Its obviously only one game. But, I'm afraid we may be back to the "why can't we run the ball/impose our will/score at will" arguments from the pre-Vince era. What I watched last night was boring, pedestrian, 19th century stuff. If you are going to run a pro set offense you better be a lot more physical than the other team and have a great running back. Why? Because a pro set offense is predictable. The QB is no threat to run, so there are no "zone read" plays that force defenders to anchor and stay home. In short, you are back to playing 10 against 11 in the run game -- the zone read style offenses of the past decade (made famous by Meyer and Texas, most notably)were designed to make it 11 vs. 11. That seems to be over for us. So you have to be dominant. If not, you better be prepared to win a lot of games 24-17 and rely on your defense. Some thoughts: 1. The line does not blow people off the ball consistantly enough. That is particularly troubling against a smaller, slwoer team like Rice. 2. We don't have a dominant RB that can compensate for a less creative scheme. We could just line up and run it down people's throats when we had Ced and Ricky. They overcame what was an unimaginative, predictable scheme. We don't have that kind of talent at the RB spot anymore. 3. I'm not sure why we have moved away from what we ran the past 5 years, when we had one of the most explosive offenses in the nation. Certainly Gilbert is not the athlete that VY was (and I would not have him run more than 3-4 zone reads per game), but he ran a spread in high school and could certainly do what Colt has done. I'm fine with going more under center in the red zone, but without a dominant line or RB, we are too predictable to consistantly move the ball against better defenses with that as our base offense. 4. If you are a gambler, you better bet against us on the spread until Vegas and the public catches up with the fact that our days of scoring 50+ against good teams is over. We are now basically running an Alabama style offense, which means our PPG is going way down. 5. Maybe pedestrian, ball scontrol, low scoring offense will still work, but its boring. In short, this year will not be nearly as fun as the past 5-6 years, when we lit up the score board and set records. There is no way an offense like this could have stayed with USC in 2005, when we needed 550+ yards and 40+ points just to stay in the game (USC actually outgained us by 20 yards, running up something like 579, and we had the 4th best defense in the nation). Moreover, unlike Tech, we have a dominant defense that has proven that it can still shut people down even when the offense is scoring quickly and they are going back on the field quickly as well. I will say this -- Gilbert has a gun and can launch the deep ball very well. I just don't like the fact that our playbook is basically what the Redskins ran in 1985.
I would rather be more boring but get better offensive output than we did vs the likes of NU, Bama, and OU last year. Let's see how we fair vs good defenses before making judgments, being great vs crappy defenses but stalling vs good all round defenses with a pass rush (see Tech & OU for prime examples of video game offenses floundering when it really matters) is not where I think we should go.
Desert Scar -- I agree the offensive output was not great against OU or Neb, but its not fair to lump Bama in on that given Colt's injury. A lot of UT folks believe that Colt had Bama's number, and would have shredded them but for the injury. Even GG started tearing them up in the second half once the staff opened things up and let him throw the ball (it was rookie mistakes and turnovers that cost us). Moreover, I don't think the offense we saw on Saturday would have scored at all against the Neb defense last year. If we can't blow Rice off the ball, what do you think Suh & Co would have done to us? I agree its too early to evaluate the results of us going back to a pro style offense. But the idea that we are doing it to suit our personnel makes no sense to me. GG ran a shot-gun spread in high school, and all of our present wr's, linemen and backs have run basically the same thing at Texas for the pst 5 years. The Gun allows the QB to see the field sooner, react quicker, and go through more reads. Our talent is at QB and WR -- running a power set from under center almost seems like a vanity project ("look at us, we can be a power team too...") For my part, I say if it aint broke, don't fix it. No Top 10 program in college football has amassed more yards and points on offense over the past 5 years than Texas. GG ran that same kind of offense in high school, and would shred if we just let him run it here. Instead, it looks like we are going to throw it 22 times per game and take those 20 extra downs that used to be passes and prove to everyone that we can run the counter tray. Oh, and its boring to watch too.
i think it's supposed to be downhill, though i'll admit that sometimes it looks like we're running uphill
