Offensively, whether the apologists refuse to believe it or not, Greg Davis really did get in the way and old habits were what doomed the offense. The typical reactionary thing to say would be "Greg Davis could never have predicted Colt would get hurt." That's not the point. Football is just like anything else: an individual is responsible for the predictable consequences of his or her actions. The speed option from the shotgun is a great play, but it is not a play that you just run so that you can say "yeah, we run this." We have 0 nuances of this play. We have no peel back pass action, we do not pull a slot WR from the front side to the backside for an inside reverse pitch on that same action, and we run the play in predictable situations. The play before the speed option was that 16 yard off-tackle run by Newton to the right. The option was a predictable play based on the success of the previous play. Davis believes in what I call "metronoming" the offense, which means that if we get a good play on one side of the field, he'll immediately move to run the ball to the other side. Knowing that the RB was on Colt's left to begin with, the only run we could have seen based on GD's tendencies was the speed option. But there's a bigger lesson to be learned about that play: when you run it as sparsely as we do, you need a system QB to do it; not a special, valuable passing QB like Colt McCoy. An outside option is by definition a dangerous play for a QB to run because the reason to pitch is based on a DE, LB (or if you're lucky only a safety) making a play on the QB, which implicitly means "pitch it just before he knocks you on your ***." That's a sensible thing to do when you have Vince Young and Jamaal Charles in the backfield, because when you can isolate one defender, he can't really commit to kill the QB with such ferocity like defenders can Colt McCoy. If you did that against Vince Young in 2005, Selvin or Charles would take the pitch and pick up 10+. Here's the point: Colt was never a "slow" runner, but he was not a running QB either. He was a passing QB with the ability to scramble. When you have a QB like that and you run the kind of offense we do, the phrase "speed option" should never enter your consciousness, much less should you run it in the MNC game against the nation's best defense. Go back and watch film of the 2000 Oklahoma season. I guarantee you will never find an instance where Heupel ran a speed option against one of the elite defenses on OU's schedule. You can use the most colorful rhetoric to construct a sentence that basically amounts to "Greg did not hit Colt McCoy." No one would be stupid enough to say that he did, but that's not the point. He put him in that position with that insane play call and we paid a tremendous price for it. Defensively, I can't really say anything bad about it. We were never going to outright shut them down unless our offense got out to a 14-0 start (sounds extreme, but it could have happened given how we were moving the ball up until Colt got hurt and the fact that the 2nd line player on Bama's kick return team just flat out gave us the ball on the kickoff). Bama was going to get some plays here and there, and they did. The defense did give up a lot of points, but it was a symptom of turnovers and generally poor field position in the 1st half. The special teams was at its absolute best all season outside the fact that we didn't break any huge returns. I can't say anything bad about them either. In fact our kick cover team did a world of services by recovering 2 of its kickoffs. That's unheard of at the collegiate level. This loss stings tremendously and I hate having to go back and freaking remember it in that much detail. I especially hate knowing that we had to see Jordan Shipley and Colt McCoy (and all of the other seniors) end their collegiate careers this way. They all played like warriors out there and it makes me ******* sick that this is what they get for it.
My gripe with Davis is that he and the other coaches seemed to believe that Colt would never get hurt, so the #2 guy wasn't properly prepared to step in. That is my only criticism of the staff. Maybe next year they will take care of that weakness.
GD can never win in some eyes. Implying that the playcall on which McCoy was injured was some huge eff-up on GD's part is really pushing it. Injuries happen. As McCoy said afterward, it wasn't even an unusual hit. Bad luck. Get over it. I do wish our backups got more game reps, and - more importantly - were allowed to call a full set of plays when they do get in, instead of just handing off. But GG played better than his stats - his receivers needed to step up.
Thanks Slugga. This loss doesn't sting because Colt went down. It stings because GG's coaches and team mates did not help him. Lake Travis could have won this game. On to 2010. Thanks for the grades all season.
I don't disagreed that the play call was not optimal. Texas needed Colt to do some things with his legs, and they needed to establish some run early. He was a logical choice and, against good, physical Ds, injuries occur. Bad luck. If they had a better overall run game the play would likely have been on the shelf. Texas caught some breaks this year where opponents had key offensive players out when the Horns were calling (the Okie teams come to mind). Horrible time for some weird balancing of the universe. Also has to be noted that, when Bama wanted to run and the game was still in question, Texas didn't stop them. Lotta yards after contact, especially since the Bama pass O was worse than expected (and not much was expected). The Tide O was on blocks for the second half. Terrible end to a mediocre college football season. Have never felt worse for a football player than I did for Colt, watching him on the sidelines. Just brutal. Them's the breaks.
Weren't the 2 turnovers forced by the special teams? Does the defense get credit for that in your formula?
Getting a turnover on ST goes to the defense because there's no such metric in ST to reward them for such a thing. And once again I have to point this out: this formula is not mine. It's Tom Landry's.
