Wow, you mean Sark isn't actually 2-100 in his career when trailing at half!? Nothing gets past you! This does make me worry about how mych hyperbole you've simply taken at face value over the course of your life but that's not really my problem.
Stopped reading after the first paragraph. You told on yourself there. I'm good on the rest. You win.
In hindsight, they really did. They knew what they had on the OL and presumably knew where Mateer was in terms of recovery. I didn't watch them before the RRS so I don't know what, if anything, he was lacking. He made some really impressive short to intermediate throws but seemed to be a non factor in the vertical game. I don't know if that's typical or if the thumb was impacting his ability to throw downfield. He also seemeed to just be overwhelmed by the moment and the pressure Texas was putting him under. Seemed to me that to the extent Mateer got them in trouble it was his mental game, not his thumb.
They had to know, like a lot of people expected, that it was going to be tough sledding on offense if they couldn't run the ball even wih Mateer. Their defense (and/or the Texas offense) was always going to have to win the game for them. Knowing that, if Mateer is limited, I don't see why you start him. You go out and lose a competitive game against Texas with Hawkins and it gets basically written off in playoff converssations (and in your fanbase, and re: Mateer's heisman campaign). You go out and win because you don't throw like eight interceptable balls, all the better. Instead you rush Mateer back, let this savior narrative take hold, and watch it flop in a game you were never going to win if your defense got worked like that.
Now the book is fully written on how to beat Oklahoma and they're staring down a brutal schedule with a crisis of confidence in leadership. What a self own.
I think I remember the one. I don't even know if Wisner was hit or if he slipped while trying to make a cut. He ended up getting just enough by falling forward but I remember a notable interior surge, the likes of which we had not seen in short yardage all season to that point. Wisner falling forward to get the first was only possible because the OU DL was moved, it would have been a stuff in a stalemate. I maintain most of our run game was Wisner hero ball but that particular play was the OL, and it was an important one.
Nah. The punt return functionally ended the game. Whole stadium knew it. Arch's run was the final nail in the coffin. We didn't even need the FG. Whole stadium knew that too.
Texas could have taken three knees after that to burn OU's timeouts and run the clock. Hell they could have kneeled on fourth down. Then OU gets the ball back down 14 with like 3:30 left. Zero chance of them going down, scoring a TD, getting an onside recovery, and scoring another TD.
Oh for God's sake. Going into the game he was like 1-100 in his career trailing at half. Now he's 2-100 or whatever after overcoming a daunting 3 point lead. That it's year 5 when you finally get to trot this out doesn't make the point you think it does. Absolutely enjoy it for what it is but don't
Despite the above, this. I was stunned when we came out with a 7 minute TD drive. We held the ball the entire third quarter (13+ minutes). The defense had one three in out sandwiched between two long offensive drives. OU gets the ball back with like 30 seconds left and throws a pick in early Q4 after 3-4 plays. The third quarter broke their will. I have never seen a Sark team simply bitch slap an opponent in the third quarter after trailing at half. It was awesome.
Playing defense first was huge in this game. Think about how self destructve the offense was in the first quarter and where OU starts their first possession if we take the ball first. They almost certainly go up 7-0 if they start from midfield with how they were moving on that first drive and we're feeling like we're behing the 8 ball from the beginning. Who knows how it goes from there. Instead we get the whole field to play defense and a chance to regroup in the redzone, and we get to make a statement with the ball coming out of half.
Well, Wisner had to slip out of a tackle at the LOS and was almost hit sticked by his own OL as the lane for the long gain was opening up. To me it's not a flaw that it only went 40-50 but pretty incredible that it did.
The first watch didn't grade that well. Wisner put in an extraordinary effort to get to 4 ypc despite several runs just blown up by the OU DL, frequently turning nothing into something; even on the long run, Goosby ran in, clogged a cutback lane, and almost decked him. Arch was under plenty of pressure. They eliminated the opening script with penalties.
I do give them credit for coming out and competing against a top tier defensive front - pointing out their miscues is fair but they were also just outmanned. The unit that showed up at Florida would have imploded after that. They battled though, and at least on a few occaisions generated some push in the run game and gave Arch time to make a play. They lost the battle at the LOS in aggergate but accomplished just enough for Texas to find a little something on offense.
Hopefully it's a confidence builder as they go into a few games where the quality of opposing DL's will take a step back.
I've seen Florida refered to a trap game. That's dumb.
This is a trap game. Road night game against a bad opponent coming off the emotional high point of the season. Struggle to see Texas losing outright without just becoming a turnover machine but how they perform tells you whether this is still ultimately a slog to 7-5 or if they're actually starting to figure things out.
Tre had an outstanding game; found ways to turn 0 into 3 and 3 into 5+ all game. The OL was okay at best, Wisner was the running game. 35 rushes for 212 yards and a TD in his two games against OU. He has now won us an OU game and the return of the A&M rivalry. No joke a Longhorn legend in my mind from this point on.
I agree this one was very sweet. I thought we had a path to victory (though narrow) and it largely played out (turnovers, Arch elevating his game, special teams), but I just did not see us finding a running game like that. That took it from eeking out a rock fight to, frankly, a decisive win. Yes, we got a break with no blocks in the back on the punt return. No, it did not matter.
This offense is going to continue to be inconsistent. The OL still has a lot of issues, the young QB still has issues, there's not a ton of playmakers at the skill positions. We're going to drop a couple more somewhere along the line. But this one is going to be a core Texas football/RRS memory for me.
