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Reese Bennett

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On 9/21/2021 at 1:04 PM, Had Enough said:


I think we’ve got the talent. Arkansas was fired up. We were in game 2 of a new regime. They took advantage of our uncertainty and slow reactions. We missed on big plays that could have kept us in the game. And, yes, they have some skill.

If our Oline keeps bringing it and improves week to week, our offense could be something. Sark doesn’t need much depth at WR. He needs 3 guys. Worthy, Whittington and Dixon/Moore should do. We still miss some blocks, but there tons of made blocks and some devastating ones.

Yes it was Rice but 44-0 at the half. That’s impressive.

Did you actually say:  “ if our o-line keeps bringing it” ? 

Bringing what ?

i didn’t see them bringing anything even  average, to the first three games. Maybe you are on a parallel universe.

 

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Did you actually say:  “ if our o-line keeps bringing it” ? 
Bringing what ?
i didn’t see them bringing anything even  average, to the first three games. Maybe you are on a parallel universe.
 

Yes, they brought it versus Rice. No, they won’t be Alabama at any point this year. Too many screw ups still. It may even be every single play. But they buried some Rice defenders. They played hard.

Yes, our backs are awesome, but you don’t get 400 yards rushing with your backs alone. Rice played little attention to the pass game yet 400 yards rushing. They dedicated more defenders to the run than we had blockers on occasion.

Watch the game again. Slow it down. Rewind plays. Many dudes are doing their job on individual plays. Then go watch another game, any other game. See how many blocking screw ups you see. That’s football.

Again, three runs of over 60 yards. I don’t think a single front 7 Rice defender touched the RB on any of them. Only 3 dudes made contact and only one with a legit chance at the tackle.

The effort was there. So yeah if they keep bringing that desire and effort and continue to improve on the continuity, then we should generally be pleased.

The tenor of this board is a little inconsistent when comparing the last two games. Arkansas totally whipped our dline ass for 300 yards much of it in the 4th with light boxes for the entirety of the game. We get 400 with a heavier box and coast in the 2nd half yet our Oline play wasn’t even average. Sorry, I’m not going with that narrative.

Lots of work to do. But game 3 of a new scheme with guys playing spots they didn’t play last year. The Rice game sure as hell was a positive.
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Thx for this @satyanash

Scipio Tex -- Texas Tech Postmortem

DL

Texas experimented with some different pass rushing personnel packages and worked Alfred Collins and Barryn Sorrell more into the rotation. The most amusing experiment came when Pete decided to have the Texas DL run the Veer.

That Collins sack off of the stack formation shouldn't surprise us. That formation and the down and distance allows him to just be an athlete and get after the passer. It's the more conventional assignment piece that he's been struggling with. He also had a nice tackle for loss where he outquicked a guy, but on more mundane downs he's still working to find his legs. The coaches are clearly making an effort to engage him though.

Moro Ojomo had a terrific early series where he strung together a tackle for loss and then a big pressure on 3rd down coming off of the edge in a pressure package where he disrupted an open Tech screen on 3rd and 9. He got dinged for an offsides later, but he's been our best DL through four games. Freshman Barryn Sorrell got heavy reps and finished with 5 tackles (led the DL) and a tackle for loss. #88 has motor and energy and the coaches are rewarding that. Great recruiting find.

Jacoby Jones played physically lining up inside and outside and had a nice QB hit, collapsing the pocket on a 3 man rush on 4th down. Excellent effort. T'vondre Sweat clearly has the nod over Coburn inside and he notched 3 tackles, though Coburn continues to start. If you can find Coburn on the field or in the box score, you're working hard. Ray Thornton is physical and I appreciate that, but #46 has to work on his get off. You know who has get off? Ovie Oghuofo. You know who didn't do much on Saturday? Oghoufo.

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22 minutes ago, LTtxfan said:

 

 

Recruiting Retrospective: How Barryn Sorrell could prove to be a diamond in the rough for Texas

By  MIKE ROACH

Quote

When Texas landed Barryn Sorrell in the 2021 class, it didn’t exactly send shockwaves through the country. The three-star defensive lineman from New Orleans (LA.) Holy Cross was previously committed to Northwestern, but an offer from Texas changed that.

Now in his first year at Texas, Sorrell is logging heavy minutes in the rotation up front accounting for 6 tackles on the year through two games played. Sorrell looks to be a young building block for Pete Kwiatkowski up front, and that’s no surprise to Sorrell’s trainer Clyde Alexander, owner and operator of “Edge Assassins” training in New Orleans.

