UT Football Thread

Bob Barker 007 · Aug 31, 2014

I am concerned about the Wickline/Watson coaching tandem on offense. I just worry that the offensive line and QB will keep us from winning the next two games. I am hoping the offense just needs a little bit more time to adjust.

J.R. · Sep 1, 2014

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Charlie Strong: David Ash will not play this week.</p>— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) <a href="https://twitter.com/Andy_Staples/statuses/506472522855219201">September 1, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Strong said Ash took a hit to the head in the first quarter. Neither Ash nor coaching staff noticed, but symptoms popped up late Sat. night.</p>— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) <a href="https://twitter.com/Andy_Staples/statuses/506472961063546880">September 1, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Tyrone Swoopes will start at QB for Texas. Freshman Jerrod Heard will be the back-up.</p>— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) <a href="https://twitter.com/Andy_Staples/statuses/506473144744706048">September 1, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

A_3PO · Sep 1, 2014

Ash should be done with football and move on.

updawg · Sep 1, 2014

A_3PO said: ↑

Ash should be done with football and move on.
Click to expand...

Yep it sucks but he has to retire from football

peleincubus · Sep 1, 2014

Tyrone Swoops lord have mercy.

This will be an interesting season.

Brando2101 · Sep 1, 2014

There goes the season.

Cold Hard · Sep 1, 2014

A_3PO said: ↑

Ash should be done with football and move on.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree.

vj23k · Sep 1, 2014

Wow. Even if Ash is medically cleared later this season, the coaching staff or his family need to counsel him to hang it up. Seems like the worst kind of injury to tempt fate with.

For the team, wow. Pretty close to worst-case scenario on offense. I think we're looking at 6-6 despite what could be a damn good defense.

sealclubber1016 · Sep 1, 2014

Ash has to stop before catastrophic damage is done.

Hope we really practiced up the zone read.

Brando2101 · Sep 1, 2014

vj23k said: ↑

Wow. Even if Ash is medically cleared later this season, the coaching staff or his family need to counsel him to hang it up. Seems like the worst kind of injury to tempt fate with.

For the team, wow. Pretty close to worst-case scenario on offense. I think we're looking at 6-6 despite what could be a damn good defense.
Click to expand...

No he's done.

ItsMyFault · Sep 1, 2014

Wellp, goodbye Ash.

Bob Barker 007 · Sep 1, 2014

Well... I hope Ash realizes his health is most important. The future is now for UT. We will see where Heard/Swoopes can take us moving forward.

Major · Sep 1, 2014

Sadly, this is neither surprising nor unexpected. Hopefully Heard can turn into our version of Bridgewater - I believe he ended up starting a few games into his freshman year and just improved from there.

rockbox · Sep 1, 2014

I still haven't lost faith in swoops. Hopefully Watson can turn him into something decent.

Hustle Town · Sep 1, 2014

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ALRkl2Ds9Wc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Buck Turgidson · Sep 1, 2014

Major said: ↑

Sadly, this is neither surprising nor unexpected. Hopefully Heard can turn into our version of Bridgewater - I believe he ended up starting a few games into his freshman year and just improved from there.
Click to expand...

Yep, no more redshirt. I wouldn't throw him out as a starter vs BYU or UCLA, but Swoops is kinda terrible as a passer and I sure hope they get Heard some meaningful snaps.

If Ash sees the field again I will be sick. He's a great kid and LOVES football, but at some point someone has to tell him "no".

Brando2101 · Sep 1, 2014

Sigh...at least there is Jennifer Lawrence.

Hustle Town · Sep 1, 2014

Buck Turgidson said: ↑

Yep, no more redshirt. I wouldn't throw him out as a starter vs BYU or UCLA, but Swoops is kinda terrible as a passer and I sure hope they get Heard some meaningful snaps.

If Ash sees the field again I will be sick. He's a great kid and LOVES football, but at some point someone has to tell him "no".
Click to expand...

Serious question: what do Swoopes/Heard really have to do? Ash didn't do anything all that special or complex against North Texas.

