Oct 27, 2019 by [ "James R. Miller" ]
Categories: football Tags: football longhorns

After the 2019 TCU game

I’m writing this the Sunday after our 2019 TCU loss. Since 2010, there always seems to be a point in Longhorn football where that spark, that little piece of hope all fans have, goes dark. Yesterday was that for me.

After the LSU loss, I thought, “well, at least we can still beat OU”. After the OU loss, I thought, “well, we could at least get a rematch in December”. And now, after the TCU loss, I’ll still watch the rest of the season, but now the hope is gone. It’s not even the loss that bothers me so much as the way we lost. If we had played our hearts out, did a good job, and lost to the better team, I’d be in a better place right now.

We now field a defense that makes bad QBs look like heroes, we’re last or near the last in numerous defensive categories, and our coaches refuse to adjust to the reality that they have a depleted secondary, no push on the D-line, and yet we keep the same scheme. Gee, four on the line working? Let’s back away from that. All out blitzes on 3rd and long when the game is on the line? If the TV announcers can predict our defensive calls, our opponents surely can. Evidence? The results on the field. This D is worse than any of the defenses Charlie Strong fielded. Hell, it’s likely worse than the defense that got Manny Diaz fired.

“But what about the injuries?” Yes, we’ve had some injuries. And I would expect us to fall in production. But we’ve had these injuries for a long time now, and through a bye week. That should have been enough time to simplify the scheme, practice fundamentals like tackling, and install some blitzes that were less “gambling the game away”. Evidence? Greg Robinson’s amazing turnaround post Diaz that also led into the great first-season Strong defense. (For all of Charlie’s faults, I’d take the 2014 Longhorn defense over this defense anyday.) OU’s defensive improvement during the 2018 season. Matching your scheme to the players you can play today instead of the players you might have actually matters.

Here’s the link to Tom Herman’s post-game presser.

“Winning on the road is really, really hard.”
Liked our first-half defense. (Yeah, we had a lot of four on the line and played a lot of simple defense that made it easy to make tackles.)
Their QB had a great game. (Disagree; we stink so bad it made their QB look good.)
Gave some sort of small excuse about not playing Eagles. “The right thing to do around here when you miss a practice is to not play.”
“We’re not good. We need to be better.”
“We’ve got to do a better job as coaches.”
“These things don’t happen by calling magic defenses or magic offenses…”
“Hats off to them and their coaching staff.”
“It’s not that kid, it’s that coach.”

Horse shit. Why can other teams with worse talent do what we can’t do? Why don’t you actually do something instead of bullshitting your press box. Some humility would be nice.

How about why our offensive line is worse this season than last years?

What further bugs me, is how Kansas State’s offense figured out a way to put up big points easily on OU’s defense. Makes me wonder if our offensive coaches and analysts aren’t doing their job.

Ugggh. I’m tired of ranting.