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Disconnect and Poor Coaching...

https://247sports.com/college/texas/Article/Texas-Longhorns-football-Tom-Herman-Dan-Neil-run-game-embarrassing-Sam-Ehlinger-Denzel-Okafor-Reese-Leitao-Marcel-Spears-Mike-Rose-139018240/

Dan Neil: Texas run game against Iowa State was embarrassing

ByDAN NEIL 63 minutes ago

Former Longhorns’ All-American OL DAN NEIL, who won three conference titles at Texas and two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos, provides an exclusive game analysis to Horns247. Here's his breakdown following Texas' 23-21 loss at Iowa State:

I finally got ahold of the game film and started watching the Texas offense to see what happened against Iowa State. It really is sickening to watch Texas try to run the ball in this game.

What is obvious is ISU played harder on defense then Texas did on offense.  Iowa State linebacker Marcel Spears (No. 42) and Mike Rose (No. 23) whipped everyone’s ass last Saturday.  At one point Rose stands up Denzel Okafor in the hole. When a lineman gets stood up in the hole, taking away the running backs lane, you are going to lose every time.  Texas also turned free safety Lawrence White (No. 11) into a tackling machine. He was one-on-one with the back and made the tackle every time. The back needs to make this guy miss or flat out run his ass over! He is a safety and a back needs to beat a safety.

Herman said the injury to right guard Junior Angilau was more of a problem then they thought. The problem was Okafor in the run. He simply can’t cut off the backside end. This takes away your entire run game to the left. He missed the backside cutoff the entire game!  I’m watching guys like left guard Parker Braun, who has played well, not get their head across in zone blocks. The tight end getting beat. I see no defender getting driven backward - ever.   

What jumps out at me more then anything else is Texas made Spears into an All-American. He whipped everyone’s backside on Saturday. It was not that Texas did not get a body on him. Rather, he kicked the guy’s ass who was trying to block him. You will not see it in the stat sheets, because Spears didn’t always make the tackle. What he did was take on the lead blocker, drive him in the hole so the back had nowhere to run and allowed someone else to make the tackle.  There are plays where the tight end and Okafor do not know who to block. I will defend offensive line coach Herb Hand here. These are the two new starters for this game.

It was not all bad. 

There were times where the line got the back to the safety and the back did not make the safety miss, but it was for a gain. I will take that. At least it is not for a loss. You can’t have a loss of yards. Negative plays kill an offense. 

Let me give you the sequence for the failed fourth-and-2 play in the second quarter after D’Shawn Jamison’s interception in Iowa State territory.  On third-and-3, Texas ran QB power right. They moved Samuel Cosmi to the right side in an overload line. The middle linebacker came in unblocked. On this play that’s not unusual.  It is hard to get to the middle linebacker because of all the bodies in a small area. Running back Keaontay Ingram completely missed his guy. Watch the film and you would laugh at the attempt (if it wasn’t so heartbreaking to watch this over and over again all day).

So, what does Texas do? Get in an overloaded line and run the exact same play! Same result. Ingram got beat - again - and the middle linebacker was unblocked - again. Not sure why Texas thought somehow the result was going to be different.  I have a philosophy about running the same play back-to-back. You do that in middle school. When I was at Texas with John Mackovic calling plays and at Denver with Gary Kubiak and Mike Shanahan calling plays, I can’t remember ever calling a play back-to-back after the first one failed.

I don’t even know what to say.

Now, let’s take a look at the final two run plays everyone is complaining about when Texas had the ball with four minutes left, holding a 21-20 lead from the Texas 15.  The first one failed because tight end Reese Leitao didn’t know who to block. Mental error. The second play was a zone read out of an unbalanced formation.  Instead of Sam Ehlinger keeping it, he hands it off to Roschon Johnson going to the left side. Braun and Leitao got beat, and those two defenders made the tackle.

I hear everyone complain about the time it took Tom Herman to get out of 21 personnel and into 11 personnel. Let me just say they should have never been in 21 personnel.  It has nothing to do with the plays or the situations. It has to do with the fact their tight ends (Leitao and Jared Wiley) can’t block, and the ball was never thrown to either of them. Coaches need to see this and take the tight ends off the field earlier.

I try not to be too critical of the coaches or players. I know one thing: everyone is trying to win the game.  I usually stay out of the week-to-week overreactions about if a coach is the greatest or should be fired.  Watch the film and you will see all you need to see. I watched this film and I am here to say on offense that both the coaches and the players were bad.

This loss falls across the entire offense - top to bottom. The fourth-and-2 call was bad. Taking too long to get out of the run game and into a pass-first, run-second mode was bad. Effort and execution by the players were bad. Getting beat physically is awful.

Now comes the moment when we see if the coaches can call a better game and if the players decide they want to be more physical than their opponent.  Baylor’s front three are damn good and physical along with linebacker Terrel Bernard (No. 26) being a tackling machine. Texas better show up for this one!

Edited by LTtxfan
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Example of good coaching... this is from Rhule's media coverage after Texas game

Q.  Making Texas jump on the fourth down?

MATT RHULE: We were going to just punt the ball. Tried to make them jump. They didn't jump. We tried it again and they did jump. Then they threw the ball and caught it.

Really good poise by our guys. We've never really actually done it like that where we resignaled the same thing, tried to make them jump again. Felt like let's take a shot, see if we can get them to jump. It kind of worked.

That's hard on the center because he has to feel the guy almost come into the neutral zone. Great throw. It's those plays I think are the ones that close games out. Those are the kind of plays to me that win big games, your discipline, play making shows up as a really critical time.

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