Hustle Town · Sep 1, 2014

The QB Conundrum That Won't End

AUSTIN – Either Jordan Hicks really didn't hear the news about David Ash being out for the BYU game before the rest of us did or he's one heck of an actor.

When asked how he felt Ash missing Saturday's tilt with the Cougars with concussion-like issues that popped up after the season-opening win over North Texas, the Longhorns' senior linebacker offered the same dumbfounded response as everyone else who had the bomb dropped on them Monday morning.

“Is he really? Is he? For real?” Hicks kept asking. “Goodness gracious. For real?”

Not only does Ash being out for the BYU game and possibly the season present the worst situation imaginable for Longhorn fans, it also brings back to the table a topic that for the fifth straight season we'll have to sink our teeth into and digest.

The soggy sandwich flowing beyond the edges of the crust with dirt that everyone with a pulse on the Longhorns will have to take a bite out of is the ineptitude of Mack Brown to get it figured it out when it came to recruiting quarterbacks late in his tenure.

The Ash news points to failure well beyond simply not having a veteran quarterback behind prepared to take over this season, however. It's a sickening reminder of nearly a decade of mismanagement that helped take down a dynasty and just unloaded a dumpster full of trash onto the pile that the new man in charge has been trying to clean up.

Had it not been for Colt McCoy quarterback recruiting at Texas would have been considered an epic failure going back ten years.

McCoy was never meant to be the guy in Austin. Thankfully the stars aligned and Ryan Perrilloux flaking out, along with McCoy beating out Jevan Snead, made for what now – using revisionist history as a guide – seems like a seamless transition out of the Vince Young Era.

The fact of the matter is that had Young gone down during the 2005 season the Longhorns might not have made it to Pasadena to live the dream. After Young signed in 2002 the Longhorns went two cycles without signing a quarterback, which left Matt Nordgren to serve as Young's backup as a fifth-year senior.

That meant that Brown returned a team largely in tact from a BCS title victory in 2006 and due to two straight classes without taking a quarterback left himself to choose from two quarterbacks. Two passers who had yet to take a snap in a college game at that point.

Despite McCoy taking over the reigns and going on to enjoy a storybook career, the Longhorns' struggles recruiting at the position suffered.

Snead transferred after the 2006 season. Sherrod Harris never got a shot to show what he could do. G.J. Kinne left for Tulsa after a redshirt season and there was no quarterback taken in a 2008 class.

In a six-year span there were five recruiting cycles where the Longhorns failed to get anything of substance at the quarterback position. Marinate on that for a second and sit in amazement about how that can be allowed to happen at a place like Texas.

A new decade didn't produce results that were much better when came to recruiting under center, but the decisions made by Brown to go all-in on a particular quarterback early is what hampered the growth of the program.

The Longhorns took Case McCoy and Connor Wood in 2010 after the now-infamous decision to put all of the eggs in the Garrett Gilbert basket in 2009. The 2011 class featured the decision to take Ash early over both J.W. Walsh and Johnny Manziel. Connor Brewer was an early take in 2012, which didn't spark much disagreement, but when the staff decided it needed a second quarterback in the class they had to settle on Jalen Overstreet after ceasing communication with both Trevor Knight and Tommy Armstrong.

Then there was the decision to go all-in on Tyrone Swoopes in the class of 2013. Sources with knowledge of the decision-making process told me that Brown felt he had to take Swoopes because he wouldn't be able to live it down if the 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound signal caller went elsewhere and became the second coming of Cam Newton.

So even though other members of the staff preferred Cody Thomas and J.T. Barrett, and even though one source told me a staff member was able to sell Barrett on being in the same class with Swoopes, Brown refused to bite. He decided to ride with Swoopes, which brings us to today.

The forgettable recruiting trends behind center by Brown left Charlie Strong and his staff with no viable alternatives if something were to happen to Ash. Even Max Wittek would have been nothing more than a stopgap measure to keep the redshirt status of Jerrod Heard in place, so the Strong regime had no choice but to go all-in with Ash in preparation for this season.

