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Wizlon

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Posts posted by Wizlon

  1. Gerry Hamilton update on Duce recruitment.

    Quote

    Duce Robinson and family members continue to communicate with USC, Texas and Georgia.

    There continues to be more chatter about USC’s position improving.

    And now a little chatter about UGA’s not being as strong as before.

    Still trending to a USC-Texas decision if the family remains in Phoenix. Baseball remains a serious factor.

     

  2. Spoiler

    Steve Sarkisian finally made a splashy transfer portal addition to the Texas Longhorns’ 2023 offensive roster with the commitment of Georgia transfer Adonai Mitchell.

    Mitchell was a former 4-star recruit but he gained a lot of prominence for his playoff catches during back-to-back National Championship runs by the Georgia Bulldogs.

    Mitchell’s postseason production is actually amusingly predominant in his young career as a collegiate wideout. In two years with the Bulldogs he caught 38 balls for 560 yards and seven touchdowns. He caught eight of those passes for 149 yards and four touchdowns in the playoffs. Mitchell was only a freshman in 2021 and missed most of 2022 with injuries so his career hasn’t quite taken off like it’s been expected to do in 2023, but now we’ll look for that to happen in Austin with the Longhorns instead.

    Texas will be banking on a breakout season for the playoff star as they reconfigure their offense in the post-Bijan Robinson era to emphasize Quinn Ewers and the passing game.

    Finding a third receiver

    One of the issues confronting Texas all season was the lack of a ready-made outside receiver to play in 11 personnel. They played Casey Cain in that role at various points in the season but he wasn’t quite ready to make big, winning catches against the better teams on the schedule.

    Jordan Whittington ended up as the outside receiver much of the season as Texas lined up in 12 personnel on a majority of their snaps. They may use 12 personnel (two tight ends) pretty frequently again in 2023 with Ja’Tavion Sanders and Gunnar Helm both returning but there’s a lot of reasons to believe they’ll rely much more heavily on 11 (one tight end) personnel.

    The most recent reason is the addition of Mitchell.

    He has more pedigree and proven skill on film than all but save Whittington, Xavier Worthy, and Isaiah Neyor from the existing wide receiver corps and has some strengths those three lack. His profile at Georgia was basically what an optimist would have hoped to see from Casey Cain based on social media hype clips from practice. At 6-foot-3 he has the size to be a big target in the red zone and his footwork to get open is safely proven in several high stakes games against teams who can play grown man coverage.

    He’s quick and skilled enough to get to his spots and is a big target once he gets there. There’s a fair amount of Collin Johnson to his game although he’s not as large as the former Longhorn and might be a bit quicker as a route runner. Like Johnson, his specialties include the back shoulder fade, the curl route, and slants.

    How does he help Ewers?

    Positionally Mitchell is an X receiver who will line up outside and on the line of scrimmage. He knows how to get a good release off the line and does good work in confined space when he’s in the boundary. His addition to the lineup in that role is perhaps a little bigger than it seems on the surface.

    There are obvious benefits to Texas for adding him. He’s obviously a good player given his success at the highest level of this game and we’ve already discussed how Texas lacked a top line third receiver to make their 11 personnel formations work well last year. His likely position is otherwise likely to be manned by Isaiah Neyor, who’s recovering from an ACL surgery and may or may not be ready to stay healthy and play at his previous level.

    The less obvious boost of adding Mitchell is getting his specific skill set involved on the weakside for Texas in the passing game. This was an issue for the Longhorns in 2022, most notably against Oklahoma State.

    The Cowboys played bracket coverage in the boundary against Texas and generally shaded their Mike linebacker in the box, even against trips formations while manning up to the field receivers. They moved star nickel Jabbar Muhammad inside so they could hold up there and keep veteran safety Jason Taylor II over the top of man coverage underneath in the boundary.

    Inside-Texas-diagrams.jpg

    Trying to connect with Xavier Worthy on in-breaking routes against bracket coverage was a disaster, so they also tried to hit the running back underneath on various routes against the weakside linebacker in man coverage.

