The problem with Greg Davis "conversative" is almost completely in throwing the ball sideways, which rarely ever works. Running works, and throwing down the field gives the players a chance to make a play, but throwing sideways rarely ever does anything. We did this a bunch against OSU as well. In that game, running consistently got 4-5 yards. Throwing sideways did nothing because the defense was already pulled up due to the threat of the run. So if you throw, throw forward. But we rarely chose to, because we were scared of messing up. This is Chris Simms syndrome - he deserved it to an extent because when you put him in a position to screw up in a big game, he often did. Applewhite and Vince were allowed to do their thing and you rarely had issues with conservative playcalling there (never with Applewhite, and not with Vince after his first 6 or 7 games). Unless Colt shows a tendency towads stupidity, he should be allowed to try to make plays as well. In yesterday's game, the playcalling early on was terrible. Did we even get a first down on the first 3 or 4 drives? We had a few 3rd and 8 type plays and we did the stupid sideways pass that not surprisingly got nowhere. But once every five times, it gets 10-15 yards, so he keeps calling it. And it's a fine play call on 1st or 2nd down (similar to a short run), but not on 3rd and long. It goes back to at least giving the offense a *chance* to convert the 1st down, which Greg Davis often simply doesn't do.
they threw the ball downfield against oklahoma after mccoy had some experience under his belt and the weather was sunny and mild. they didn't throw the ball downfield against ohio state probably because it was only mccoy's second start and they didn't want to put too much pressure on him.
...and then they started moving the ball after that didnt' they? Jeez, I wonder if the 25 mph headwind during the first 3 or 4 drives could have had anything to do with that.........? The stupid sideways passes set up the last two field goals on the last two scoring drives, (again, into the wind) so I'd be loath to qualify it as "nowhere". The increasingly contradictory nature of the criticisms of Davis coupled with the astounding level of offensive success over the last few years lends me to believe he's a convenient whipping boy for reasons beyond his control.
Sure - and that was fine early on in the OSU game. When it was clear that strategy wasn't going to work, perhaps the strategy should then change. Playing not to lose doesn't work if you, in fact, end up losing.
Why is it that Texas is the only team that ever seems to be affected by the wind. A 10-yard forward pass is not going to be dismantled by the wind any more than a 10 yard sideways pass. Sure, you don't throw fade routes or whatnot, but the wind excuse is way overplayed. You can throw short forward passes in wind. Yes, they started moving the ball after that - when they were actually willing to throw. Perhaps if we hadn't wasted the entire first quarter playing scared, the game wouldn't have been as close. Which is the entire point of the complaints. Sure, in an entire game it works a few times. Never mind all the drives they kill. How is increasingly contradictory? It's consistently and ALWAYS about sideways passing (along with running on 3rd and 20, but many teams do that). What exactly is the astounding level of success the offense had yesterday? The 3.8 yards per carry? Or the 5 yards per pass attempt? We outgained Nebraska by 8 whole yards. It was a weak, conservative offense and therefore the complaints. Greg Davis is *great* when he trusts his QB - and that was the case with 2 of the 4 QB's he's had (Applewhite, Vince). He's terrible when he plays scared - I had hoped he had gotten over that last year, but its clear in his playcalling this year that he hasn't.
OSU played a deep zone and McCoy could not deal with it. The only openings were in the flats. that's textbook for how you are supposed to deal with that situation. If there is any criticism for OSU, it is not that he didn't throw downfield (into double and triple coverage) enough, it is that they did not run more.
This isn't totally true. The sideways pass wasn't working, which means that the DB's were up there ready to defend the short pass. That means there have to be holes deeper, somewhere or other. It's up to the offense to find them. But in a more general sense, this is exactly the problem. This was always the Mack excuse for years vs. OU and in other big games - "we're taking what they give us". That's fine - but the reason they are giving you that is that they know they can beat you that way. We have a tendency to let the defense dictate the offense instead of the other way around. In that game, running was working. Keep doing it and force them to bring up more and more people to stop it. At that point, something will be open downfield. You can't guard the run and downfield both effectively unless you have a great defense. And OSU had a great secondary, but their run defense was not good at the time (not just against us, but other teams early in the season too). I do agree with this - run or throw forward. Don't throw sideways - it was higher risk than a run, and the run was getting more yards.