The doctors cleared him, his family was fine with him playing and Ash knew the risk of getting back on the field after all of his issues from last season. Nobody is at fault for what happened on Saturday, as unfortunate as the circumstances are and that the latest setback is likely going to cost Ash his football career.

The foot injury to Ash in the spring further compounded the issue of how to use him. That's important to note because he wasn't around to get reps during 7-on-7 work where he could work with the new offense during the summer, which is part of the reason why he needed to be in the game in the fourth quarter against North Texas (in case anybody wants to go to that line of thinking and blame the coaches for having him on the field).

No matter when the hit occurred that rattled Ash – and Strong is only going off of what Ash told him, which was that the first hit he took against the Mean Green is what caused him to have concussion-like symptoms late Saturday night – it's safe to assume that this would have happened at some point early this season. Now Strong and Shawn Watson have to make the best of a bad situation where they're going to hand the ball to an inexperienced signal caller and try to just make it to the finish line this season.

The sad reality is all of this could have been avoided, and if it was Brown might still be occupying his old office.

It should be sickening to Texas fans that Kenny Hill, who the Longhorns couldn't have given a tinker's damn for until the very end of the recruiting cycle when the staff's confidence level in Swoopes dwindled, lit it up in his debut at Texas A&M.

Baylor stopped recruiting Swoopes in 2013 and decided to move on Chris Johnson, who looked explosive and confident late in Baylor's win over SMU on Sunday, which should also stick in the craw of Longhorn fans.

Barrett is now the man running Ohio State's spread attack. Thomas is backing up Knight in Norman for a team that's going to contend for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

And here's Texas with Strong left to hold the bag, facing the reality of the public perception being that an 8-4 finish would likely earn Strong multiple national coach of the year honors. There could be other bodies to choose from to run the offense, but there aren't.

Brown's near decade-long run of incompetence recruiting the most important position on the field is the gift that unfortunately keeps on giving, and for Strong that's something that's got to change.

Perhaps this was the football Gods giving Brown one last chance to drop unwanted pile of excrement on top of the mound that the end of his legacy resembles. At some point the day will come where Texas will have paid off the debt from the James Brown/Major Applewhite/Chris Simms/VY/Colt run of quarterback success.

That day just won't be today. And the day might not arrive for some time.
Click to expand...

http://texas.247sports.com/Article/David-Ash-injury-reminds-of-QB-recruiting-ineptitude-at-Texas-30786505

Rip Van Rocket · Sep 1, 2014

Brando2101 said: ↑

There goes the season.
Click to expand...

Weren't the two QB's backing up Ash highly regarded players coming out of high school?

Forums

UT Football Thread

Bob Barker 007 Member

J.R. Member

A_3PO Member

updawg Member

peleincubus Member

Brando2101 Contributing Member

Cold Hard Member

vj23k Contributing Member

sealclubber1016 Member
Supporting Member

Brando2101 Contributing Member

ItsMyFault Contributing Member

Bob Barker 007 Member

Major Member

rockbox Around before clutchcity.com

Hustle Town Contributing Member

Buck Turgidson Member

Brando2101 Contributing Member

Hustle Town Contributing Member

Hustle Town Contributing Member

Rip Van Rocket Contributing Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!

UT Football Thread

Bob Barker 007 Member

J.R. Member

A_3PO Member

updawg Member

peleincubus Member

Brando2101 Contributing Member

Cold Hard Member

vj23k Contributing Member

sealclubber1016 Member Supporting Member

Brando2101 Contributing Member

ItsMyFault Contributing Member

Bob Barker 007 Member

Major Member

rockbox Around before clutchcity.com

Hustle Town Contributing Member

Buck Turgidson Member

Brando2101 Contributing Member

Hustle Town Contributing Member

Hustle Town Contributing Member

Rip Van Rocket Contributing Member

Share This Page

sealclubber1016 Member
Supporting Member