“You know, he was one of the harder workers I had,” Alexander said. “Like, the discipline that kid had at such a young age. I remember taking them on road trips to different universities and everything and while we're on the road, everybody stopping for Popeyes to eat and everything, and Barryn’s not eating any of that He'll tell you like, ‘hey coach can we go somewhere else’ or he would go hungry. He just like he will not eat that. The kid can look at different food items and tell you how many calories are in it. That's how disciplined this kid was you know when it came to his body and all that. So, from day one I knew the kid was special. He’s doing everything right now that I thought he would be.”

Sorrell excelled on the football field, but he excelled more in the classroom. A great student with a bright future ahead, Sorrell knew early he wanted to combine strong football with strong academics. Alexander asks all of his kids where they want to ideally play so he can put together a plan for them to get there, and Sorrell always had an eye on Austin.

“From the beginning, Barryn was highly interested in Texas because he’s a highly intelligent kid. The kid graduated high school with a high GPA you know, because of taking honors classes and what have you. So, he was looking for a school that not only had a great football team in a big conference, but he was looking for a school that was high in academics in order to be successful for life after football.

“So, I would say right off the bat what I say my other kids. I ask them in a perfect world what school would you want to go to. Everybody you know from Louisiana so they say I like LSU coach, but you know that with Barryn, I remember like it was yesterday. Barryn told me Notre Dame, Penn State, Stanford, Vanderbilt. Like he wrote down all of these schools that were highly ranked academic institutions. Texas was one of them, so I just started targeting those schools that they want to go to. It took a year before that offer came and then, I didn't fully trust it because they were so close to signing day.”

Though Sorrell had finally received an offer from the Longhorns, Alexander wasn’t sure if it was just a last-minute offer to fill a spot or genuine interest. Sorrell didn’t really care as he had the education in front of him that he wanted. It all worked out for the better when Steve Sarkisian was hired and brought Bo Davis with him.

“Some teams will say we've missed out on this guy and that guy so I’d say let me circle back around just try to get something for this kid. Barryn and his father, we had to talk about that and I told him he might not want to do that. Like I said from the beginning, the kid was highly interested in Texas, so it wasn't even about football. He just said, ‘I like Texas as a university, so I'm going. We had a discussion about it and I gave him my full blessing. Not too long after that, that's when that previous staff got fired, and it was almost like a blessing.

“Coach Sarkisian was in there, but during that time, Coach Bo Davis was his was going to be the defensive line coach. A mentor of mine actually play ball with Bo, so I called them and talked to him, and after that I felt comfortable with him being in Texas. Even more so recently, you got the news that they're going to be moving to SEC, so I mean, the kid is in a perfect situation and I'm glad he's happy. I actually just talked to him the other day. When you talk to kids and you can hear that they're just genuinely happy to be where they are, that's priceless.”

Sorrell is just scratching the surface on his talent now, and Alexander is identifying areas for improvement. When Sorrell gets back to New Orleans in the offseason, Alexander has a list to work off of.

“Barryn is such a strong kid to the point where he likes to use power moves a lot. I want to work a couple of different things and add some more finesse to his game. We are going to work on adding a lot more flexibility for a kid his size. He's quick as a cat and very explosive. I would like to see him, like I said, use a little bit more finesse.

"We are going to work on some zone drops. Since he’s playing more of a linebacker role, we are going to work on some linebacker drills as well as on drops those that sort of thing. Just because of the pass-rushing, I just want to give him some tools to kind of put his tool belt to where he can succeed. He's going to be at that level playing for a long time now, so I just get them to where he can effectively pass rush and not have anybody kind of choreograph his moves.”

 

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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Thx for this @satyanash 

Scipio Tex postmortem on tcu game

DL

For the second straight week, you won't find Keondre Coburn in the box score even though he was on the field and got the start. T'vondre Sweat is playing much better ball now and has supplanted Coburn as the significantly more useful interior body. Sweat finished with 4 tackles and had a key tipped ball on a Frog 3rd down. Ojomo was very quiet and had limited snaps. A little hobbled?

Jacoby Jones had an active game and even a little dominant stretch late in the 1st half with a pair of pressures and drew a personal foul penalty from a frustrated Frog tackle. Jumping offsides on a 4th and 1 was naughty, but he was bailed out by Doug Meacham's perm. PK likes to pair Alfred Collins and Ovie Oghoufo in a rotation I like to call Feast or Famine. Both are good at creating some havoc with their quickness or getting completely washed out with an ill-advised guess.

He also likes to pair Vernon Broughton and Byron Murphy - High and Low. Pads, that is. Spotlight on Byron Murphy. He had one series in the late second half where he jacked up a TCU guard and drove him into the runner to create a loss and then had a big tackle for loss on Duggan on a 3rd and 2. He's really coming along and weak OL with poor leverage struggle against him. Good pad level, motor.