When you have an inexperienced quarterback trying to find seams in a zone, the result is interceptions such as the one that McCoy threw RIGHT to the OSU linebacker who jumped the route in the third quarter. Throwing the ball deep against a 3 deep zone = not a winning proposition. ANd the reason why the sideways passes weren't working was because, quite frequently, they were thrown off target so the receiver had to reach behind or up for the ball. Go back and watch them yourself: http://www.rpongett.phpwebhosting.com/ut-ohst.html Are you telling me you'd give Davis a free pass if the result instead of short passes to the sidelines, was incompletions and interceptions down the field? Somehow I doubt you'd be so forgiving I agree ... you're harping on Davis for Ohio state which happened over a month ago (after a game that Texas won yesteday) rather than the fact that the defense couldn't stop an average at best WR in gonzalez that game and after poor tackling and biting on play fakes and stupid penalties caused the defense to give up 3 HUGE touchdown plays to Nebraska yesterday (after surrendering several long TD plays to Baylor last week). Davis is the whipping boy so he gets the blame; so does the defensive coordinator Chizik (who does not have a week-armed rookie QB throwing into the wind and is playing in a game where defenses should flourish) gets a free pass for obvious mental mistakes by all americans like Michael Griffin (he was responsible for the first and last TD's) or nearly game destroying penalites by Marcus Griffin and Orapko, or the fact that in the second half his defense's effectiveness went WAY down? When somebody above posted "even the girls at the party were blaming greg davis" - that crystallizes what I'm talking about. It has become reflexive rather than analytical response for most fans to automatically blame Davis no matter what (which is bizarre given the incredibl success of the last few years)
It's not "reflexive" except in that its very obvious to many people who have watched TX football since Mack Brown got here. Greg Davis has a lot of terrible tendencies, and when they show up, it's very easy to see. The defensive responses such as the wind and other stuff are the silly ones. Nebraska threw 29 times for 302 yards (10.2 yards per pass). UT threw 39 times for 220 yards (5.6 yards per pass). (Both teams had a 55 yard pass in there.) UT has better receivers and a better line, and had a better running game, and Nebraska was blitzing a ton leaving more open coverage around the field. Why is it that only UT was affected by the wind and had to be conservative? I think the excuses made for why an offense "has" to be conversative are crap. On great offensive teams, offenses find ways to dictate the play - not defenses. You saw that with both UT and USC last year. You're not seeing that with UT this year. To an extent, it's understandable because you don't have the experience at QB so you rely more on other pieces. But you also can't go the other extreme. You have to still get the ball to your good players in a position to do something with it. More often than not, a sideways pass isn't that.
Yes, I'd have no problems with Greg Davis for that. I have no problem with us losing - I didn't expect us to win the OSU game and wasn't terribly surprised with being blown out, frankly (I thought the game would be a blowout one way or the other, I just didn't know which). But to lose without even trying to win is where I have issues with. And that's a result of years of watching Greg Davis get scared in big games (particularly OU) and playing not to lose. It's not as though people are making this stuff up - both Davis and Brown have talked about it in the past, both in the present tense of "our gameplay was to keep it close and it win it late" and then in the past tense of those being mistakes in the previous year. And then they go back and repeat the same gameplan the next year. Over and over. That changed last year to a large extent (note the end-of-the-half TD pass vs OU compared to the "we don't want to make a mistake" downing the ball in the Chris Simms era). But it's looking more and more that it was an aberration last year.
By the way, after the OU game, Mack Brown even complained about the conservative offense in the first half and asked Davis to let McCoy loose in the 2nd half. Davis admitted he was a bit too conservative in the OSU game as well. This is not stuff that's just made up by fans.
Not sure what you guys are arguing about, Davis has certainly been quite conservative so far this season, but he has good reason to be. I would love to see McCoy air it out every game, but we have to understand that he is still a freshman. In big games, TOs can be a deciding factor on who wins and who loses, Davis is just trying to minimize opportunities for turnovers. Mack did a great job of telling Davis to cut Colt lose vs. OU, but yesterdays conditions (cold, rainy/snowy, vs. Nebraska at home) aren't exactly ideal conditions for a freshman QB to air it out.
It's very obvious that when the defense runs a 3 deep zone, if you think the way to beat it is to throw into it, you shouldn't be critiquing anybody's offensive philosophy. What's silly is that if you think this is actually true: Texas w/wind: 12-21 135 yards, 2 TDs, 0 Ints Texas against wind: 11-17 77 yards Nebraska w/wind: 7-11 169 yards, 3 TDs 0 Ints Nebraska against wind: 8-18 101 yards 1 Int If you watched football you'd realize that the hot route on a blitz is usually the 6-7 yard out to the inside man in the flats. I will take a guaranteed 6-7 yard out pattern with the lead every time, especially when the alternative is to toss the ball into a freaking 30 mile an hour headwind with a weak armed quarterback. But anyway that's par for the course for somebody citing Nebraska's high average which was achieved with a dominant downfield passing game like the 50 yard shovel pass or a 10 yard pattern where Michael Griffin leveled Deon Beasley with a kill shot that became a 55 yard TD. It wasn't only UT, that statement is demonstrably wrong. See above. Yes, we get it, you think they should throw deep into a 25 mph wind against a three deep zone, point taken - and then you would stand up and applaud Except for when it had to be on the last two scoring drives which preserved & sealed the win...yup yup.
