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satyanash

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Posts posted by satyanash

  1. 18 minutes ago, Not a Sock said:

    Orgeron doesn’t drink anymore, he apparently replaced drinking with working out which is why he has gotten absolutely jacked.

    He was sober for 17 years before getting the LSU head coaching job. But at some point after that he got divorced, then fell off the wagon.

    https://theathletic.com/2891847/2021/10/17/he-lost-track-of-who-he-was-inside-ed-orgerons-fall-from-celebrated-son-of-louisiana-to-lsu-coaching-pariah/

    Quote

    BATON ROUGE, La. — Five years ago, Ed Orgeron sped down I-12 at 6 a.m. with his head out the window of his black GMC truck blaring “Born on the Bayou” from Mandeville to Baton Rouge on the way to live out his dreams. Waiting for him outside the football operations building was athletic director Joe Alleva, preparing to offer him the LSU head coaching job. The kid from Larose, La., was going to become the most important public figure in his home state.

    And somehow a lifetime has been lived within these five years, an LSU coaching tenure meandering from laughingstock to legend to statewide pariah. Few believed Orgeron should be LSU’s football coach. Then they thought he should hold the role for life. Now he’s been unceremoniously labeled a one-hit wonder and will soon be looking for a job.

    LSU and Orgeron reached a separation agreement that will take effect after the season. Orgeron is expected to get his full buyout, according to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman. It comes less than two years after leading an undefeated national championship team in 2019 that some argued was the best in college football history. He followed that championship with a pair of up and down campaigns with two polar-opposite staffs, neither working to lift the Tigers. All of this included characteristic drama along the way.

    The rise and fall of Orgeron can be defined by what happens when an already volatile man reaches the absolute peak of his profession, popularity and prestige right as he undergoes a public divorce through a pandemic while the world shifts around him. It’s about the difference between being able to learn from failure and being able to sustain that success.

    Orgeron’s time at LSU wasn’t a repeat of his Ole Miss tenure. This wasn’t a downfall via chaotic behavior and driving assistants mad. It was a slow and steady whittling away of all the things that brought him and the program success. Add in a massive Title IX scandal in the university and the newly single Orgeron’s interactions with women bringing new distractions, and the changing off-field behavior coincided with declining on-field results.

    “He lost track of who he was and what made him good from the national championship to now,” one source told The Athletic.

    There were coordinator hires of coaches Orgeron admits to not fully interviewing and embarrassing interactions with fans. There were viral photos of him in bed with women. There were political comments that fractured the locker room and a poorly handled racial inequality protest. And there was a roster that lacked the leadership of LSU’s 2019 title team. All of this under a new athletic director who didn’t hire Orgeron and had no built-in loyalty to him.

    There’s no one thing that brought Ed Orgeron down. If the championship was called a “perfect storm” that came together for greatness, so too was it a perfect storm that led to his demise.

    “That doesn’t make him a bad coach,” one person close to the situation said. “It doesn’t make him a bad motivator. It doesn’t make him a bad recruiter. It doesn’t make him a bad person. He just lost track of who Coach O is a little bit and his sense of identity.”
    When football became secondary

    On the night LSU won the national championship in New Orleans, Orgeron went back to his hotel room around 2:30 a.m. with his wife, Kelly. They had nothing to eat, but somebody handed them some Popeyes chicken and the two finished off the box before falling asleep. By the time he woke up five hours later for a news conference, he was the man with the most capital in all of Louisiana. Six weeks later, Orgeron filed for divorce.

    In his 23 years married to Kelly, Orgeron generally kept a low social profile. His personality will always be larger than life, but he didn’t go out often and wasn’t known to socialize much. After battling alcoholism and a past involving arrests and restraining orders, Orgeron lived a more stable and private life for 23 years with “Miss Kelly.”

    Then, at his most powerful — and his most wealthy — Orgeron was single again. He had just signed a six-year, $42 million extension and was a Louisiana hero. And he was going to enjoy it. “Something that had priority in his life that didn’t have a priority before was talking to (women),” one LSU source said. “That just became too high on the totem pole.”

    To people and sources inside the program, there was no moral issue with Orgeron enjoying his life, but it was noticeable that football wasn’t his entire focus like it had been in years past, and it became a distraction. There was the infamous 2020 photo of him in bed with a woman, among other photos made public. Multiple sources said he brought women around the LSU football operations building. It all took place as his decision-making and coaching performance declined.

    “It was just a distraction,” one LSU player said. “In 2019, there was no, ‘What’s Coach O doing postgame or Sunday during the day? Is he laying by the pool with a lady?’ He was planning events other than football.”

    It created messes for him, like the time Orgeron pulled up to a woman at a gas station wearing exercise attire. “Hey, you look like you work out,” he said, according to multiple sources. “We could work out together.” The woman informed Orgeron she was married, to which he responded, “Why does that matter?”

    That woman was the wife of a high-ranking LSU official. Word of this reached the LSU Board of Supervisors, the collection of prominent Louisiana attorneys and business owners appointed by the governor who make the most important decisions at LSU. And of course, it reached LSU athletic director Scott Woodward.

    A program — and school — mired in a Title IX scandal

    The off-field issues about Orgeron’s personal life were happening behind the scenes. Right at the forefront of the collegiate sports world was a Title IX scandal throughout LSU, headlined by accusations that former star running back Derrius Guice raped multiple students. It led to LSU launching an internal investigation run by the Husch Blackwell law firm, and most of the transgressions took place under former coach Les Miles’ watch. Orgeron was hardly mentioned in the report.

    But then 74-year-old part-time Mercedes-Benz Superdome worker Gloria Scott came forward with allegations that Guice sexually harassed her at a high school football game. She said she spoke to Orgeron about the interaction and he did nothing. Orgeron denied speaking to Scott and said he was informed of the action by athletic department officials, and LSU then opened its own investigation. The situation got messier when a recording surfaced of a man said to be representing Scott asked LSU officials for money in exchange for Scott not going public. Scott said this man was not given permission to do this, and she also said Orgeron lied about not speaking to her.

    Later, a lawsuit was filed against LSU by multiple victims accusing the university of not properly investigating sexual misconduct allegations. The lawsuit added Orgeron and his LLC as defendants as it accused Orgeron of being told, by a player, of an alleged Guice rape. The victim was the player’s then-girlfriend, and the lawsuit accuses Orgeron of knowing and not reporting it. Orgeron denied having any knowledge of the alleged rape, and the Husch Blackwell report found his denial credible. Those close to Orgeron found it noticeable that LSU administrators did little to point out these corrections publicly or to defend him. It was a signifier that support was fading.

    Yet none of those issues, at the time, were enough for LSU to pursue firing Orgeron. Multiple sources said these were all concerns and issues LSU monitored, but they all essentially went away with time. Until LSU continued to lose.

    And then came the losses

    Orgeron is a loyal man who willingly serves at the request of his mentors. He reveres Jimmy Johnson and would run through a wall for Pete Carroll, and that extends to former bosses such as Paul Pasqualoni and Lane Kiffin. That’s how the man raised in the Cajun way views the world.

    It’s why he was so angry and surprised when passing game coordinator Joe Brady turned down a $1.5 million raise from LSU to leave for the Carolina Panthers in January 2020. Orgeron felt like he plucked Brady out of a nothing job with the New Orleans Saints and helped make him a star, so he perceived that departure after one season as a lack of respect.

    Following LSU’s national title season, when Orgeron had to replace Brady as well as defensive coordinator Dave Aranda (who left to become the head coach at Baylor), he turned to his mentors. To replace the cerebral Aranda, he called Carroll for advice. Carroll raved about Bo Pelini, calling him one of the best defensive minds he knows. Pelini was once the hottest defensive name in the game, LSU’s coordinator for its 2007 national championship under Miles and a successful head coach at Nebraska for seven years. So Orgeron hired Pelini for $2.3 million, despite admitting later he didn’t properly interview or vet him.

    Pelini had spent the previous five years coaching FCS Youngstown State, where only once had he won more than six games. He hadn’t coached Power 5 football since 2014, and he hadn’t been in the SEC since 2007. And now Orgeron was instructing him to install an attacking 4-3 defense for the defending champs.

