Sep 09, 2018 by [ "James R. Miller"
]
Categories:
football
Tags:
tom-herman
longhorns
tulsa
Tom Herman opened his post-Tulsa press conference with “winning is hard” in what I assume was an attempt to downplay the terrible performance of the Longhorns against what should be an inferior opponent in Tulsa.
After the Maryland game, Texas fans were hoping for more than a single-score win over Tulsa. Texas fans also weren’t expecting Tulsa to be in the red-zone to such an extent that they would have the opportunity to miss four field goals and a dropped touch down.
You might hear from some other sites about how well we did in the first half, and the box score might support that. But what actually happened in the first half was that we scored 21 points, left 3 to 7 points on the table with failed red-zone play calling, and at least another 7 points on the table with poor otherwise offensive play calling. We also allowed Tulsa the opportunity to score 9 on field goals and a touchdown. If Tulsa had a competent kicker, the first half box score would have looked like 21-16.
Herman also apparently blames the poor second-half performance on himself being too hard on the team at half time, causing the team to not play “loose” anymore. Talk about mental fragility of the team, poor motivational speaking, or both.
The truth is that we played so poorly that Lowell Galindo is even heard on a hot microphone near the end of the game saying, “Can we agree though, that this sucked?”
Our pass protection looks improved. Our QBs have had time to throw that they never had last season. We’ll see how they hold up against a real defensive line though in the next few weeks.
Sam’s arm looks better than last season, although he’s still making some poor decisions, particularly late in games.
Keontay Ingram, Tre Watson, and Daniel Young look like we have an improved RB-by-committee situation this season.
Lil’ Jordan Humphrey looks like even more of an all-around athlete.
And… that’s about it.
Unfortunately, one of the worst places for us to regress, is on the D-Line. Our pass rush was basically non-existent against Tulsa. Losing Poona was big. Hager hasn’t done much either.
Our secondary has also regressed to where we certainly don’t deserve the “DBU” title. Stearns had a hot-and-cold game. Boyd was also a roller coaster. Sure we got two picks, but then we let too many plays break into trash yards.
We… cannot… defend… jet sweeps for some reason.
Offensive holding… goodness… we’re committing too many drive-killing holds. Not a good game for Brewer.
Collin Johnson giving up on plays and half-assed blocking. As far as I’m concerned, bench him if he won’t play all of his roles. Collin, part of playing WR is blocking. Period.
Our player development. This team is loaded with talent on both sides of the ball. Herman can’t blame Strong for leaving the cupboard bare. I’m just not seeing it yet. At this point, I’m done listenting to the Herman hype train until he can start speaking with some honesty to the press and the fans.
If you had talked to me before Maryland, I would have said we’d win 8 this season. I’m concerned now that we’re only going to win 5 or 6. And that breaks my heart.