Chris Simms' defining moment

OH MY GOSH!! I'm so glad you said that, gr8-1. this is what I was saying all yesterday [only not in any of my posts].

not only would UT win the game, it wouldn't even be close.

is there anyone out there who legitimately doubts that bob stoops and his staff, with UT's roster, would blow mack brown and his staff, with ou's roster, off the map?

anyone who thinks UT is suffering from a personnel deficit to ou is smoking crack. or smoking mack.

by the way, did y'all hear how many players on ou's roster are from texas? 40-something.

what a joke. this rivalry has very, very little to do with the actual state of oklahoma.

being from texas and playing for oklahoma is like cheating on your dad with his wife. ou is the mistress team.

 

To Mack's credit, he has won virtually every player battle with Stoops and RC Slocum.

I think a new offensive coordinator and a more rigid conditioning program would help UT alot.

Stoops at UT with Mack as the recruiting coordinator. Can you imagine?

 

oh, yeah. without question, you have to give brown his propers when it comes to recruiting. that's why I don't want him fired. I want his offensive coordinator fired.

but I thought UT had one of the most revered strength coaches in all the land. I thought jeff "mad dog" madden was supposed to be the best.

brown as recruiting coordinator, stoops as coach [why not? darrell royal changed sides] and applewhite as offensive coordinator.

hello, collegiate football dynasty!

 

There's got to be a time where the head coach has to take the blame for a lackluster offense. If Brown's not willing to get rid of Davis, then UT must be willing to get rid of Brown.

Could you imagine Mackovic as our OC?

 

I was about to say bring Mark Mangino to Texas except Tech hired OU's last OC Mike Leach and he's an "idoit".

Bring in Steve Spurrier Jr. - I bet he's just as cocky as his dad.

When Mack does that ***** stuff like giving hugs after a mistake, Spurrier Jr. will get right into the player's face.

We need someone from the Bill Snyder/Steve Spurrier school of coaching.

 

I know, that's crazy.

"Look, nobody's gonna get hurt. Just put down the defensive plays clipboard and slowly back away. "

 

i would support a new offensive coordinator, we need to dicate the games with our talent, greg davis doesnt do that in my opinion

Kidrock-I realize its the defense that gives up points and its a team effort, but major started until it became 28-0, and he had no success scoring either, and his knee surgeries would make him a wounded duck for their smothering defense

I just dont like how so many people use the stat line as the end all of a performance. According to that Simms had 4 picks, if you watched the game you would know only 2 of them were his fault and mattered, the 3rd, the line didnt pick up williams and you can clearly see him deflecting the pass and the 4th was a long shot, last ditch chance after being down 14-3. Now, ill admit chris wasnt perfect but look at what we did, we decided to abandon the run(why if power game isnt working, does benson not come in as a scatback), and davis kept calling the dink and dunk patterns, and the times he called for the deep ball were ill advised, like our best shot in the 2nd half on the 40 and we know this our best shot and we have to go for the jugular instead of moving in chunks for the gamewinner, esp against the wind?? Im all for stretching the defenses and playing with conviction but you have to know your limits.

Im not mad at mack brown, im definitely not mad at the defense, the offense,a little, but im more mad that we have this loaded offense and WE ARENT DICTATING THE GAME, like we should. Granted OU's d is very good but come on go 5 wide with a rb in the backfield in the flat, someone will be open and will create a big play.

We will win a national title soon, but we will need to utilize our outstanding weapons better to do that, that means davis ship up or ship out.

Bottom line Simms overall did a very good job of moving the ball and taking what OU gave him, but when you abandon the run or dont stick with what worked and restrict a super talented offense to dinking and dunking for 2 yrd outs, you wont be successful. '

Like i said earlier, unless a miracle happens we wont be in Pasadena in January and since Simms has the job to himself next yr and we have a brutal schedule we should prepare him for it the rest of the yr and plus he shouldnt have the distraction of looking over his shoulder if he makes a mistake, which wouldve been brought back into play if mack pulled him last week.

Overall, while i know many are in favor of Major, Mack needs to stay strong and continue to let Simms develop with reps, we now are preparing for next yrs national title and our difficult schedule whether you like it or not, because the rest of our schedule wont pose a threat, now if we get a reprieve ill be open to going for it, but a lot of things would have to go our way for that to occur.

 

I don't know if this has been written or not, but anybody get the feeling that UT is far too impatient when it comes to running the ball.

I'll admit, I'm not a UT grad or fan so I don't watch a whole lot of UT games, but it just doesn't seem like UT has a very sophisticated running game.

Does UT ever run a counter-trey, misdirection, or Nebraska's zone-blocking philosophy?

It seems that the OC is under a lot of pressure (or puts a lot of pressure on himself) to utilize the talents of 'the Golden Boy' QB and all of those elite receivers.

 

Never.

 

I thought Simms was our better shot at the national title, so I thought it was the right thing to go with him. But he didn't get the job done, plain and simple. With that offense around him, he only needed a touchdown in each half to win the game, he didn't need to be spectacular, just read the D and make a couple of plays. It is the job of the QB to improvise if you need to, and he just couldn't do it. I look at the rest of the year as experimental time, so I actually would like to Simms and Major to split time about 50/50. Let him learn some more from Major in action, but I want him playing what he learns to. If one looks clearly better than the other, and there are important stakes (not likely we will get a chance at the Rose Bowl, anything else is a dissapointment given their talent/schedule) then maybe go with one.