    It failed. Miserably. LSU had its worst defensive season in program history, allowing 96 points in its first three games and opening the season allowing a record-shattering 623 yards to Mississippi State. A defense with multiple All-Americans and major talents looked lost and timid. There were constant breakdowns in coverage that led to receivers running free game after game. It ranked last in the SEC in explosive plays.

    LSU finished 5-5, its worst season in 21 years, and suddenly all of that capital Orgeron once possessed had vanished. Orgeron had the cachet to hire anyone he wanted in January 2020. What he did with it was hire Pelini without due diligence.

    On offense, he hired as pass game coordinator Scott Linehan, a long-respected NFL offensive coordinator technically overqualified for the role but understood to be well behind on modern schemes. Orgeron had a staff primarily composed of older White men who were past their primes, not as skilled at recruiting and not well-suited for relating to a young, primarily Black roster. It was a group comprised of old buddies and favors made.

    While the coaching hires were putting LSU behind already, there were also internal cultural issues. A few weeks before the 2020 season, Orgeron went on Fox News and — after being pressed multiple times — said “I love President Trump.” Sources said that upset a large portion of the locker room, with Black players hearing their coach saying he loves a president whom they perceived as touting racist policies and beliefs.

    That sparked tension within LSU. Two weeks later, when teams across the country were skipping practices to hold peaceful protests of racial inequality after the death of George Floyd, Orgeron did not join his team. When the players asked Orgeron to take part, he sent assistant coaches to meet them and temper the situation. When Orgeron eventually met with his players in the LSU president’s office, sources said players were not happy with Orgeron’s contributions.

    Former LSU star and current ESPN analyst Ryan Clark was involved through this process and spoke to the team in the weeks that followed. He pointed out to The Athletic that White players like quarterback Myles Brennan spoke and were honest that they didn’t understand all of the issues, but that they loved their teammates and wanted to support them. Clark said that’s all Orgeron had to do.

    “It either meant you had no pulse on the situation,” Clark said, “or it meant that even with having a pulse on the situation, understanding what Black Americans and Black young men were going through at the time, you didn’t even care to fake it. That was an issue for me.”

    One source described those weeks, saying: “It just kind of changed the attitude of our team. The best way to put it: It exposed our building.” It wasn’t irreparable damage. The normally apolitical Orgeron later marched with the team and said publicly he can’t continue to be oblivious. “If it’s affecting our players, I need to be educated on what’s going on, why it’s going on, listen to them, open up some dialogue and find some solutions,” he said.

    It’s impossible to know how much these tensions lingered, but Orgeron was able to convince the majority of NFL draft-eligible players to return for the 2021 season. Then, in part due to a mandate from Woodward, Orgeron reshuffled his staff with a focus on getting drastically younger and more diverse. Relations seemed jovial all spring and summer. LSU was going to have an uber-experienced team with modern schemes and sharp young coaches. The stage for a bounce-back season was set.

    The comeback that wasn’t, and the end of Orgeron at LSU

    The decline was swift and messy. While the 2020 season could be explained away with injuries, opt-outs and an unprecedented global pandemic, the 5-5 campaign put internal pressure on Orgeron to win — and fast. Still, it seemed LSU had the sort of roster and schedule to win nine or 10 games.

    Instead, years of roster management issues and poor hires compiled for a situation in which the problems couldn’t be washed away with “talent.” LSU opened the season getting embarrassed, 38-27, at UCLA. Even if the loss was excusable, frustration multiplied when, before the game, Orgeron was filmed shouting at a UCLA fan, “Bring ya ass on in your little sissy blue shirt.” UCLA made it into a meme and printed “sissy blue shirt” T-shirts.

    Radio show hosts like Jordy Culotta — somebody who once had Orgeron on his Baton Rouge morning show each week — began torching Orgeron, telling stories of Orgeron confronting LSU boosters at a fishing camp and throwing chairs in a tirade over a pregame hype video. More unbecoming off-field stories came out with each poor on-field performance, and support for Orgeron waned.

    LSU gave away a 13-0 lead against Auburn due to a shocking inability to run the ball. Then it got blown out, 42-21, at Kentucky. And the injuries kept piling up — from Derek Stingley to Andre Anthony, Kayshon Boutte to Ali Gaye and so on — and faith kept dwindling. LSU kept finding new ways to lose.

    Orgeron’s two young coordinator hires — Jake Peetz and Daronte Jones — may go on to good careers, but they also were first-time high-level coordinators perhaps not quite ready to call the shots for an SEC power in a must-win season. LSU’s roster, comprised largely of three consecutive top-five signing classes, had character issues and a lack of leadership. The offensive line became disastrous. Only six of the 10 highest-ranked players in his 2019 class are still with the team, due to issues ranging from academics to arrests to not being good enough. His biggest recruiting coup — five-star tight end Arik Gilbert — left the program midseason in 2020 due to personal issues.

    A team that once had star leaders like Devin White, Joe Burrow, Grant Delpit, Damien Lewis, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Lloyd Cushenberry and Patrick Queen — who would call out people for slacking at practice or not putting in the extra work — now lacks those stars to hold anyone accountable. As one source put it, “There’s nobody there to stop the bleeding.” Another said: “When your best players are the youngest guys on the team, it’s always interesting.”

    There have been issues with how LSU practices and develops. When Orgeron first took over in 2016, he received acclaim for changing LSU’s practice strategies and operating with the “work smarter, not harder” philosophy. While it’s unclear if there was a conscious change, staffers have noticed Orgeron tense at practices and it leading to adjustments.

    “We overdo things and the team is worn down,” one LSU coach said. “Some of the ‘really good recruits’ have deficiencies that aren’t strengthened. Talents aren’t maximized. His whole idea of ‘building a tough team’ since I got here has been a lot of uncommon practice techniques and thought processes. It’s just behind the times.”

    And now a program that on paper is one of the five most talented in college football is falling toward the bottom of the SEC. A coach that took LSU to a national championship is unemployed two years later.

    Orgeron will now forever be linked to former Auburn coach Gene Chizik, a man also fired two years after winning a national championship in 2010. But many around Orgeron strongly consider that unfair. Chizik’s title felt like one superstar player, Cam Newton, lifting an average team to great heights. Chizik didn’t have another season over .500 in SEC play.

    Orgeron is the coach who lifted LSU from its struggles and the man who led it off a cliff. He fixed many of the lingering issues from the Miles era — an outdated offense, a troubled culture — and recruited a deep and loaded team that produced 14 players selected in the 2020 NFL Draft. He got Burrow from Ohio State and found Brady out of nowhere with the Saints. He earned that national title.

    And he earned this decline. He was dealt unfair hands like the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented injuries and star players opting out. But he also made the choices and actions that had LSU’s standard of performance drop a little each day.

    “In 2019, everything went right,” a player under Orgeron said. “You had the right coaches, the right players, the right schemes, the right everything. Everything since then has been the wrong this, the wrong that, the wrong player, the wrong position, the wrong call. It’s literally the polar opposite of 2019.”

    In the end, Woodward made his decision. The athletic director who grew up in Baton Rouge was always waiting for a chance to make his mark. But Woodward is patient and strategic. And eventually Orgeron built the case for Woodward.

    One source who was quite critical of Orgeron admitted: “I really think Coach O could still get it together. He needs the reality check he’s getting now, but it’s too little, too late. It’s not like he’s not a guy who can’t do it again, but it went downhill so fast and he wasn’t able to recognize what was happening.”

    Orgeron is the undisciplined hothead who fell apart at Ole Miss and the careful leader who constructed LSU’s 2019 juggernaut. He’s the paranoid plotter with rude nicknames and a man who carelessly makes mistakes without knowing it. And days after Hurricane Ida devastated South Louisiana, in particular his hometown of Larose, Orgeron was filmed (unbeknownst to him) on a Houston elevator getting asked about the damage. He told them Larose was “pounded.”

    Then Orgeron’s eyes faded around the top of the elevator. He looked sad, the hurricane taking an emotional toll on the man from the bayou with the distinct voice. “That’s what makes us who we are,” he said. “We fight. No matter what we do, we fight.”

