I never made the argument "Texas had one of the greatest assemblages of talent ever from 2000-2004", so I am not defending that. However Texas clearly had more skill position talent than OU during most of the lost years to them, probably no worse than equal talent overall, but had a terrible record. Stoops even made point about "Yeah, I'd thrown it up to Roy Williams" (the Tx WR one). Mack/Davis would coach constipated in the bug games, particulary versus OU. They have gotten over them now they have an overwhelming talent avantage, but not before then. Well Texas had 3 returning potential all america DBs. Perhaps the best CB in the land got burned for the clinching TD by Ohio State. Perhaps the best safety in the land got burned for 2-3 TDs last weekend. Both guys will go day 1 in the NFL draft I am fairly certain. Pretty much all the great college defenses have secondaries that can handle man coverage--I would have planned this season too that the Longhorn secondary was going to be tight. Now maybe once Brown was held out of the TOSU game they should have put in some new wrinkles. They also certainly didn't adjust well within the game on Gonzalez. But generally in the two worst games by Texas defense so far (OSU and NU) I don't really fault the approach so much as individual player failures, and individuals I would have trusted. And again, the defense was not without criticism versus TOSU, but they were playing the best returning offense in the land while the offense was playing one of the greenest defenses (one that has played well though, yes), the defense came closer to holding their end of the bargain than the offense did. My chief problem with with Texas's offense is not that it is "too conservative". Being "predictable" is what I have issue with. The sets we based our whole offense on were not well constructed to utlizing its returning playmakers and a great OL with some fine match-up problem causing TEs on top. If more power sets (additional backs or TEs versus 2 or 3 Wrs) is conversative, fine. But you can run a conservative offense (where the base play is lots of off tackles), but then add unprectability to it. That is where your passes come in (lots of play action), counters, the occional reverse, etc. Even use some plays where the defense doesn't know if Selvin is coming between the tackles or Charles gets it the other direction wide. Now you are right if they stop the run in your power sets without bringing up the safeties, play action and everything else falls apart. But I would have liked to see if someone could have stopped us playing to our strenths. The offense we should have retooled all year for (as a base) was a conservative one. But then yes, add unpredicatbility to it. Conservative general approach but not a conservative (predictable) called game. Colt throwing deep to Sweed after you have established the run and safeties have to come to the LOS is part of that plan. IMO the short passing 3 WR sets have allowed too many defenses to play a short field except unlike a power formation you don't have extra blockers. Texas's offense may have been mostly vanilla, but it would have been incredibly hard to stop. And BTW I have watched SC as much as Texas over the last 4 years and these are major sets they run, particularly when they get in trouble. I think Carroll and Chow and the guy they have now are terrific, they very much play to their players strengths rather than fitting players to system. If you can line them strait up and knock them down, why the hell not. Add a few wrinkles here and there to keep the defense honest, that is all. Finally, maybe Davis isn't a below average coach. But I am confident in the Mack B era the offense has been far too predictable, particularly in bigger games. Colorado players notice it (I think they publically said it). OU players noticed. SC players noticed it. But when UT had guys to check out of predictable plays or make predictable plays work because they themselves were so improvasional (Applewhite, VY), Texas often did come through in the tight games despite the press box calls. Perhaps Davis and Mack Brown just reinforce their worst tendencies, maybe individually they have better, quicker, and more instinctive offensive minds. But I know Mack Brown does a bunch of things right. I'd just like to see a new guy calling plays and setting offensive philosophy around the skill position talent Texas seems to keep getting in abundence. Heck, GD can keep his position and focus on recruting, just get someone under him to choose the formations and manage within games.
one thing I agree with about the criticism, UT does rely on its athletes. and I don't have a problem with that. when you are one of the best programs as far as talent is concerned, you don't have to be creative. you can run a basic offense. what mack and davis rely on is that their team is well coached, individually. that everyone knows their assingments, that they instill good technique, and that they don't make mistakes. when tom osborne was at nebraska, that's how he coached. nothing impressive about the option. what was impressive were the individuals running it. the same is true for ut. when mack got to austin and he didn't have much talent left from the previous staff, the offense was more agressive. it was more creative, because that's the only way they could compete. they play it conservative because they can win that way, they can roll over teams with talent. and I have no problem with that, that's what ut's football team should be about.