No Barryn Sorrell, which brought Jett Bush back into the rotation. Bush had a nice hustle play on a 3 man rush, but he also drew a personal foul and loses the battle of physics at the point of attack. He can't create his own pressure, but can at times be an active chaser/hustle guy when someone else disrupts. Texas needs someone, anyone, to bring it from the edge with some consistency.

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On 10/4/2021 at 9:31 PM, LTtxfan said:

Barryn Sorrell... Nowhere to be seen on depth chart for blOU...  

 

Thx for this info @BurntOrange&White

Nahlin:  Quick Practice Notes

Before we get to what little can be revealed, IT did check on freshman defensive end Barryn Sorrell who was not on the depth chart. We don’t know the reason for that but is practicing business as usual and splitting reps with Jett Bush on second team. Bush is still ahead. 

As previously noted, Mondays are for corrections from the previous game that need to be fixed regardless of opponent. It can be team related or unit based, or regarding individual fundamentals and technique. They missed too many checks and calls on both sides of the ball versus TCU so they worked to clean that up.

On Tuesday there was a heavy emphasis on tackling, playing with good leverage, and fitting the right gaps. Defensive coaches were preaching getting off blocks because OU holds a lot and gets away with it. It’s good to know the coaches didn’t need to experience it in Dallas before they recognized it.

 

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1 minute ago, RabidM said:

I was just about to post about moving JT Sanders to defense full time.. even if he goes back to TE next season.  He's getting so few snaps on offense.  We need ANYONE with pass rushing athleticism as a potential option on defense. 

Especially with Jones injury. This dline is atrocious. All the help it can get even if it means this staff has to move a 5* projected dlineman from TE

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7 minutes ago, RabidM said:

I was just about to post about moving JT Sanders to defense full time.. even if he goes back to TE next season.  He's getting so few snaps on offense.  We need ANYONE with pass rushing athleticism as a potential option on defense. 

It's the only immediate fix to our pass rush, otherwise it's a long time til we can address it with the portal and recruiting.

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Yeah I’d love to have someone like sanders rushing the QB… but it doesn’t seem likely unfortunately even tho that would ensure playing time. I hate that preseason I was so high on the DL. I was brought right back to earth a few weeks ago.

no one is a standout In the entire defense. Overshown is the best we have. And at some point someone just has to be focal point. We can’t get off blocks, we can’t beat a guy one on one, we can’t get pressure, we can’t cover 50/50 balls, we out leverage our own players in scheme, we have guys playing positions that wouldn’t play at the schools we face… I mean the list just goes on. And maybe it isn’t as bad as what I’m saying here, but it is pretty bad.

 

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Thx for this @satyanash 

Scipio Tex : Texas-Oklahoma Postmortem: Defense

I could go on. And I could break down each player and unit per usual as if individual or unit performance has any relevance to what we watched. I don’t think it’s helpful. That was a total failure at the most basic levels of the game. So I’ll just plainly state (or restate) a few things I’ve been observing all year.

Texas (D)efense:

Pad levels remain poor on much of the DL. Pad level relates to coaching, anthropometry, and physical strength (the ability to stay low and generate power). I’ll let you decide if Keondre Coburn started standing up because his center of gravity changed in a year. Tackling is appalling, particularly at safety and linebacker. Texas has a number of non-useful players in its DL rotation getting equal minutes to viable players. They were/are actively taking developmental snaps from players with viable upside, namely Collins and Murphy.

The DL who are decent to good are clearly struggling to play in a methodology that puts on onus on playmaking (or play erasing) from linebackers and safeties. The middle of the field at the 2nd and 3rd levels might as well be the Russian steppe before a Mongol cavalry.

Remember under the Herman regime when the DL was underachieving and didn’t make many plays and they fired Orlando and Texas just let them gap it and go in the Utah Alamo bowl game and the front dominated and racked up sacks and tackles for loss like a sorority girl abusing Dad’s Amex? Maybe how you play the DL might influence how they play. Of course, it’s also who you play…

Vernon Broughton played snaps at both DE(!) and DT. I don’t know why. Carrying bad weight, stands straight up, too weak. Keondre Coburn has spent most of the season watching. He made a play in the early 3rd quarter and I nearly fell out of my chair. Who is #99, I thought? Oh, Coburn. Jett Bush played a number of snaps, a few of them at 3 technique (!) on passing downs. He does try hard and did draw a holding call though. You play a really light guy inside on a passing down because you’re going to play games with him and run some T/E stunts with other quickness guys. Nope. Texas instructs Bush to fire off and try to collapse the pocket. Against a guy who outweighs him by 100 pounds.