    Orgeron lived every possible version of his identity as head coach at LSU. He was the man who won the fight to bring LSU back to the highest of heights, and the man who lost the fight to keep the Tigers there.

     

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  2. (Scipio Tex) Saban, Sark and The Coaching Carousel

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    A few quick thoughts on the current excitement:

    If you want to understand Saban’s impact on college football and why he’s the GOAT please watch the latest Xs and Os installment on the Inside Texas channel. I think you’ll find it very informative, with several good takeaways for Texas and Sark. Possibly even your life in general, if you’re in charge of anything professionally or personally.

    In part, the show will dispel the notion that Nick Saban retired because of change. He won 7 national titles and has more 1st round NFL draft picks than losses at Bama because no coach has ever flourished more in changing environments. Only one coach in college football history has won national titles in three different decades: Nick Saban.

    I hope that Sark uses the Saban news as a leverage amplifier to extract NIL commitments from the Athletic Department in addition to his maximizing his own comp. Assuming he wants to win a natty, that is. Which he does. The real goal of leverage for smart people isn’t to feather your nest and move from very wealthy to marginally wealthier, it’s to create conditions that guarantee your professional success and create personal fulfillment and legacy. Which takes care of the first part, anyway.

    Dabo Swinney, the world comes at you quickly, doesn’t it? If Saban had retired two or three years ago, Dabo Swinney would be standing on a stage at a podium in Tuscaloosa right now. But Dabo’s inflexibility cost him his reservation as the de facto Bama head coach in waiting. The once guaranteed successor never learned the real lesson that Nick Saban teaches us all: Adapt or Die. Interesting dichotomy there. To study Saban all of your life and never comprehend his defining characteristic.

    Greg Byrne is the AD at Alabama, but Nick Saban ran that program. Saban agreeing to help him with the hire is not only incredibly beneficial for Byrne given Saban’s knowledge and mastery of process, but it also gives Byrne real coverage if the selection doesn’t pan. There’s nothing a bureaucrat values more. Sark going to Alabama is incredibly unlikely. If he went anywhere, it would tell me something deeper about Texas AD commitments.

    The ripple effects of this Alabama hire will be significant. For example, if it’s Mike Norvell, you now have Bama filled, the ACC discredited, and another Top 12-15 job open, which creates its own ripple effects. With what FSU has going on at the moment, their commitment to winning football is total. They’d go get a big name. And the carousel continues. If Bama hires a Kalen DeBoer, obviously a lesser ripple.

    I pointed out in my Washington previews, that while DeBoer is an excellent coach, elite program building skills at the top levels of football are unproven. Chris Petersen provided the bones of that Husky program and DeBoer’s willingness to recruit against the maniacs in the SEC is unknown. If he failed, it wouldn’t be Xs and Os. It would be acquiring the Jimmys & Joes.

    Anyone speculating that Kirby Smart would take the job can be safely placed on ignore forever. Smart has his own empire, Alabama isn’t a better job without Saban (I’d take Georgia, all things equal) and he just saw his window open even wider. Why on earth would he leave Athens? No one is happier today than the Auburn Tigers and Hugh Freeze.

    Ian Boyd: Nick Saban's impact on Texas

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    With Nick Saban‘s retirement the game of college football is losing the greatest head football coach the sport has ever seen. Perhaps some could quibble about one of the great forefathers of the profession deserving the “GOAT” label but in terms of achievements, Saban’s record is unassailable. The man won seven national championships with six coming at Alabama over a 17-year tenure which also included nine SEC Championships and sixteen consecutive 10-win seasons (even in the abridged 2020 COVID season).

    To that he could add another pair of SEC Championships and a National Championship from a prior stint at LSU. All of those National Championships and wins also came while competing in the SEC West, the toughest division in football. No other coach can claim to have won more while competing at a higher level. With all of that success, a lot of other college football programs were crowded out from enjoying much fortune in the Saban era.

    Despite only competing directly with Saban’s Alabama toward the beginning and very end of his tenure, Texas has long felt the impact of his astounding run. You can scarcely tell the story of 21st century Texas football without regular inclusions of the Hall of Fame coach. Let’s review some of his biggest impacts on the Longhorn program as a hat tip to the GOAT.

    The end of Mack Brown-Texas Football

    Mack Brown‘s Texas football brand and program had a few cracks in the foundation by the time Saban took over at Alabama in 2007. Many of them were papered over by two pronounced factors on the late 2000’s Longhorns.

    The first was a particularly old and skilled passing game powered by Jordan Shipley (a 6th year senior in 2009), Colt McCoy (5th year senior in 2009), and Quan Cosby (a 26-year old senior in 2008). As those old veterans moved on, the bottom fell out of the Texas offense, although there are other factors we’ll get into. The other dynamic holding Brown’s Texas together was a revitalized defense whose overhaul was engineered by Will Muschamp, a Saban protege.

    The last hurrah for Brown was the 2010 Rose Bowl which served as the National Championship Game for the 2009 season and pitted Texas against Saban’s first SEC champion Alabama team. Obviously we all know what happened. McCoy was injured early in the game, Alabama won, and Texas spiraled in following seasons as the offense collapsed and Muschamp departed despite owning a “head coach in waiting” title.

    One of the most pronounced impacts of this defeat was the impact on how Brown ran the Longhorn program in subsequent seasons. Despite losing largely due to a somewhat fluky and certainly unlucky quarterback injury, the loss sent Brown into a tailspin. He determined to rebuild the Texas offense around a downhill run game like Alabama had utilized in the title game and get back to the pre-Vince Young days of Ricky Williams and Cedric Benson.

    This was a strange decision at the time considering Brown had failed to win even the Big 12, much less the National Championship, before pivoting to the spread offense with Young and McCoy. Nevertheless, Brown made the move and used it to sell 5-star running back recruits Malcolm Brown and Jonathan Gray on joining the program. When his longtime offensive coordinator Greg Davis (understandably) fumbled the transition to an under center run game in 2010 with no running back and a retooled offensive line, he was replaced with Boise State play-caller Bryan Harsin.

    What followed was a disastrous run of offense which cost Brown his job and wasn’t satisfactorily resolved until the 2023 season.

    The long winter

    The transition to a power run game was a disaster for the Longhorns and the search to replace Brown as the head man for Texas football a long one. Naturally, it began with Saban, who’d quickly racked up three National Championships during the time in which Brown was trying to rebuild the Longhorns after their collapse in 2010.

    There was a plan to edge Brown out for emerging Saban which didn’t materialize and a brutal decade for Texas football ensued. For both of the next two hires, Texas was basically stumbling into decisions rather than making them with total institutional buy-in or oversight. Here’s how things went in this period while Saban was racking up titles in Tuscaloosa.

    image.png

    Texas had a few blips of strong offense now and again but the 2023 season was the first in which the offense was consistently present in big games.

    The Longhorns put up 34 points in Tuscaloosa, helping to signal the end of Saban’s time at Alabama, scored 30 in the Red River Shootout despite some costly red zone mistakes, put 49 on Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Championship, and had 31 in the playoffs against Washington. Previous Texas teams, even with similar offensive numbers, couldn’t come through on the biggest stages in the same fashion and didn’t have as much offensive talent.

    For many of these seasons the Longhorns tried to build a power run game and couldn’t get the passing component right which had propelled them to their top seasons under Brown. Until the 2022 season, Texas and Alabama existed in two worlds apart. The Tide dominating in the brutal SEC West while the Longhorns languished and watched their rivals in Oklahoma (or even their former punching bags in Waco) dominate the Big 12.

    Steve Sarkisian and the return of the passing game

    The Longhorns spent the 2010s looking to emulate Saban under Brown before then making repeated attempts to emulate Urban Meyer by hiring his former coordinators before taking a stab at getting the main guy himself. During that time, Saban went in a very different direction.

    After taking a series of losses against HUNH (hurry-up, no-huddle) spread teams popping up in the SEC, Saban resolved to update his offensive approach to include more RPOs, spread formations, and passing. He hired Lane Kiffin, of the Pete Carroll/Norm Chow tree and eventually followed that up by getting Kiffin’s USC colleague Steve Sarkisian.