That is what all the top teams do, and that is what makes them top teams due to the fact taht talent is dispersed amid 200 or so I-A and I-AA teams in college, unlike the way it's concentrated in 32 NFL teams - so you get greater disparities. Ohio State? They run a vanilla pudding offense that is rarely in the top units scorign or yardage wise despite having more talent than almost anybody. USC's classic West Coast passing game was innovative - about 30 years ago when Bill Walsh started running it. Not that it is not good - it certainly is, but it's not like it's anything spectacularly new under the sun. Miami during their glory days usually ran a fairly conventional, pro-set offense. As far as I can recall, about the closest thing to "unconventional" that won a title would be Steve Spurrier's teams, which for all their brilliance only won one national title about a decade ago, and Stoops' "lightning in a bottle" 2000 Oklahoma team (though the heart of that team was its defense if the Orange Bowl was any indicator). Sure, Boise State and Texas Tech and Hawaii boast innovative, all passing schemes and such, but the reason why they do is because they have too - their players otherwise aren't good enough on paper (and actually neither was Oklahoma's in 2000 when you think about it)
I also have my biggest issue with the predictability, but the conservatism bothers me too. With our O-Line and the skill of Charles and Young, we should have an etremely successful rushing game. But it bogs down due to predictability and to a lesser extent the conservatism (which in this instance is also a component of the predictability). Now folks are painting the multitude of fans who are sick of Davis as the ol' traditional b*tchers and moaners. I'm not one of those. I'm one who's very slow to complain about coaches understanding that takes years and managerial freedom to create and develop their programs. Davis' play-calling is visible every weekend and now that we're beyond VY's influence, it does not appear to have improved much over the years. Mack's a bright guy. Maybe he knows Davis would leave if they took away the play-calling and then we would lose the rest of his coaching talents. For now, Mack's recruiting and maybe Davis' other talents have mitigated the impact of his short-comings. I try not to get too upset over it since Mack has earned the right to keep whomever he choses in whatever role. Doesn't mean that it's less painful to watch; it seems like such a waste of talent...nearly every weekend.
How you can say that about the 4th highest scoring offense in Division I is beyond me. ( especially after being the 1st highest last season, and losign one of the greatest players in college football history and replacing him with an average at best 19 year old freshman QB with zero experience, as well as a few AA linemen and the best possession receiver in Thomas as well as one of the most explosive all-purpose threats in the country in Ramonce Taylor (blazing fast, 14 TD's, and more yards/touch than Reggie Bush last year) http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/natlRank.jsp?year=2006&div=4&rpt=IA_teamscoroff&site=org Imagine how fans of less productive offensive teams with Heisman trophy QB's like Ohio State or vaunted attacks like USC feel. They must crap their pants to be well behind Texas in scoring offense. Talk about a waste.... ...hell look at Notre Dame. What do they have? Let's see: Heisman Trophy candidate/all American QB Senior Brady Quinn - check. Bad ass All-american receivers - check. Decent run game - ok. Super Genius It-boy offensive guru mastermind - check. 2006 Yards/Attempt Notre Dame 6.95 Texas 8.04 So let's see, mighty Notre Dame is significantly less efficient in their passing game by this measure than Texas. Obviously that is not talent's fault - so I have no recourse but to conclude that it's the coaching (Stupid Weis!). Perspective woudl be great, but longhorn fans in particular seem incapable of grasping the concept. "What a waste".....what doesn't constitute a waste? Scoring 60 points a game every time? News flash - that simply just doesn't happen every saturday, even if you have all american super genius coordinators like ND. Be grateful for the win.
