker position for the last 20 years until Coach Boom arrived and noticed we have some linebackers that can play.
To say that Finley owns the UT record book at TE isn't saying all that much. David Thomas was great, Pat Fitzgerald was good - but they were classic TEs, great for blocking and outlet routes. Finley could have been more - and with a LB on him, he could get downfield and raise cain. We saw that against OU. Prodigal: I am glad you agree on Ivan. I always thought he kinda got the shaft. His game against Tech in 2001 was awesome. Totally agree on Marcus Wilkins - I should have put him on my list.
Sloan Thomas got royally screwed by having to play his freshman year. He should have redshirted, and have one year as the #1 WR. Although the fact that he nor BJ have stuck on a NFL team may speak volumes, when you consider guys that played QB in college are better Pro WRs than they are.
Marcus Wilkins was a weird deal, definitely, as Sangre said, he just sort of popped up on year and ends up playing in the NFL. I don't know if he just got lost in the shuffle or maybe was just a late bloomer. You could probably make an argument for Roy Williams in that there were games that he just dominated people. But at the same time, a lot of that goes on the QB - I really don't think GD went into games thinking "if we can get Roy 5 or 6 touches, that's enough." That and having to share catches with a lot of talented receivers, and I can see why he didn't have massive numbers week after week. I'm of the school that says you throw to who they aren't covering, and if people were willing to double Roy and leave someone else open, throw them the ball. I guess the guy I always think of as underused is Terry Orr. Came in as a fullback, had the big TD run against Bama in the Cotton Bowl, and and never really got a look at TB until his senior year - despite the team playing tailback by committee for most of the time he was there. He had one massive game against TCU when they moved him to tailback as a senior, then went on to a pretty solid NFL career with the Redskins as a TE.
Accurate - I agree on Sampleton too, but at the same time, the more I think about it you could probably argue that half the offense was underutilized during the Akers years. Man this post got me thinking about those years - there were some fun players back then, and so many years we just wasted them. I just think how good Eric Metcalf would have been if we hadn't tried for so long to make him a tailback. he would have been so good in the offense we're running today.
I thought Ivan Williams was given every chance to succeed. His problem was that he tiptoed up to the LOS. Cody J is the next great Longhorn RB. he's got freakability
I thought Eric Metcalf was used, just as he should have been used in that era. I do agree he would be one helluva back with Colt standing next to him in the spread. He would have been a great WR, but in the mid-80's he was an awesome, or so I thought Tailback.