    While Texas fans spent the offseason after 2020 wondering if Meyer might come to Austin for the final act of his coaching career, a new administration in Austin was making a move to snatch up Sarkisian.

    To pull a coach with origins from the very USC program Texas notably vanquished for their only Championship of the modern era was a bit unexpected but has ultimately righted the ship. Texas had Saban to thank for sending the program into a spiral which took over a decade to overcome but also for revitalizing Sark’s career and giving him a stage upon which to demonstrate his potential to be the head coach who brought Texas back.

    Eric Nahlin: Why I'm not concerned about Steve Sarkisian leaving Texas for Alabama

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    Nick Saban’s retirement from Alabama has some Texas fans on edge. Given Steve Sarkisian‘s recent success at the school, there is some concern that Sark would entertain leaving Austin for Tuscaloosa. I don’t share that concern. Here’s why:

    1. I haven’t been told to be worried about it

    Nick Saban stepping down just as Sark’s representation is negotiating his extension with Texas makes for curious timing. Over the weekend IT reported we expected a painless negotiation between Texas and Sark. There’s a lot of embedded knowledge in that sentiment that informs the current situation, but No. 1 on my list of reasons for not being worried about Sark leaving is because nobody has given us a reason to be worried. On the flip side, I’ve heard plenty of optimism a deal with Texas will get done.

    Worrying about things without having a good reason seems like a waste of time.

    2. Embedded knowledge

    Sark has always been grateful of the opportunity to be the Texas head coach. That gratitude remains to this day and has been increased by the support he’s received even when the first two seasons didn’t go nearly as well has he’d hoped. Sark is also part of the UT fabric. He hasn’t siloed himself into football reclusiveness. He’s “one of the guys” in the UT coaching circle. He fully bought into UT upon his arrival and now he’s the central figure in UT’s football revival and probably the most popular man on campus.

    3. Sweat equity

    Going from 5-7, to 8-5, and 12-2 this year is proof his hard work is paying off. And it is hard work. As we often chronicle, the guy always has something pressing on his plate. There are no true openings on his calendar, save maybe a week or two in July. But even then, he’s working on closing recruitments. You know how busy July is with recruiting. That’s “vacation”.

    He has spent a lot of time and energy, along with his current staff, in developing the players he has. Look how many inherited players are going to get drafted — the sorts of players many fans have given up on. That took a lot of work. Despite making the playoffs this year, he still hasn’t fully reaped the rewards of his work. Wait until the offensive and defensive lines are fully stocked with upperclassmen. They’re getting closer.

    He’ll want to see roster maturity through. The program is very close to creating inertia.

    4. He has elite quarterbacks lined up for the next three years and possibly beyond

    Quinn Ewers will be a front-runner for the Heisman, assuming he returns. After Ewers is Arch Manning who might have more upside than Ewers. That’s a three-year window where winning a National Championship is a plausible goal. 2024 will be the first year he has a consistent joystick at the position. For an offensive play caller that’s a major consideration.

    5. Comfort in Austin

    Sark and his wife are a bit of a power couple. Loreal Sarkisian has hit the sweet spot of being both prominent yet not attention-seeking. I recall her getting emotional in front of a group of fans and donors she addressed at a “brunch” before Sarkisian’s first spring game. She instantly felt the support from fans and the school, and she, just like Sark, was grateful for their opportunity.

    She is much more ‘Austin’ than ‘Tuscaloosa’. Austin is a very good fit for her just like it is for Sark. Sark’s a SoCal dude, and judging by the increase in Austin traffic over the last decade, those sorts are comfortable in Austin.

    6. Thanks to institutional support, the Texas job has increased stature

    The Texas job has always been desirable because of ‘potential’. Now it’s a great job because it’s starting to realize its potential. This growth is big because Sark is a tried and true football coach who wants to win more than anything else. To win big in college football you need institutional support. Sark has that in Jay Hartzell, Chris Del Conte, and Kevin Eltife. That support and shared goals have fostered an excellent working relationship between the four.

    The move to the SEC, which underscored the school’s commitment to winning, and competitive NIL gives Texas a good opportunity to become the new Alabama. If one school can emerge in this chaotic climate and create a dynasty of sorts, it’s Texas.

    Along these lines, what does Alabama have over Texas other than tradition? Alabama’s maniacal resolve to win used to be a massive differentiator over Texas but that’s no longer the case. If NIL didn’t exist, I don’t think Nick Saban would be retiring. Yet Sark is just now starting to thrive at Texas in the same climate. There’s perhaps a lot of embedded knowledge in that, too.

     

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  3. Mike Craven: Steve Sarkisian should stay put, because Texas is a better job than Alabama

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    Nick Saban shocked the college football world Wednesday with the announcement that he was retiring as head coach at Alabama. The 5-foot-6 Saban leaves elephant sized shoes to fill for whomever is hired as the next head coach of the Crimson Tide. He won six national titles in 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa and is widely considered the best college football coach in the history of the sport.

    Attention now turns to the obvious question: Who is next? The rumor mill spiraled early. Dan Lanning. Dabo Swinney. Mike Norvell. Lane Kiffin. Steve Sarkisian. On Thursday, Lanning publicly denied any interest in the job and reaffirmed his commitment to Oregon. And why wouldn’t he? He has NIKE backing him and a move into the Big 10 on the horizon. It makes sense that Sark's next amongst the rumored candidates, he has a connection to the program. Sarkisian was integral to Saban's final national title in 2020 as offensive coordinator and schemed, statistically, one of the best offenses in college football history. He credits Nick Saban to saving his career that ultimately led him to Texas' first College Football Playoff appearance.

    Sarkisian should also stay put at Texas. There is nothing that he would accomplish at Alabama that he couldn’t do at Texas. He beat the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa this season and led Texas to the College Football Playoff. Texas has more booster money and is in a bigger city with easier access to a wider talent base. With NIL and the transfer portal playing such a big role in the future success or failure of a college program, the correct bet is on the city next to Tesla and Dell. No one saw Sarkisian needing to beg donors to keep Jimbo Fisher at bay. 

    The only other man to win multiple national titles at Alabama in the last 80 years is another all-time coaching great – Bear Bryant. He won his last national championship with the Crimson Tide in 1979. Saban won his first in 2009. In the 23 seasons between those championships, Alabama only won one national title – in 1992 with Gene Stallings. With apologies to the great Wallace Wade, who won three national titles in the 1920s, and Frank Thomas, who claimed two between 1934 and 1941, the Legend of Alabama Football is due to two historically great head coaches. Had Bryant and Saban chosen Auburn, would the masses consider Alabama one of the destination jobs of college football? And furthermore, can the next coach keep the crimson ball rolling?

    Law 41 from the “48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene compels us to “avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes.” There is no greater man than Saban in college football and there was no greater man than Bryant in this space when he left Alabama following the 1982 season. Ray Perkins followed Bryant and lasted four seasons after posting a .677 winning percentage. Bill Curry took over prior to the 1987 season and eventually led the Crimson Tide to a co-SEC championship season in 1989 – the first since the Bryant-led squad of 1981. From 1979 until 1992, Alabama didn’t win a single outright SEC championship.

    Gene Stallings led the Crimson Tide to a perfect season in 1992, but he couldn’t keep Alabama on the mountaintop like Bryant. The program wouldn’t win another SEC championship until Mike DuBose led the Crimson Tide to one in 1999. They wouldn’t win another one until Saban’s in 2009. DuBose was 24-23 in four seasons at the helm. Dennis Franchione was 17-8 in two seasons before bolting to Texas A&M. Mike Shula followed and 26-23 for two seasons before the program was saved by Saban in 2007. 

    Following legendary coaches is never easy. Texas struggled for over a decade once the end of the Mack Brown era. Florida State took a long time to rebound after Bobby Bowden retired. USC is still trying to reach the heights of Pete Carroll’s dynasty nearly 20 years later despite one of the most high-profile coup-hires in recent memory. Alabama’s birthright isn’t to win national championships. Unless Bryant or the next best coach of a generation walks into Tuscaloosa, the smart money is on Alabama regressing to the mean with the next regime.