seriously, do you know how spoiled and arrogant you (and others) sound here? I mean wtf do you expect every single game? perfection does not happen in sports every single game! especially in f'in college football. you gotta be freakin kidding me. don't give me that We're Texas thing either, I seriously get embarrassed every time a fellow longhorn says that as for that francis 4 prez rant...LOL, be glad you came in during maybe the best possible period of UT football if you started school in 2000. do me a favor, go look up our historical season records. how do you think alumni during the years from 1971 to 2000 felt? if you're having a heart attack now during every game (other than last year), what would you have been like back then? would you have literally died or something lol
This what I have seen saying too. Conservative (vanilla) approach, but not conservative play calling. Osborne always had his bag of tricks to burn an overpursing, overplaying, defense. Pete Carroll and SC have been the same way. Generally line you up to smash you in the mouth, but if he catches you leaning too far one way they will make you pay. Though I would add OU's championship and FSU championships. Of course like Florida they had great college QBs and fantastic defenses. But overall Sam I would agree with you. We should have run the offense like TOSU on their championship year (running team with some downfield passing and the QB draw mixed in). Or if you look at SC when their games get tight, they lean on the run and try to only throw in the most favorable situations. Incidently, look at Michigan and OSU's game plans. Despite having veteran QBs and great WRs, they consistently run more than they pass. Even when they have played better comp (Texas, ND, Iowa, PSU) they still run more than the pass. Even sometimes when the run isn't working (Tex) they stuck to running more than they passed. However look at Texas. Against OSU they threw more than they ran (despite them having good YPC). Against NU they threw more than they rushed (even having a lead most of the game). Against OU they ran more than they passed, and had a much better game. Within the past 15 years lots of teams have won NC with less than steller passing QBs (TOSU, Tenn, NU, LSU, Bama), but none of them had a principal 3 WR set and short passing game that they based their offense on (the basic scheme Texas has run most). They all had pro-set offense (1 TE and 2 backs) or an even more run loaded system. For the most part they planned to run, run, run, and pass when the opponent was thinking run. Now there is some variance, NU hardly passed, but when they did it was completely unexpected and usually successfull for big yardage. And LSU passed more than they should have, and some really bad passes/decisions from Mauck kept OU in the game. Texas offense generally has done great in the Brown/Davis era against vastly overmatched opponents. The playcalling in the big and close games is what I don't like (as I have pointed out, for all the flash and balance of SC, when the going gets tough they foremost run between the tackles, particularly they have done this with with Booty looking so shaky but they also did it a lot with future pro Qbs there too). I generally didn't have too much of a problem with UT's basic scheme/philosphy given personel before this year (well I think they needed more deep crossing routes and such in the Simms era, but that was relatively minor). However this year it seems instead of moving back to a more conventional set we kept too much of what worked because VY made it work (kinda of a VY hangover where we got overconfident in the scheme). Rather we set up a fresh QB in mostly 3 WR sets and giving him the burden of double the plays than have been in our best offensive player's hands (Charles). Maybe they will correct it next year (more like a traditional pro set offense with Charles and Sweed and Finley featured) but they should have seen it coming (simplify the role for the QB, rely more on your playmakers) the minute VY declared for the pros. Or maybe McCoy will be an oustanding mental QB in the mold of Hypel(sp?)/Wuerful/ Detmers /Applewhite and be can keep opponents off balance with audibles at the LOS. But personally I wouldn't hedge my offense on finding a college QB at that level to run a short passing system that can beat elite defenses.
Nebraska is the only other really unconventional team to win a title, but they just flat out had better athletes than every other team. Any team winning consistently on the triple option has to be so powerful that they can just run over everyone else.
All I can tell you is I much prefer how Meyer and staff, Tumberville and staff, Carroll and staff, and Tressell and staff, and Tedford and staff, and Belloti and staff, utilize whatever offensive playmakers they happened to be blessed with (I don't even think Stoops crew is that good offensively either, but defensively they are usually 2 steps ahead of our offense). This based on tons of games by all these guys except maybe only a handfull by Cal (though Tedford really impresses me in game mangement and approach in the limited games I have seen). Doesn't mean I don't like Mack Brown. The only guy consistently in his recruiting league lately has been Carroll. He also treats his players well. But I would just like to break up the Mack-Davis pairing for the game among the game for the most part. Have Davis focus on recruiting in a co-offensive coordinator role and bring an a hungrier more aggressive (unprectiable) game planner and play caller. Or Davis can retire, either is fine by me. Mack can be loyal to a fault--which is good in many ways (recruiting, player buy in), so I know he will never fire Davis.