No, it's not made up, but it's still dishonest, you guys take one or two unsuccesful plays, make grandiose extrapolations and excise all the mitigating factors (like weather, opposing defense, etc) and pin the tail on the donkey. Then when things go well (like they do most of the time, it's pretty hard to have won the number of games that Texas has there is rarely if ever any praise, it's all the players. For example, look at you turning this year's OU game into an indictment of Davis. Of course it was his perfect playcall on the touchdown pass to Shipley where they used Sweed as a decoy to clear out the right side which provided the key play. But you didn't come in and post "good call greg! woo hoo!" - no, his successes are just used to highlight earlier failures. You'd think with the record setting offense Texas has had for the last few years you'd find a way to compliment him at least once, but you never have, at least on this message board. Accordingly I don't put much stock in post-game playcalling whining anymore, and neither does Brown, which has allowed him to be as succssful as he has been. Still waiting for your post calling out Gene Chizik...
Why did Texas not have the wind at their back during the 4th. they did during the 2nd. I was told it was so they would kick off the 3rd with the wind at their back to try and put the game away. if true this was a terrible decision. the wind was an important factor in the play calling.
i havent really read the thread but im gonna jump in on the greg davis debate. first off, we won... chill out. i dont understand some of this greg davis criticism. no i dont think hes a genuis or anything -- BUT THERE IS A MIDDLE GROUND. I could do without the flanker screens, and the 3rd down 2 yard passes when we need 10 yards but guess what .. he has a handle on the offensive system better than anyone, including you keyboard junkies. major, simms, mock, vy -- they all make a living through football somehow so he's doing something right. i bet if you watched any college football team's offense you would question the calls too. guess what? questionable playcalling happens. im sure people have already said all of this, but seriously, alto of you guys just like to b*tch about anything. our offensive production is near the top and lets not forget WE WON ps: the jump ball on 3rd and 5 was a good call (someone mentioned earlier). we had no timeouts, so running the ball to center with ~30 sec? wouldnt have been smart. sure nu could have called a timeout anyways to ice him, but greg davis took a shot in the endzone. i bet if he would have centered it, rushed the FG unit out and missed it everyone would be calling for his head asking why he didnt take a shot in the end zone. (I think everyone wanted to get 6 instead of trusting the kicking game even if it was a chipshot)
exactly what Bassfly said. you anti-Davis people need to chill the F out. I'm not pro-Davis or anything, I'm just neutral-Davis...he's alright, not a genius or anything but not the worst in the land also here's a thought for you guys that you really need to think about. after winning the NC, *Davis is not going anywhere period*! Mack wouldn't fire him even before last year...now there is no chance in hell Davis will leave UT under any circumstances. we know he certainly isn't going to get a head coaching job. we know Mack won't fire him ever. and after winning the NC, the UT administration won't be putting any pressure on Mack anymore either. Davis is here for Mack's lifetime. get used to it and stop crying unless you want to give yourself an aneurysm for the next 10+ years
We're Texas. There is no Middle Ground. UT should have a genius or near genius offensive coordinator. Davis is not the bottom of the barrel OC, but Texas should be able to do better. Texas would be smart to hire an a co-offensive coordinator with NFL experience. My biggest complaint on Davis this year has been his use of Charles. Charles is not getting enough touches. The touches he does get are mostly slow developing plays to the outside where the defense can use the sideline as an additional defender. I can only remember one play where Charles got a quick-hitting, between the tackles run against NU.
Forward 7-10 yard passes are exactly what I'd like - and what I stated earlier. Sideways 0-yard passes are exactly what I would not like. See here: A 10-yard forward pass is not going to be dismantled by the wind any more than a 10 yard sideways pass. Sure, you don't throw fade routes or whatnot, but the wind excuse is way overplayed. You can throw short forward passes in wind. When you learn to read instead of making up what you want me to have said, perhaps we can continue this discussion. Until then, good day.
i agree joe joe, there is no middle ground with texas. i was referring to the fact that people either love or hate greg davis. im in the middle. i dont always agree with him but i feel like he does a good job -- the proof is in the W-L record. i believe ut should always strive for the best coaches that fit their program. just because a coach has nfl experience doesnt mean he's a good coach for college. i dont think mack brown would succeed in the nfl, pete carroll didnt.. greg davis is doing a fine job, lay off him and enjoy the win. http://www.broylesaward.com/