    It's today's college football, it's never been harder to win. The expansion to a 12-team playoff plus the introduction of super conferences means the route to the championship is bumpier than ever. Early on, Bryant and his contemporaries like Darryl K Royal could hoard the best talent. Now, the transfer portal and NIL means that talent distribution should return to pre-mega team years, which coincided with LeBron James and his move to Miami.

    There may never be another Saban because it’ll be impossible to build those types of dynasties. Think the NFL where the shelf life is typically three or four years, and that’s without eligibility limits. Texas and Oklahoma are joining the SEC. Oregon, USC, and Washington are headed into the Big 10. Georgia is a monster. The days of sustained dominance are probably done everywhere, not just at Alabama. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. The only coaches who should jump at the opportunity to follow Saban are ones who aren’t in chairs capable of winning national championships. Think Norvell or Kiffin. That ruled out Lanning. It should rule out Sarkisian.

     

  4. Final RedditCFB poll, for good measure: https://redd.it/1946gs9

    1. Michigan Wolverines (286)
    2. Washington Huskies
    3. Texas Longhorns
    4. Georgia Bulldogs (2)
    5. Alabama Crimson Tide (2)
    6. Florida State Seminoles (1)
    7. Oregon Ducks
    8. Missouri Tigers
    9. Ohio State Buckeyes
    10. Ole Miss Rebels
    11. Arizona Wildcats
    12. LSU Tigers
    13. Penn State Nittany Lions
    14. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
    15. Oklahoma Sooners
    16. Oklahoma State Cowboys
    17. Tennessee Volunteers
    18. Kansas State Wildcats
    19. Louisville Cardinals
    20. Clemson Tigers
    21. NC State Wolfpack
    22. Kansas Jayhawks
    23. Liberty Flames
    24. SMU Mustangs
    25. Iowa Hawkeyes

  5. Completely lateral move... didn't even get a promotion and just a $300K-$500K salary bump which we could have matched.

    That really stings. Especially right after we lose our two best DTs. More than that it shatters the idea that Texas is and should be a final destination-type job for all but a) the NFL or b) a significant promotion elsewhere.

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  6. Joe Cook: The major names to know for 2025 Texas Longhorns football recruiting

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    The 2025 cycle heats up next Saturday January 20 when the Texas Longhorns host the first junior day of the calendar year. Many of the prospects visiting from the 2025 class are already familiar with Texas and arrive in Austin holding an offer, but there are several who could receive a scholarship during their time on the Forty Acres.

    Inside Texas has a constantly updated list of prospects scheduled to see Texas on January 20. Many of the prospects listed are among the best in the nation. Speaking of best in the nation, there’s no better time than at the beginning of a cycle to showcase who the top players in the country and state are, plus who among those players has Texas offers.

    Texas offers out to top-100 prospects

    The list of every offer out from the Longhorns can be found at this link.

    QB

    •     No. 1 Bryce Underwood – LSU commit
    •     No. 81. K.J. Lacey – #AllGasNoBrakes

    RB

    •     No. 11 Harlem Berry – LSU commit
    •     No. 41 Jordon Davison
    •     No. 74 Anthony Rogers – Alabama commit
    •     No. 97 Alvin Henderson
    •     No. 98 Deandre Desinor

    WR

    •     No. 4 Dakorien Moore – LSU commit
    •     No. 18 Andrew Marsh
    •     No. 43 Dallas Wilson – Oregon commit
    •     No. 57 Kaliq Lockett
    •     No. 90 Winston Watkins Jr.
    •     No. 96 Marcus Harris

    TE

    •     No. 89 Kiotti Armstrong

    OL

    •     No. 2 David Sanders
    •     No. 14 Michael Fasusi
    •     No. 27 Ty Haywood
    •     No. 56 Lamont Rogers
    •     No. 91 Aaron Dunn

    EDGE

    •     No. 20 Ari Watford
    •     No. 29 Iose Epenesa
    •     No. 32 Javion Hilson
    •     No. 39 Zion Grady
    •     No. 47 Jared Smith
    •     No. 54 Chad Woodfork

    DL

    •     No. 22 Nathaniel Marshall
    •     No. 55 Zahir Mathis
    •     No. 64 Andrew Maddox
    •     No. 75 Kamauryn Morgan
    •     No. 85 Trent Wilson
    •     No. 93 London Merritt

    LB

    •     No. 12 Jonah Williams
    •     No. 26 Riley Pettijohn
    •     No. 42 Nasir Wyatt
    •     No. 46 Noah Mikhail
    •     No. 49 Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng
    •     No. 52 Jadon Perlotte – Georgia commit
    •     No. 84 Elijah Barnes

    DB

    •     No. 5 Na’eem Offord
    •     No. 6 Devin Sanchez – Ohio State commit
    •     No. 7 DJ Pickett
    •     No. 21 Dorian Brew
    •     No. 24 Dijon Lee
    •     No. 25 Faheem Delane
    •     No. 30 Jontae Gilbert
    •     No. 44 Jaboree Antoine
    •     No. 73 Chris Ewald
    •     No. 92 Kainoa Winston
    •     No. 94 Daryus Dixson

    ATH

    •     No. 51 Jordan Young
    •     No. 88 Derick Smith

    On3 Industry Ranking five-stars in Texas

    Only 15 prospects in the 2025 class carry On3 Industry Ranking five-star billing. Four of them are from Texas:

    •     No. 4 Dakorien Moore, WR, Duncanville – LSU commit
    •     No. 6 Devin Sanchez, DB, North Shore – Ohio State commit
    •     No. 12 Jonah Williams, LB, Galveston Ball
    •     No. 14 Michael Fasusi, OL, Lewisville

    UT offers to players in Texas

    The On3 Industry Ranking’s top players in Texas can be found at this link.

    •     RB Deondrae Riden, DeSoto
    •     RB Tory Blaylock, Humble Atascocita
    •     RB Riley Wormley, Southlake Carroll
    •     RB Kane Bowen, Sherman
    •     WR Dakorien Moore, Duncanville – LSU commit
    •     WR Andrew Marsh, Katy Jordan
    •     WR Kaliq Lockett, Sachse
    •     WR Kelshaun Johnson, Hitchcock
    •     WR Jacorey Watson, Pearland Shadow Creek
    •     WR Taz Williams, Red Oak
    •     WR Tanook Hines, Spring Dekaney
    •     WR Emmanuel Choice, Lancaster
    •     WR Carterrious Brown, Arlington Seguin
    •     TE Kiotti Armstrong, Jasper
    •     TE Jack VanDorselaer, Southlake Carroll – Tennessee commit
    •     TE Keiundre Johnson, Terrell
    •     TE Bear Tenney, Lucas Lovejoy
    •     TE Nick Townsend, Spring Dekaney
    •     OL Michael Fasusi, Lewisville
    •     OL Ty Haywood, Denton Ryan
    •     OL Lamont Rogers, Mesquite Horn
    •     OL Jonte Newman, Cypress Bridgeland
    •     OL Jackson Christian, Port Neches-Groves
    •     OL Jordan Coleman, Cedar Hill
    •     OL Tyler Thomas, Dickinson
    •     OL Byron Washington, DeSoto
    •     EDGE Chad Woodfork, Humble Summer Creek
    •     EDGE Max Granville, Sugar Land Fort Bend Christian Academy
    •     EDGE Anthony Williams, Pearland Shadow Creek #AllGasNoBrakes
    •     EDGE Carmello Brooks, Katy Paetow
    •     DL Kamauryn Morgan, Red Oak
    •     DL DJ Sanders, Bellville
    •     DL Michael Riles, Port Arthur Memorial
    •     DL Dilan Battle, Mansfield Timberview
    •     DL Zion Williams, Lufkin
    •     DL Landon Rink, Cy-Fair
    •     DL Floyd Guidry, Spring
    •     DL Xavier Ukponu, Denton Guyer
    •     LB Jonah Williams, Galveston Ball
    •     LB Riley Pettijohn, McKinney
    •     LB Elijah “Bo’ Barnes, Dallas Skyline
    •     LB Kelvion Riggins, Forney
    •     LB JJ Shelton, South Oak Cliff
    •     DB Devin Sanchez, North Shore – Ohio State commit
    •     DB Dorian Brew, Conroe
    •     DB Cobey Sellers, Pearland Shadow Creek
    •     DB Maliek Hawkins, Frisco Emerson
    •     DB Javion Holiday, Duncanville
    •     ATH Lance Jackson, Texarkana Pleasant Grove
    •     ATH Demetrius Brisbon, Tyler Chapel Hill – SMU commit