I think this is actually the most frustrating part about yesterday. We knew the OL play and QB play were bad and going to cost us games even if it hadn't materaialized yesterday. But we were pretty clearly unprepared to match the intensity of a Florida team that played extremely hard, which was very predictable given how their season has gone and all of the talk surrounding the program. We looked like we expected them to shit down their own leg at the sight of us like we did aginast Georgia.
Sark has obviously earned grace but that is likely never getting fixed.
It's true on both sides of the ball. Nearly all of the top end LOS talent that has powered Texas's sucess and got drafted the past couple years were Herman staff recruits.
Jones, Majors, Connor, Ojomo, Coburn, Sorrell, Collins, Broughton, Sweat, and Murphy. All brought in by Herman.
This is the first year we're really seeing a 100% Sark-made OL/DL.
I think the defense just got caught sluggish coming off a bye and were unprepared for Florida to come out with their hair on fire. Still a bad look, because that was very predictable given Florida's circumstances as a program, but that unit has been good enough for long enough that it's reasonable to think that was more of a "one of those days" performance. I think we probably still have a top 5-10 defense at the end of the year unless the team just quits.
Oh I agree in general. Robertson is pretty clearlty better than Hutson at center in the reps we've seen. If the knock on Neto that they can't get him to focus his agression and learn the playbook is true, that still seems like an upgrade at LG to me. I'd rather have one in three plays be busted assignments and have a dog on the rest of them than be physically unable to perform the job every snap like Stroh is.
Ultimately either this is the best they can do, which is coaching malpractice; or it's not and they're sticking with it, which is coaching malpractice. It all ends up in the same place. Sark has obviously earned some grace but Flood's got to go.
His lines at Bama were good because they were Brent Key's players. And it was Saban-era Alabama, so the level of talent stockpiling and S&C program were just different. Just like the success he's had here has almost entirely been with Herb fucking Hand recruits. His eye for talet, particularly on the interior, is clearly just not very good at all. I don't know that he's a bad teacher because he has done some good work with Jones, Majors, etc. But the evaluations leading to the bodies in the room have been catostrophic.
Any offensive line asking Cole Hutson to do anything more than distribute water bottles won't be a good one.
This is the Super Bowl for the year in my mind. We're obviously not contending for a SEC title or a CFP spot so this is the one chance to win anything of note. I really want this one.
Oklahoma is the better team but if Texas is the wounded animal Florida was today it's winnable. OU usually brings the bigger chip on the shoulder and more intensity to the game though so I'm not holding my breath.
Somewhere between five and seven sure They already have three. Kentucky and Arkansas are terrible so 5 is the floor. They may be able to eek out Vandy at home if the defense plays lights out but no one would be surprised if Vandy wins. Mississippi State is a conceivable win but is on the road and they have a pulse this year. OU and to a lesser extent A&M are "throw the record out" type games and OU may not have Mateer. That could be an all timer of a shitshow. They could pick off one or two of those games but they're not getting to anything better than 4-4 in conference.
I don't know why anyone is surprised. It's been obvious this is a mediocre team since the first snap of the season. The only thing surprising about today is that the defense was very obviously getting outworked, looking flat & lazy early on. I usually hate that crituque and it's the first time I've said that about that unit since 2021, but it was true today. They seem to be picking it up on that side of the ball but the game is over at this point.
Strong defense + putrid offense is a formula to get you to .500 +/- one game and that's where this team is headed. Any game the staff continues to trot Arch out there is a game they're not particularly serious about winning, but of course we know they will not bench him. Job has to be legit open in the offseason. Lacey, portal QB, whoever. And don't even get me started on the offensive line.
Quinn Ewers and Tom Herman's OL/DL recruits really covered up for Seven Win Steve and we bought it lol.
I don't want to minimize the loss - Manny is a really good corner - but Texas is going to be living in two-high safety looks and playing a lot of qurters and cover 3. They are going to make a clunky Florida offense consistently execute down the field and priotitize not giving them cheap points and momentum through big plays. If there's time for those deep shots to develop, and Lagway is hitting them, that means the Texas pass rush was neutralized and Lagway had a really strong performance throwing downfield, and if that's how it goes I don't know that Muhammad makes the difference.
It also sounds like Florida, for whatever reason, has not been throwing the ball downfield much. I haven't watched them so I don't know why that would be - whether they don't trust their OL, haven't felt like they can do it with WRs out, or if teams are just doing what I described above and taking it away. I would assume they let it rip this week because wy wouldn't they? But they're not a particularly well coached team so who knows.
They have a bitch of a schedule down the stretch so 3-4 losses isn't the slight it sounds like at face value. Especially if one of those losses is against Texas, without Mateer. That will get written off.
They finish the year: Ole Miss, at Tennessee, at Bama, vs Missouri (don't know what to make of these guys), and vs LSU. Hard to see many teams doing better than 3-2 with that and 2-3 or 1-4 isn't put of the realm of possibility. But a top tier defense and a plus QB is generally a wining formula in football (that was supposed to be Texas this year and most of this board was thinking 11-1/12-0). They do appear to have both. And if they go 9-3 with their schedule and a healthy Mateer at the end of the year, they're going to the CFB.
Tend to agree the RRS goes as the Texas offense goes. I hope Mateer recovers quickly and plays. It was shaping up to be as interesting a matchup on paper as it's been in a while and I want to beat them at full strength, no excuses. And if Texas has CFP hopes they are going to need the resume boost of beating OU with their starting QB. Hawkins round 2 will produce a toned down version of last year and end up 21-7 or something, and it'll be hand waived away nationally.
A road conference opener against a helmet school, coming off a bye, when you've looked like a mediocre team most of the season is not a trap game. Win or lose, Florida has Texas's full attention.