The defense was clearly deflated in the 2nd quarter--losing Colt didn't just hurt the offense--it emotionally cost the D too. Alabama only moved the ball when our D was flat wondering what was happening to Colt when he was in the locker room. They came out in the 2nd half and played hard. Even though Bama was playing conservative, I don't think they would have moved much anyway at that point. That's something I haven't seen mentioned yet. The effect on the D at the loss of Colt.
Colt being out definitely did have an effect on the D, and not just emotionally either. After the possession where he went down, the offense had 7 possessions and ran a total of 22 plays. Additionally, Bama's average starting field position after that was their own 45 yard line. When you basically finish the half after the first possession going 3 and out every time and you give them the ball that close to your own goal line, even the best defenses in the country would suffer. I guarantee you we'd have scored 30+ on them if the situation was reversed (i.e. Ingram gets hurt, Colt plays and we get the ball every time on our 45 after a 3-and-out).
Perhaps, someday, the UT coaching staff will have the acumen of an embittered, arrogant, and frustrated high school placekicking coach. Just think how far the team will go when that happens--our Longhorns might even win conference titles, play for a national championship, or end the season with one or none losses.
I particularly liked "Terrible end to a mediocre college football season." 13-1 and 2nd in the nation on final polls = "mediocre" Wow!
I'm pretty sure that the "Terrible end to a mediocre college football season" comment had to do with college football in general and not Texas specifically. And that comment was accurate. The year, generally speaking, was very underwhelming.
I have come to the conclusion that this grading system is useless, an exercise in "look how smart I am". The sweat is not even dry and people are trying to blame people for the loss. It is interesting how the people who seem to know the least, sound off the most.
hp, agree with just about everything you said. one other thing that kills me about last night was shell we went into after colt left. i totally understand not wanting to put GG in a position to lose his mind and all that... but i think the gameplan did just that. We ran ran passed his *** into some very awful hits and near INTs. I'm not saying we should have come out 5 wide and threw downfield every play, but being that vanilla to protect GG had the total opposite effect.
It seems obvious that the coaches ran a vanilla offense after Colt went down simply to stall, avoid costly turnovers, and minimize the damage while they waited for Colt to hopefully come back. Once it was clear at halftime he was out for good they opened up the playbook and gave it their best shot with GG since there was nothing else to lose. It's also obvious that their initial stalling strategy was on target considering he ended up with 5 turnovers. That's not a knock on GG. It's simply a fact of the game when an inexperienced QB is put into that situation. Why is that so hard for so many Friday morning coaches to understand? Also, there is no amount of reasonable game experience during this season that would have prepared GG for that situation. Even if he had started all season he would not have had the skill and experience to win that game. Don't agree? Name the last true frosh QB to lead his team to a National Championship. If you're paying attention you'll notice that virtually every National Champion is playing at least a junior and usually a senior QB.
I agree that it was way too much to ask of a true freshman to come in and carry the day. Heck, if you were at the game you saw that Gilbert did not even know where he helmet was when he saw that he needed to enter the game. I am no football expert. However, I wondered why they did not come out with him trying to throw some short passes to get in the groove rather than the continued hand offs which were easily stopped. If you had told me that Colt would be lost on the third play of the game and we would have been behind by 3 with 2 min. left, I would have thought you were nuts. No real need to work this game over. Simple fact is that the head of the snake was chopped off. Great effort by both sides of the ball under difficult circumstances. I think the coaches had a great game plan. Players were ready. Just one of those things which should remind all of us that there are no absolutes and that is why you actually play these games instead of just letting the "experts" pick the winner.
I have never been a Greg Davis apologist. But I'm pretty sure they went vanilla just after the injury to Colt because nobody knew at the time that Colt was done for the game. They probably figured, okay, Colt may be able to come back, so let's not risk Gilbert freaking out under the pressure and throwing a couple of pick 6's. Let's at least keep this game close enough for Colt to come back and win it for us. If he can't come back, we're probably screwed anyway. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that. Because run, run, then pass into a great defense keying on the run, run, then pass had little chance of getting a first down. But I understand what the thinking was. The hope was that the defense would play well enough to keep it close until Colt would come back. It didn't work out that way, because as mentioned above, I think the Colt injury had a severe psychological effect on the defense, too. And Bama's running offense is no joke, especially when given a short field. As far as the option play, I didn't like that particular play either. But to basically imply that running Colt in this game was stupid.... I don't agree with it. Watching our offense the last two years (or the last 10 years really), we have not been very successful at lining it up and just running it against equal talent with straight handoffs to the RB, while the QB sits back and watches. And when we can't run and abandon it, it puts Colt at risk anyway, because on passing plays the defense is teeing off on him with no respect for the run. Bottom line is this offense has been it's most dangerous the past two years when we have some success running it. And we haven't had much success running it without Colt being involved, either as the ball carrier or the decoy on misdirection. Now as far as why Greg Davis' offenses can't run it without the QB involved, that's another topic altogether.
I'd like to see one instance of where we did contradict the speed option from the shotgun. I haven't seen it even since Vince was running it, much less when Colt did.
I'm amazed you haven't been hired by Mack to figure it out for him. Clearly he and GD have no idea how to coach a successful college team.