I'd take Meyer, Carroll, and Tressell, that's about it (out of the entire country, not just your list). but then again, Mack and staff are fine too EXACTLY Davis is here for Mack's tenure, just deal with it. I don't wanna hear this stuff every single weekend of UT football for the next 10+ years
It seems like what you're sayign is that there's not enough trick plays. They ran one trick play on Saturday, it didn't work, but if it had worked I doubt that the cirtisim of Davis would ahve subsided. I also recall a fair number of halback passes, WR tosses, and such over the last few years, many of which were successful (Ramonce Taylor comes to mind); Shipley has been in on a fair number of trick plays this year - again several of which were successful. But the offense OSU ran that year was substantially less productive than the Texas offense now, and struggled mightily for long periods against lesser competition. August 24 Texas Tech W 45-21 1-0 (0-0) September 7 Kent State W 51-17 2-0 (0-0) September 14 No. 7 Washington State W 25-7 3-0 (0-0) September 21 at Cincinnati W 23-19 4-0 (0-0) September 28 Indiana W 45-17 5-0 (1-0) October 5 at Northwestern W 27-16 6-0 (2-0) October 12 San Jose State W 50-7 7-0 (2-0) October 19 at Wisconsin W 19-14 8-0 (3-0) October 26 No. 10 Penn State W 13-7 9-0 (4-0) November 2 Minnesota W 34-3 10-0 (5-0) November 9 at Purdue W 10-6 11-0 (6-0) November 16 at Illinois W 23-16 12-0 (7-0) November 23 No. 11 Michigan W 14-9 13-0 (8-0) January 3 vs No. 1 Miami (FL) W 31-24 You are telling me that, as a fan, you'd be satisfied with a 10-6 victory over unranked Purdue? 23 measly points agaisnt Cincinatti. If Texas was winning 10-6 over Baylor or 23-19 over Rice, you and I both know that Greg Davis head would be mounted on a spit. And I doubt you'd be extolling the offense. That proves my point though. Think that has something to do with the fact that teams WANT Michigan and OSU to run more than they pass? and that the opposite woudl be true when playing Teshamn QB like McCoy to pass rather than let Texas' vaunted OL start running downhill? The last 3 weeks it has been pretty obvious that that's what teams wanted to do - so Texas (like OSU, Michigan) takes what the defense gives them. Yes, and so have other teams; don't try to pull some bogus SOS argument out against Texas, especially since you've argued against it in the past from the other side. Let's parse this statement out: Big games: Until last year it seemed like the only "big games" were ones that Texas lost. Certain games (like road wins at KSU, Nebrasaka, Holiday Bowl, etc) were considered big games until the horns won, and then they were ignored until the next "big game" to trot out the same tired argument. From 2004 and beyond, I'll take their offensive output in big games over anybody elses. Close games: Really? You didn't like the playcalling in the Rose Bowl (either one?) Or games which were close because the offense wasn't successful enough? That's a bit of a circular argument, as it says: I don't like the offensive performance in the bad games That goes both ways - do you take the offense that McCoy spent all last year learning and junk it? Why do that to a young QB? And again, stop blaming Davis for Charles. Mack likes Selvin, Selvin has played well (and in fact is better than Charles on certain runs) and so Charles (who is not exactly durable) doesn't get 25 carries. That's life. Again, it is hard - impossible, I say - to argue with the results: which has been another HIGHLY productive offensive season despite substantial personnel losses. You guys can't stand prosperity.