Couple of other observations:

Texas defense looked the best it has since the early 80's. This is a great sign.

As others have said, the coaching staff gets strategically schooled quite often. In recent memory this has been obvious versus OU (twice), Oregon, Stanford, Aggies (2 years ago), our coaches have blown it. The offensive coaches are the major problems, but not the whole problem. It took the defense coaches 3 plays (including the 2nd one being a huge 4th down and 3rd one being the only offensive TD of the game) and a halftime to adjust to a gimicy option (this was not a well-honed Nebraska option, or even a K-State option with a blisteringly fast QB, this was a high school one put in 2 weeks ago). Got to admit, great wrinkle by Stoops staff. But as they say, fool me once--shame on you, fool me twice-shame on me, they don't even have a fool me thrice. Oregon last year pulled a lot of great gimics plays too that kept them in it for a 4th quarter finish. Other coaches seem to know what will work against us, we are slow to react, and rarely seem to take advantage of other teams tendencies. This reflects poor strategic and tactical coaching, and poor game-day communication between the staff-players, period.

Overall, the game reminding me of the Miami-Penn State national title game, in the late 80's I think. Miami had an offense full of future pros (like UT), but Penn State (like OU) confused the hell of the rocket armed Testaverde (Simms) by mixing up the D and playing a zone. Like PSU, OU does have great defensive players and came with a great strategy.

I'll check back in a while to see if we have any shot at the Rose Bowl. I think the biggest problem with it is OU would have to lose 2 times in conference. I do think Nebraska will eat them up this year, but I don't know about anyone else.

 

God, don't remind me about that!

You know what is sad?

Miami if they had been able to beat damn Tennessee in the '86 Sugar Bowl, Penn State in the '87 Fiesta Bowl, and they didn't get rooted on that bogus fumble call in the '88 regular season game against Notre Dame, they could have arguably won 5 national championships in a row and 6 out of 7!

Testaverde was a great physical specimen, but he didn't have the brains (at least in the big games) to get the job done like a Steve Walsh or even a Mark Richt.

 

I am pretty sure the season for Texas is lost.

The reason--
It is very unlikely OU will not be in the championship game. OU does NOT play Colorado this year. I think they will lose to Nebraska, but any other loss prior to the Big 12 Championship will be pretty remote (home versus Aggies, at Tech being the best prayers) and then OU wins the head-to-head. If they only lose to Nebraska, that puts OU against them for the Big 12 title, and there is no way Texas leaps the winner of that game in the BCS ranking.

Possibilites for us to get into the Rose bowl w/o being in the Big 12 championship are further remote (say Colorado, Kstate and Nebraska beating-up each other, with the surviver taking 2 season loses against OU and beating them in the Big 12 championship).

I am not worried about the non-Big 12 teams however:

Mia(1) plays FSU(13), Vtech (5), Wash (8)
Flor (2) plays FSU(13), Tenn(14), Georgia(27), S Caro (9) plus SEC championship

The Pac 10 will take care of each other unless UCLA (the best team) sweeps it (doubtfully, but possible because they are only Pac 10 team with any defense): each of the good teams play each other Ore(6), UCLA(7), Wash(8), Stan (22), WSU(28--should be higher), plus Wash (8) plays Mia(1) (although no UCLA-Oregon game)

It is very unlikely more than 1 of these top 10 team goes undefeated (I am assuming even if Fresno does there is no way they move to #2 under any circumstance). The best team looks to be Florida, and they have a wicked schedule. If one team goes undeated, it will probably be the VTech-Mia winner, and I wouldn't count on it being Miami just yet even if it is in the Orange Bowl. Like UT going into last weak, Miami is not battle tested one idota this year.

The way I read it is if the Longhorns run the table the best they can hope for going into the Bowls is maybe a #4-5 ranking and the best finsish is #3 or possibly #2 with a great New Years day effort. We have blown the season before October is halfway through, again. In my mind Mac Brown and his staff have 2 more years to deliver (he will have all his recruts by then). It only took Stoops what 3??

 

Desert Scar:

The Miami and Virginia Tech game is in Blacksburg on 12-1-01.

Manny

(I always wanted to imitate Mango! )

 

Bob Stoops has not even started to recruit. Harris was the first recruit the Sooners took away from UT. There will be many more in the future.

Just imagine how good OU would be if Stoops was given time to bring in his guys. UT is gonna get blasted every year by the Sooners until Mack and the guys can figure out how to make a gameplan and execute.

Stoops Record:
1999: 7-5
2000: 13-0
2001: 5-0

25-5

If Mack is still using Mackovic's guys - pretty decent with one Big XII Championship, then what the hell is Stoops doing with Blake's crap.

 

I'm still trying to figure out why Simms is considered to be so good.



One good game against a depleted A&M secondary isn't enough for me.

Uh-oh, I hope the cocky b*stard doesn't add me to his list.

 

What list?

 

Simms is anything but cocky.

Smokey, OU has alot of talent right now. Blake was a very good recruiter, just a horrible gameday coach.

 

Not cocky?

For one thing, the whole list thing reeks of cockiness, as does showing up on your first day in a freakin' limo.