    Texas 2025 commits #AllGasNoBrakes

    QB K.J. Lacey, Saraland (Ala.)
    On3 Industry Ranking: No. 81

    TE Emaree Winston, Calhoun (Ga.)
    On3 Industry Ranking: No. 224

    DL Brandon Brown, Melbourne (Fla.) Eau Gallie
    On3 Industry Ranking: No. 284

    LB Anthony Williams, Pearland (Texas) Shadow Creek
    On3 Industry Ranking: No. 417

    Justin Wells: 2025 five-star OT Michael Fasusi breaks down his recruitment, visit plans

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    Even though his offer list continues to grow, 2025 Lewisville (Texas) OT Michael Fasusi stays the same. The 6-foot-5, 300-pound offensive tackle and On3 Industry Ranking five-star is growing into a more vocal leader for the Farmers in 2024. And he doesn’t take that role lightly. “This year we’re going to have a really young team, and we’ll need leaders to step up, and me and my fellow teammates are going to do just that,” Fasusi told Inside Texas. “For me, it’s about being a good leader on and off the field. Make sure I’m doing the right thing so others can follow.”

    With 30+ offers including Alabama, Georgia, Oregon, and LSU it appears Texas and Oklahoma have separated themselves from the pack.

    Fasusi is looking at several junior day visits over the next few weeks. He’s scheduled to visit Texas A&M this weekend, and he’s a maybe for Austin on January 20th. He’s getting to know the new staff in College Station, and he stays close to the OU staff. But Texas continues to set the pace. “(My relationship) with Texas is going great,” said Fasusi. “Coach (Kyle) Flood and Coach (Steve Sarkisian) are amazing. I stay in contact with everybody. That’s what I’m really loving about Texas and OU, it’s the communication. Coach Sark and coach Flood talk to me every week.”

    He’s been to the local schools, and now he’d like to see a few from afar. “Definitely Oregon, I’m trying to plan a visit there on the 27th,” Fasusi said. “Missouri is really coming on. LSU, I’m liking LSU too.” Fasusi is a dual-sport athlete who also excels in tack and field where he competes in the shot put and discus. His personal record in the shot put is 46-10 and his PR in the discus is 115-8.

    He’s the No. 14 overall prospect and No. 2 offensive tackle in the 2025 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He is also the No. 4 player in Texas. On3 ranks Fasusi as the No. 35 overall prospect, the No. 5 offensive tackle, and the No. 8 player in Texas.

     

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  7. (Scipio Tex) Washington Huskies Football Post Mortem: Defense/Special Teams

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    As I mentioned in my previews, Washington is the rare college offense that can execute like a well-orchestrated rhythm machine of football nerds while also doing YOLO “playmakers make plays” baller things. 99% of college passing offenses are predominantly one or the other and the opposing defense can attack either the offense’s lack of athleticism or indiscipline for stops.

    No easy day for Texas in that regard. Washington required Texas to be buttoned up to hold down (stopping was never a realistic premise) their offense. Texas was less than buttoned up. Their fly (and fly routes) were open all too often. When confronted with a high level passing offense, a defensive coaching staff can make a few choices in their month of bowl preparation. They can introduce novelty in scheme and/or personnel to disrupt or they can double down on what they usually do and try to clean up poor execution.

    Or some combo of both. The combo means rather than a total reimagining, which can be risky, you introduce a new coverage, intro a new blitz package or two, or roll out a different personnel group to steal a key possession while also making sure the defense doesn’t bust on core staples. Alternatively, pure reinforcement means not complicating things and really nailing down core teachings over 15 practices, geared specifically to the other team’s scouting report. Clear minds, play fast, bring it. You also have to call a good game and not lose many calls before the athletes even get their say.

    Unfortunately, Texas accomplished neither. No novelty. No improvement in its base schemes. A regular game plan that exhibited no accompanying benefit of clear assignments or hair-on-fire urgency. Texas chose to do what it do. Something you’d expect to see from an experienced NFL team that played on a Sunday evening and then had a quick Thursday turnaround. Dance with who brung us and make adjustments on the fly in-game.

    Unfortunately, the Texas pass defense didn’t brung us to the playoffs. So the “let’s just do what we do” game plan probably began with a fallacy at its inception. Doing what we do on the back end isn’t very good, though facing Behren Morton and Texas Tech’s backup receivers or Alan Bowman (3 passing touchdowns in a blowout) and an outgunned Oklahoma State may have created some illusion of competency for us all.

    Players missed assignments, Washington was able to scheme their good on our average repeatedly, there were some down and distance calls that didn’t match game situation – the battle was lost before the ball was even snapped – and Michael Penix Jr and his receivers played out of their minds. That last part didn’t help. Let’s not gloss that over. Washington has some absolute studs.

    Penix finished the game 29 of 38 for 430 yards with no forced turnovers, no sacks and a handful of pressures. Terrific pocket presence, accuracy, eyes downfield and an absolute dawg mentality. Allowing 11.3 yards every time he dropped back to pass and nearly 15 yards on every completion is poor, but perhaps there is some solace in the fact that he was more contained in the second half after a first half where he was 11 of 14 for 255 yards and a 18.2 yards per attempt average.

    Penix and his receivers exhibited plenty of play that should elicit a hat tip and a whistle of admiration. You shrug and play on. They were going to make plays. Criticizing that is like yelling at the tides. The key question was how many plays the Texas defense could afford to place on a tee and offer free swings? Those errors needed to fit on the fingers of one hand, not two hands and some toes. Plays like this:

    In Game 14, allowing an uncovered receiver to split safeties is not ideal and while Penix made some wonderful throws, the throw above happens every Friday night in Texas high school football.

    As for personnel usage, Texas ran its normal rotations and introduced no twists (literally) to the game plan. Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat finished with their typical 41 snaps each, Washington ran in a touchdown with our mostly backup DL personnel in the game and Texas never really tried different front mixes to see if bigger edges (Broughton, Collins) or a three man covered G-C-G package with accompanying blitz or edge stunts could alter the pocket.

    It’s instructive that Washington’s two best defenders in the game – Bralen Trice and Jabar Muhammad – played every down they were healthy. Washington likely wished they could spell them 10-15 snaps, but they’d rather go out with their best firing the whole magazine in a survive and advance scenario rather than conserve ammo.

    It would be difficult for me not to have Murphy in the game 55+ snaps. Or find Collins and Broughton their snaps on the edges or as part of odd fronts rather than dutifully rotating in lesser players like we were playing Rice. In this type of game, I think you want as much good on the field as possible at all times. Also, disposition.

    I mean in both senses of the word. I mean orientation to the offense you’re facing and a general sense of emotional urgency. Texas defenders blitzed or rushed cautiously on way too many downs, we never attacked the interior with blitzers until late (and it was moderately effective in forcing resets or early balls – part of Penix’s first half drop off from extraordinary to the second half’s very good) and several times I saw us offering containment rushes on a pocket QB.

    Whether strategy or a player resigning to getting beaten by the OL across from him, that dog won’t hunt. Washington’s 280 pound center was uncovered on more than half of our downs. He became a quick-footed double teaming asset rather than a potential bull rush liability. There were also a handful of coverages unsuitable to down and distance.

    Like a 3rd and 2 off zone coverage with a vacating LB blitzer that allowed a wide open tight end to take three steps and move the chains during a critical late 4th quarter drive that ended in Washington points. Or asking Michael Taaffe to play a speed out on 3rd and long from an interior safety spot. Does Earl Thomas get to that?

    That wasn’t an expression of Husky ballerness. Just basic offensive execution vs. a bad call. We really needed to limit those. On the positive side, Texas predictably stoned the standard Washington run game (Dillon Johnson 21-49) and the defense held up well on money downs (Washington was 4 of 13), in no small part because Kalen DeBoer chose to run on 3rd and 4th and short rather than throw play action. I’m grateful for that.