and another thing, Sam's point about Notre Dame is exactly right coming into the season, ND was proclaimed to have the best offense around. yet everyone knows that they truly should have 3 losses by now. and the offense is primarily to blame, *especially* against Michigan and UCLA. they f'in sucked in those games. and don't give me the strength of schedule BS...the 2 games that UT's offense has been 'lackluster' were against Ohio St and Nebraska. surprise, surprise. one ranked #1, the other ranked #17. you don't score 50+ points in EVERY game against highly ranked teams, they are there for a reason
LOL, why does an offensive genius coach with a superstar laden offense and QB need a "strength of schedule correction factor" in order to out-produce what many insist is the worst play caller in the country with an inexperienced, weak armed freshman QB?
big games, big games, big games! being the 4th highest scoring offense in the country doesn't mean jack when you score 7 in the biggest game of the season. or 16.7 ppg in the only 3 games that weren't against chumps. or 14, 3, 17, 13, and 0 against ou for 5 years. you can keep touting the best 8 year run we've ever had all you want. if we didn't have one of the greatest assemblages of talent ever, we've certainly had the best UT has seen. and offenses are much more wide open than back in our 1960's heyday. and we play significantly more games. you would have to be trying to throw games to not produce our greatest offensive seasons ever with those factors. as for eveyone getting more people drafted, how many of say, osu's people were defensive guys? i can't remember too many amazing receivers they've had. and krenzel wasn't exactly anything to write home about. they had clarett for only one season. their offense this year has been very good at putting up points (except against psu) and then shutting it down for the rest of the game. and there has to be some middle road between recruiting rankings and nfl draftees. it's hard to argue with the talent we recruited as it was ranked. if there is such a disparity between who you recruit and how many NFLers you produce, it can't just be written off as circular reasoning to say it might be on the coaches. i don't know, maybe they're great at getting the most from the guys they don't develop after getting them on campus. simms was not only the #1 qb, but the #1 offensive player in the nation his year. benson was like the #2 or #3 rb. roy, bj, and sloan were 3 of the top wr's their year (and roy wasn't even rated the highest). our OL was littered with 4* and 5* star guys. our OL coach sucked back then, but that should at most be a minor hindrance. and we had all those guys on the field at the same time at one point. and we still scored nothing against ou. while okla st somehow figured out how to do it (while being worse than us as our head to head meetings showed). and a&m figured it out. and then they both scored 35 against ou in a year we were shutout by them (our first shutout in 24 years). and it was because they didn't play scared. apparently GD can coach, he just can't do it when he's scared, and he gets scared way too easily. here's a little list: 13, 7, 18, 12, 0, 3, 13, 10, and 14. those are the points unc scored against FSU from the time FSU joined the acc in 1992 and started playing them up until 2000 when FSU was last dominant. hardly a list of strong offensive performances, but i'll give you 3 guesses as to which two point totals are from the 2 years greg davis was offensive coordinator, and the first two don't count. and these were in years in which unc averaged over 30 ppg in the other games and the two seasons they were 10-2 and 11-1. the other seasons were like 8-4 and 9-3 seasons and the final 3 are carl torbush coached teams that included a 3-8 team. again, GD coaches scared against a good defense and sucks it up. just like he was trying to do again against ou this year before mack told him to pull his head out. then he seemingly started calling a good game. there's a pattern developing here. and stop bringing up usc. if greg davis had a 4 year run of amazing play calling, consistency, and big game performances like usc has had, he could have a season like they are having now after losing the entire heisman winning backfield plus #33 pick or something lendale white. they haven't scored less than 20 in a game in over 4 seasons. and they are bound to have played some decent defenses in there. try a little harder to be condescending. you've obviously got it all figured out. and so does greg davis. his record against ou and against other big time defenses is just beyond reproach apparently. is anyone here really complaining about how we rack it up on the rice's of the world? or even the average defenses of the world? of course not. years of offensive greatness mean nothing if they never show up when it counts. it's like anybody in sports. flashy numbers with no clutchness is not looked upon favorably. does he have to score 40 everytime we face an 2000-2004 ou caliber defense? no. but should a solid 30+ points on a good defense every once in a while be expected to say he's above average? yes. should we have seen some nice performances against ou in at least 1 of the 5 years? or in either year against FSU? or against washington state in the holiday bowl. that's the whole point, or at least my whole point. big games. i agree he's got stats to quote like few others. but they almost never show up in big games, or they do so seldom that it tarnishes everything else. like arod not hitting in big situations. it's hard to appreciate putting up 40 homers a year when failure in big situations is always in the back of your mind with him.