 

Speaking of player’s getting weaker and struggling to hold ground, win 80/20s, or hold low pads…strength and conditioning looks very poor. This is a physically weak defense overall. As if they spent the entire offseason screwing around with light weights and doing rate of force... ahem... “functional” training.

Final

Six games into his tenure, Pete Kwiatkowki and his defensive staff have failed in what they’re trying to do with the Longhorn defense. He’s locked into doing it his way. Right now, it’s the other way. Scheme, philosophy, and personnel need a major rethink, but none of that matters much without low pads, better tackling, and the right players demonstrating an understanding of the defense. That may not yield a good defense, but it will yield a watchable one... 

 

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On 10/9/2021 at 9:09 PM, RabidM said:

I was just about to post about moving JT Sanders to defense full time.. even if he goes back to TE next season.  He's getting so few snaps on offense.  We need ANYONE with pass rushing athleticism as a potential option on defense. 

I have no idea how much he can add as a pass rush specialist at this point, but I am willing to give anything a shot at this point. That said the pass defense terrible, but the run defense is what needs to be fixed first. I dont think Sanders will give much in that department. PK needs to rethink what he is doing. I would like him to move away from his 2-4-5 defense and just make it a 4-2-5 by bringing in some bigger bodies on the edges. Right now the narrow asses are getting pushed around on the run and cant get around OTs in the pass rush, so you are not losing anything by beefing up the personnel on the LOS. 

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14 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:


Think how many times this season you thought “that was a great play by [barron/Ojomo/Murphy]”.

My count is zero. Those are our best defenders.

Really? I thought Ojomo and Murphy balled out. I didn't notice Barron but I guess that's why a corner would grade out well.

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9 hours ago, Bevo14 said:

Really? I thought Ojomo and Murphy balled out. I didn't notice Barron but I guess that's why a corner would grade out well.

I admittedly stopped paying attention after Baylor for the sake my health, but at the time I thought Ojomo and Cook were our “best” players on defense. 

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I need a pass rusher, plain and simple. All the schemes and player data end up useless if I can't count on one of my edge guys to beat a block and go harass the QB. 

I mean a Brian Orakpo type. The entire defense knew they only had to hold up a few seconds, because he was gonna get there. 

This season, offenses could do whatever they liked on 1st and 2nd down, because on 3rd down, the pocket was gonna be clean. Eventually, someone would pop open. A pass rush shouldn't require a blitz, although sadly even our blitzes were almost always picked up and stymied. Out of the entire defensive roster, I need a guy who can be counted on to beat the guy in front of him and get into the backfield.

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14 minutes ago, GoldAppleCorps said:

I need a pass rusher, plain and simple. All the schemes and player data end up useless if I can't count on one of my edge guys to beat a block and go harass the QB. 

I mean a Brian Orakpo type. The entire defense knew they only had to hold up a few seconds, because he was gonna get there. 

This season, offenses could do whatever they liked on 1st and 2nd down, because on 3rd down, the pocket was gonna be clean. Eventually, someone would pop open. A pass rush shouldn't require a blitz, although sadly even our blitzes were almost always picked up and stymied. Out of the entire defensive roster, I need a guy who can be counted on to beat the guy in front of him and get into the backfield.

Sark?

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Sark should make the call to this Pete Jenkins for a consulting gig -- he was at Alabama, Georgia, Michigan in the past year: https://www.si.com/college/2021/12/21/when-alabama-nick-saban-calls-pete-jenkins-answers-daily-cover

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During these trips, Jenkins doesn’t work with players. That’d be an NCAA violation. Instead, he coaches the coaches. He identifies technical weaknesses from watching hours of Alabama practice and game footage of its defensive line before making suggestions using his own teaching methods and videos. Those who have been around Jenkins call him the best teacher they have ever seen, a master of detail on the most granular level, right down to the positioning of a defensive line coach during a drill. 

Apparently he does speak with Bo Davis regularly though.

Quote

Many of his former players, now coaching, still send him clips on a weekly basis, seeking help about a technique—maybe it’s hand placement or foot positioning. That includes Texas defensive line coach Bo Davis.

“They don’t make ’em any better than Coach Pete,” says Davis, a former Jenkins player at LSU who nearly quit college football after the school fired the entire staff, including Jenkins, in 1990. “He told me then, ‘Just because you’re mad at the bus driver, don’t get off the bus.’ He’s the reason I continued to stay and play.”

 

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