    Overall, Texas bled 532 yards and 37 points. A ton of credit goes to the Huskies and a passing offense that lived up to every bit of hype, but if this defensive effort had been rolled out early in the year against a non-con opponent, the discussion would be how Texas didn’t want to show anything for a quality future opponent. So even while acknowledging Husky passing game excellence, we didn’t fire all of our bullets. I’m not sure we even brought them all to the fight.

    Defensive Line

    Byron Murphy had some success as a pass rusher and was terrific against the run. He had four hurries and if anyone else had also gotten push with him, they would’ve been sacks or fractional turnover opportunities. Sweat had some terrific moments in short yardage, including one big stop where he took on a double team without even getting down into his stance.

    Alfred Collins had some great snaps. Would have liked to have seen him paired more often with a big front or on the edge.

    Edge pass rush was non-existent. There were long periods where edges played the I’m-going-to-stand- here-praying-an-interior-player-flushes-Penix-to-me game, but that’s not what we needed or how Penix plays football. I mentioned in the pre-game that this was not a Justice Finkley game. On one possession I watched him get handled in pass protection by Washington’s former walk-on tight end. On the next play, a Husky offensive tackle big-brothered him flat footed and drove him into the ground.

    The lack of T/E stunts or twists was notable. Nor did Texas use immediate pressure blitzers to create 1 on 1s inside. If you want to play lots of guys, they should be playing like maniacs. Use depth and energy on games and stunts to force Washington’s OL to at least move their feet and pass off assignments. Watch Washington’s pass rush. Watch ours. Who is going harder? Yeah, surprised me too. I didn’t have that on my bingo card.

    Is that because Washington’s front was allowed to line up in different spots, stunt and attack more? Yeah, I think so. It created energy and attitude. Texas had no sacks and three tackles for loss. The least havoc-inducing effort of the year.

    Linebackers

    I’m not sure if our game plan or Washington’s made them more irrelevant for large stretches, but the net effect was the same. They weren’t attacked in the passing game so much as simply bypassed and ignored. PK didn’t use Hill’s quickness as a rusher and disruptor until late. Why? Blitzes came haltingly from distance, which even cursory scouting predicted would be ineffective. Gbenda played with energy.

    Defensive Backs

    Terrance Brooks was probably identified as the duck in the Texas secondary. Washington is pretty good at handling Ducks. He surrendered two big catches for over 100 yards total, including a 77 yarder in the 1st quarter in man coverage on the kind of no-man’s land blitz that I was worried about. Ryan Watts also gave up 100+ yards with too much Husky efficiency, but one of them was on an unreal sideline throw and catch that I can’t fault him for. The “going too low” penalty on him was utter nonsense. Muhammad played the best of the bunch, but that’s a relative statement. Tough play here.

    Holmes only logged 10 snaps. Jahdae Barron was stretched thin, resulting in a surprisingly efficient targeting of #23 for 9 of 11 for 104 yards. A lot of those successful short throws felt like an exploitation of our coverage more than Jahdae himself. Great tackle by #23 to prevent a first down on 3rd down late in the 2nd half. Prevented Washington points.

    Michael Taaffe played winning football. Other than one mental mistake (I think – sometimes when we blow a coverage badly enough, it’s hard to tell the culprit) he was active, engaged, dialed in and brought some pop. Jerrin Thompson in single high triggered an immediate deep route. Derek Williams played like a freshman thrown in cold after the first half.

    Special Teams

    Keilan Robinson was allowed to return kicks with an arm cast. Not sure about that. Blue was close to getting a big gain on one of his kick returns. Xavier Worthy was clearly at less than 100% laterally, so punt return impact potential was diminished. Auburn did his job. Coverage teams were fine. Texas had advantages here, but couldn’t bring them to bear.

    Final Thoughts

    Texas had a fatalistic game plan. It’s one thing to admire Washington’s passing game excellence, it’s another not to really compete on the white board with something that plays to Longhorn strengths. Or in the understandable absence of novelty, fail to demonstrate better proficiency in foundational principles with the benefit of extended prep time.

    None of this really matters, of course. The game was played, Texas lost a close one in which it brought its C+ game, there are no more opportunities left for the 2023 team, so any future key indicators are big picture. So here’s one to chew on: Texas probably needs to find an outside-the-box thinker, developer within scheme and general coverage mind to complement PK’s fundamental big picture approach in order to optimize.

    Now, an accompanying zoom out to an even bigger picture… Texas has a lot to be proud of and a good foundation for the future. The standard has been raised from exhibiting improvement to playoff contender in three years and that’s no small feat. Keep the big picture in mind, don’t be afraid to break things in the quest for excellence and trust that this program is getting much more right than wrong. Happy New Year and Hook ’em!

    (Scipio Tex) 2024 Texas: Reloading Or Retrenchment?

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    One of the defining characteristics of the Big 12 conference of late is that the best team tends to follow a clear developmental cycle – stink, build, peak, retrench. After their apogee, rather than reload the following year, despite mainstream media front running predictions that they’ll stay on the mountain peak, they see an immediate decline and retrenchment.

    The reason for that is simple. Senior-laden teams that lose large numbers to the NFL draft get markedly worse without a massive program talent and development feeder to replace, replenish and rejuvenate the two deep. Historically, Big 12 programs – outside of Oklahoma, a flash of Briles’ Baylor and peak Texas – simply can’t do that.

    While there are more than a few predictions I regret having out there in permanent ink, an understanding of development cycles has served me well in fading the dominant teams from prior years that lost key talent. Then I try to put my bets on the teams on a rising trajectory. Even when mass media informs me to beware of “same ‘ol underachieving Texas.”

    Baylor’s fade from 12-2 2021 Big 12 champion to 2022’s 6-7 was unsurprising despite the Bears placing 1st in the 2022 Big 12 preseason poll and earning a top 10 preseason national ranking on the strength of their prior year. It’s hard for fans and media to conceive that the players – not the helmets, not the uniform, not inherent program winnerness – made the difference. Baylor lost games because they lost 6 key players to the NFL Draft and some extremely valuable free agent super seniors with massive aggregate starts. So they went from pretty damn good to average. In 2023, horrific.

    Baylor’s 2021 title game opponent, Oklahoma State, saw a similar fall. They went from 12-2 and inches from a title to 7-6 (including a losing conference record) in 2022. While their NFL losses were not as dramatic (3) as Baylor, the portal snatched others. The final tally was that they lost their leading tackler, leading WR, best RB, best blocker and nearly everyone in an excellent secondary.

    Naturally, they were picked 12th in the 2022 preseason AP Poll. Didn’t quite happen for them, did it? TCU’s fade from the 2022 national title game was also predictable, despite projections that had them in nearly every 2023 preseason Top 15 or 20. They lost 8 players to the NFL Draft (half were elite) and a number of other free agent super seniors, some of them with between 35-50 career starts.

    TCU faded from 13-2 to a disappointing 5-7. Their portal class – the informed fan’s argument that TCU could circumvent the traditional developmental rhythms of Big 12 programs – merely proved that most elite program transfers from Bama, LSU and Georgia who couldn’t get significant playing time at their prior stops are not All-Americans waiting to be unleashed. Star rankings matter less the greater the distance the player is from their senior year of high school.

    So what’s the point of all this? Texas isn’t a Big 12 team! Actually, we’re about to find out how much Texas is still a Big 12 team. Is Texas subject to the tides of development – albeit less dramatic than TCU, Baylor or OSU’s post-peak decline – or has the program evolved to elite SEC replenishment status?

    Notice how many media outlets have already dutifully plugged Texas into next year’s projected Top 5, despite the Horns losing likely as many as 8-10 2024 NFL draft picks and other key seniority losses. Is this lazy recency bias and helmet scouting or a considered opinion that Texas now has more in common with their new SEC brethren?

    Is Texas now more akin to masters of the reload Georgia and Alabama than their old conference mates in the Big 12, who are slaves to the peak and troughs of program cycles? Or are we in a transitional phase? If so, on what end of the curve?