but except for the last year and a half vince was here, playing scared in big games against good defenses happened almost every single game. i'm well aware of our suckiness before i got here. not only did i get in on a resurgence in football in my 6 years at UT (that includes grad school) and get a national title (a season i will cherish forever), but between bball going to a final 4 and multiple sweet 16's (and an elite 8 last year) and baseball winning and going to several other world series, and various other sports peaking, i may have gone to UT during the greatest athletic period for any school ever in terms of the mainstream, major sports. but that doesn't somehow mean greg davis was doing great things for most of that time or that i somehow didn't watch us play pathetically predictably and conservatively against ou for 5 years.
and were they ever against ou? of course not, they were against iowa state or missouri (at least two of the reverse, hb/wr passes i recall were). the fake field goals come out against baylor and rice. the fake punts on 4th and 2 against i think iowa state this year or maybe it was north texas. anything against ohio state this year? or ou again? or nebraska (i'm not sure the shipley play qualifies as much of a "trick" play). again, when greg is pretty sure things are going smoothly and we'll probably win, he opens up and knows what he's doing. but never against real D's and real opponents, when something might go wrong and there's a reason to be scared. i can stand it plenty. i'm loving these last few years. 1 loss in about 28 games or something. 2 in 33 games. but i still hate losing 4 yards on 1st and goal from the 2 and fade routes that almost get intercepted when a game winning fg is 22 yards away and waiting to be kicked. and it's really easy to identify who to blame for those. and given past history, i won't hesitate to place that blame. and i'm not wrong to do it. it's really easy for me to enjoy the big picture and appreciate what we've got going while still complaining about parts of it. America has been the greatest country going for about 60 years now but that doesn't mean people can't complain about certain aspects or don't appreciate how great it is to live here.
Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl, RRS....and others. Find me a coach or OC who has been anywhere for a sustained length of time (or not) and I will be able to engineer the same criticisms of him based on samples. Look at offensive genius Mike Leach. What did his team do offensively in HUGE games against UT the last few years? They didn't do crap. Therefore he is a failure and all his stats which he ran up against crap teams like Texas A&M are indicative of this. It's real easy to pronounce somebody a failure ....when you focus solely on the negatives and ignore the positives....which is exactly what you just did. You already admitted that you were biased agaisnt Davis beyond repair, so I don't really see the point in going over the rest. The fact taht you guys keep dredging up games vs. Oklahoma from seven years ago or overmatched UNC teams vs. FSU is telling - considering that we're discussing something that happened 2 days ago. But if you want to dig up history, here is the scoring output vs. ranked opponents since 2002 (Espn doesn't go back further) 2002: 24 (l) 17 (w) 35 (w) 2003: 24 (w) 13 (l) 31 (w) 55 (w) 20 (l) 2004: 0 (l) 28 (w) 51 (w) 56 (w) 26 (w) 38 (w) 2005 25 (w) 42 (w) 52 (w) 41 (w) That's an average of 32.1 ppg in games vs. ranked opponents. I haven't done the math but I am willing to bet very few teams have matched that during the same time period over a similar sample size. EDIT: I forgot to include 2006: where the results are 7 (l), 28 (w), and 22 (w). I belive that lowers the average to something like 30.1.
Don't be silly. You're writing off bias against Greg Davis without bothering to point out why people are biased against him - for almost half a decade in just about every game against a team with comparable talent the offense played poorly.
You're exactly right, people let old losses color their view of him so every time somethign goes imperfectly years later they have a reflexive tendency to point the finger at him - as is on display here - that's the point that is being made for me.
