Clock Management and Special Teams

Herman needs to find a coaching mentor to teach him the importance of clock management and special teams. At Texas, Mack Brown won a lot of games with clock management and special teams. Just a quick example, we had a bad start in the 2008 game and the Shipley kick off return for a touchdown fired our team back up. In general football, most coaches seem to have cared about clock management and special teams until the past 10 years. Les Miles used to be the exception, but now his lack of clock management seems to be the rule.

Our special teams the past few weeks speak for themselves. Rather than Shipley kick return to fire us up, we shot ourselves in the foot on kick returns repeatedly yesterday.

Our "2 minute drive" with no timeouts before half where we had 0 urgency and ended with Ehlinger throwing a 2 yard pass and Ehlinger running was one of the worst 2 minute drives I have ever seen.

Also, on the 4th quarter drive where we kicked the field goal, we had a designed Ehlinger run on 2nd and 13 which had not worked all game and only achieved running 30 seconds off clock that we desperately needed. It is the little things like this where you go "does this coaching staff have no concept of the clock?"

Hire a special teams coordinator. We need it. Charlie Strong also employed the "special teams by committee/no clock management" coaching style. Herman is better at the rest of it than Strong, but the same glaring deficiency as Strong in this area has lost us and will continue to lose us football games. If most coaches for the past 100 years can figure out clock management, than our "mensa" coach should be able to do so.

Right now, in general college football, an average coach focusing on special teams and clock management could win games he otherwise should not and look like a great coach.

Side note: I am not going to even fault Ehlinger on the two minute drives anymore because it is pretty obvious that, with the offense's lack of urgency as a whole, the offense is being terribly coached in this area. Ehlinger is almost certainly doing what he is told which is "ignore the clock and operate like we have 10 minutes and 3 timeouts, not less than 2 minutes and 0 timeouts."

 

Duvernay cost us 44 yards that game by not fair catching when he should have.

 

If I were the special teams coach I would be happy with the 25 yard line but run it out a couple of times. Mix it up take a chance.
Someone said that our average starting spot was the 17 yard line after kickoffs. Only an 8 yard difference. It's what happens afterwards that matters. if we go 3 and out or one first down or 2 or 3 it only matters when we punt the ball away. So Duvernays decisions doesn't make a big deal to me, especially when and if he were to break one.

 

Did you ever watch the Houston Oilers' Warren Moon run his offense with less than 2 minutes left in a tight game? We're not quite that frustrating at UT this year, but we're in the same ballpark.

 

Course clock management cost us the 08 game against Tech. If Colt snaps with 5 or less seconds on that last drive we play for an NC. You can't control a lot of things as a coach, but you sure the hell control when you snap the ball. In this game what pissed me off on that last drive before the half, we threw an incomplete deep and guys just jogged back to the line. WTF???

 

One of the kicks he fielded was clearly going out of bounds and we would have received it at the 35. There was also the fair catch incident. The special teams were horrendous.

The problem is this has happened a lot of under Herman. Just off the top of my head OU last year, WVU last year and before halftime against Okie State this year. I want to say Baylor last year as well.

 

On the very first kick return, the UT return went and caught a ball out-of-bounds. It was okay, but the fact he was trying to catch it is troubling.

 

We returned our second kickoff to the 12. Then Les Miles smartly squibbed it and we started on the 18.

The commentators said we are the only team in the country with negative punt return yards. I checked. We are. We are 130 out of 130 teams.

Herman needs a special teams coordinator.

 

The blocked field goal was a vast improvement. However, that was a potential return for a TD and we could not pick up the football. I do not understand why we cannot return kicks in any circumstance.

 

4 guys looked like the keystone cops.