    Outside of 2019 LSU – which lost a record 14 NFL draft picks from its dominant national championship team and promptly went 5-5 in 2020 as Ed Orgeron battled controversy, coaching without elite assistants and closed captioning technology – the dominant programs in the SEC, namely Georgia and Alabama, reload every year despite seemingly crippling double digit NFL losses.

    Georgia lost 10 to the NFL draft last year and a “disappointing 2023” ended with a single loss and Top 5 ranking. We should all be lucky enough to be that disappointing.

    If Texas’ DNA is still more of a Big 12 program – subject to developmental cycles – we’ll know it soon enough. And exactly where Texas is in their evolution. If however, Texas has built something different – something consistent with the upper echelons of the SEC – seemingly crippling losses will result not in retrenchment, but in just another reload.

    Or perhaps a brief plateau or slight step back with a reconsolidation and a resurgence in 2025. I’m looking forward to finding out.

    Ian Boyd: When will Texas have a championship defense like Michigan's?

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    I moved to the Ann Arbor, Mich. area from Texas in the summer of 2013. At the time I was largely unfamiliar with Wolverine football with its history and tradition other than recalling the great fun of the 2005 Rose Bowl (2004 season) when Vince Young and Dusty Mangum took down a strong Michigan team in the closing seconds of the game.

    Those Wolverines were pro-style on offense and powered by Braylon Edwards, Steve Breaston kick returns, a 6-foot-4 231-pound safety who couldn’t catch Vince Young, and outside linebacker Lamarr Woodley. They were an insanely talented team but couldn’t begin to handle the stress of a player like Young in space.

    The 2013 Wolverines I found waiting for me were notable for playing a lot of base 4-3 defense with a 6-foot-2, 240 pound linebacker named Jake Ryan playing as the Sam linebacker rather than deploying a nickel defensive back. He was a really good player, but the approach and thinking behind Michigan’s strategy was clearly dated. It didn’t necessarily get that much better over my time here. Ohio State eventually hired Ryan Day, added more spread passing to their offense, and administered beatdowns of 62-39 and 56-27 to Michigan in 2018 and 2019.

    Then Jim Harbaugh adjusted. He hired Mike MacDonald, a position coach with the Baltimore Ravens, in 2021 and installed the 2-4-5 defense. Three years later Michigan just shut down one of the best passing offenses college football has seen in years and claimed the National Championship. What can Texas take from Michigan’s success?

    The nature of the 2-4-5

    The best way to conceptualize the 2-4-5 defense is as a modern version of the old 3-4 defense which dominated football after Lawrence Taylor showed everyone the way. At 6-foot-3, 245 pounds with a quick first step, violent disposition, and 4.6 speed, Taylor absolutely dominated games coming off the edge. It became obvious that the best way to attack sophisticated passing offenses was to go find the biggest, fastest, meanest people playing the game and position them to flank the offensive line from the perimeter and blow up designs before they could get started.

    The 3-4 defense with its ability to alternate blitzing such a player from either edge ruled the day for years until spread offenses forced those big linebackers away from the box and out into space with slot receivers. Defenses eventually solved this problem by downsizing. They’d remove one of the 3-down defensive linemen from the game, replace him with a nickel corner to play over the slot, and play their two Edge linebackers like 4-down defensive ends.

    They could still alternate which Edge dropped into coverage or moved around but they could also send both off the edges against the pass or run game without overcommitting the defense by using more than four pass-rushers. In the 2023 College Football Playoffs, three out of the four teams participating utilized the 2-4-5 nickel defense as their primary formation and strategy: the Texas Longhorns, Washington Huskies, and eventual Championship-winning Michigan Wolverines.

    Michigan gave Michael Penix Jr. and the Huskies fits all night. He was only 27-for-51 for 255 yards at 5.0 ypa with a touchdown and two interceptions. The Wolverines only sacked him once but they were in his face, compressing the pocket, knocking him over, and ultimately making him quit if you watched to the end of the game. He wanted out of there before the end and appeared injured.

    Texas fans exasperated to see Penix missing throws would do well to get a look at how the pocket was affected around him on those misses. Michigan didn’t let him do the same sort of Houdini act, sidestepping pressure behind tackles who were dominating the edge rushers, and they hit him or made him feel them on a large percentage of Washington’s throws.

    Michigan also successfully kept defensive backs over the top on Washington’s lethal vertical routes, often by using off-man coverage but always with shifts and disguise. Rather than throwing to spots behind defensive backs for his receivers to go get the ball, Penix was forced to throw under coverage against the Wolverines. It’s why the Huskies were reduced to fighting their way back into the game by throwing repeated outs, screens, and quicks underneath to the tight ends.

    Outside receivers Rome Odunze and Ja’Lynn Polk were targeted 19 times and caught nine balls for 124 yards at 6.5 yards per target. Decidedly non-lethal.

    When can Texas field a 2-4-5 like Michigan’s?

    So Michigan had a National Championship, 2-4-5 defense, hurray for the Wolverines! When will Texas’ version of the scheme be good enough to allow them to stifle an offense like Washington’s and compete in the playoffs against the best passers in the country? There were a number of differences between the two units, some of which will be difficult for Texas to overcome and others it should solve on their current trajectory. I’ll mention what I think are the four biggest steps for Texas to take to match the Wolverines.

    1.     Field game-changing Edges.
    2.     Find a lockdown cornerback.
    3.     Establish team coverage ability.
    4.     Teach single-high zone coverages.

    The Edges are the obvious place to start. Using Texas lexicon, Michigan had two starting-caliber Bucks and two starting-caliber Jacks, so defensive coordinator Jesse Minter always had fresh pass-rush from the edges. If you add up their totals, the Bucks Josaiah Stewart and Jaylen Harrell combined for 17.5 tackles for loss and 12 sacks on the year. The Jacks, Braiden McGregor and Derrick Moore, combined for 15 tackles for loss and 9.5. sacks.

    Compare that to the four main Texas Edges. Ethan Burke and Jett Bush totaled up 12 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks from Buck while Barryn Sorrell and Justice Finkley added up 7.5 tackles for loss and six sacks from Jack. Or consider the play of Washington tackle Roger Rosengarten, who was tossing Texas Edges into the dirt but incurring repeated penalties trying to block the Wolverines.

    Next up, lockdown cornerback. All the talk about Michigan’s more pedestrian recruiting, which is pretty overstated, has frequently ignored 5-star cornerback Will Johnson…

    How about team coverage ability? The Edges all knew how to make zone coverage drops (more on that in a moment). Michigan had a pair of smaller, lighter starting linebackers in Junior Colson and Michael Barrett (a converted safety) who could both run and cover. The safeties didn’t really include a single big, alley runner but were almost entirely long athletes who can run and cover. Overall there were no real weak spots in coverage for the Wolverines, everyone on the field knew their job and could move in space. The same hasn’t been true of Texas, who is still rebuilding and teaching the linebacker position and haven’t yet met Michigan’s level of length and athleticism at safety amongst the upperclassmen.

    Finally, single-high match zone. It’s very difficult to make the most of the 2-4-5 with its capacity for bringing and dropping big Edges when the coverage behind it is Match Quarters. The two-high nature of Match Quarters asks more of the underneath zone defenders whereas Match 3 makes life simpler for a Buck or Jack dropping into a hook or flat zone. Match 3 is also a useful coverage in general because it can allow a defense to deny the post route, the most dangerous vertical route in football, and it allows the defense to blend two-high and single-high looks to confuse the quarterback.

    Pete Kwiatkowski’s 2-4-5 defenses at Washington had many of the blitzes and options Michigan had but those have not been present at Texas as they have not mastered Match 3 coverage. There’s nothing wrong with their two-high coverages, they just don’t maximize the 2-4-5 and hybrid Edges as easily on zone blitzes. Texas’ reliance on man blitzes rather than zone blitzes has repeatedly been an issue in the last two seasons.

    Whether or not Texas will make this adjustment remains to be seen but they are recruiting and developing their way to credible solutions to the other three missing components. We’ll see how it goes in the coming years, but even if they never quite match the quality of this Wolverine squad on defense, Steve Sarkisian’s offense will always be an ace in the hole giving them other paths to titles.

     

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