    Also ineffective.

    Late they started playing 2×2 so they could work the ball to JT Sanders in the boundary…

    …which nearly tied up the game before the interception.

    The goal was to make things simple and create short-range targets for Ewers to get the ball out quickly. You also wonder if throwing these sorts of concepts to Neyor had been considerably more effective in fall camp than they were in-season without him. In the Alamo Bowl against Washington Texas revisited some of these ideas with more success but still couldn’t dominate the game like say, when Sam Ehlinger would work these concepts to Lil’Jordan Humphrey in 2018.

    With Mitchell in the fold, the boundary should once again become a concerning place for opponents when Texas can stack him there with Keilan Robinson or Jonathan Brooks and potentially Sanders. Meanwhile, the field will then boast Whittington and Worthy.

    Will opponents still dare to man up the field receivers if Worthy and Whittington are aligned there? If Ewers can consistently hit them out wide, how will teams address Sanders in the middle of the field and the running back/X receiver combinations on the weakside?

    Texas needs mega-growth from Ewers to unlock the weapons they’re collecting around him with a true, progression passing game. With the return of the entire offensive line and Whittington, along with the addition of AD Mitchell, all the pieces are in place if he can put it together.

    Ian Boyd article @TheMailBox357 spoilered to avoid making someone read an Ian Boyd article without consent.

    • Haha 1
  3. 48 minutes ago, TheMailBox357 said:

    The latest information on new arrivals to the Texas Longhorns football program, the health of a key figure in Texas’ 2023 fortunes, and more details on player driven competition in offseason team notes.

    Isaiah Neyor’s Timeline

    Barring a surprising setback this appears to be the timeline for Isaiah Neyor returning to full duty:

    Currently: He’s doing light straight-line sprints, some agility/change of direction but nowhere close to full speed, and plyometrics that should help regain strength in his knee.

    March or April: The hope is he’ll be cleared to suit out and participate in some conditioning while taking mental reps this spring, but he’s not expected to participate during contact periods. 

    Summer: Ramp up to August with more intense route running and participation in 7 on 7 and other passing sessions.

    August: Fully cleared to return.

    Obviously this isn’t set in stone. There seems to be no urgency to rush him back to the field with a big positive being he already knows the playbook. There’s also confidence he’ll continue to put in extra work to get healthy. The No. 1 goal is for him to regain any lost confidence in his cutting ability.

    It’s too early to know if he’ll return to his level of play pre-injury but there’s certainly a lot of optimism he will.

    New Arrivals

    Cornerback Malik Muhammad was singled out. This will come as no surprise who people paid attention to what was written about his mental evaluation. It’s clear to those around the program he’s excited to be there, that he’s energetic, fully engaged, and embraces the grind.

    Wide receiver Johntay Cook was also mentioned for his explosiveness. It should be pointed out they’re doing agility work rather than route running and “football stuff” but he looks good and it’s clear he’s a stud when it comes to short area burst.

    Transfers Jalen Catalon and Gavin Holmes are also happy to be there. It’s clear they’re experienced. Holmes is fast and light on his feet. Catalon’s moving great and his reputation precedes itself. Everyone assumes Catalon will start at boundary safety.

    The Holmes/Terrance Brooks battle will be one to watch. Brooks is physical but needs to become more consistent on the field. Holmes’ experience will be an advantage.

    As of now the coaches seem more concerned with getting the younger players in the swing of things from an S&C standpoint. They’ll start increasing the mental workload in the coming weeks.

    We’ll check in on the ‘bigs’ later in the week.

    Similar competition to last year

    It worked well last year so the staff has brought back the player draft where 10 teams are led by team leaders identified by the S&C staff. Those leaders draft their team, including a co-leader. You may remember there is an athletic component to this, but the main purpose is to motivate and track player accountability. To underline it’s much more about accountability than athleticism, we’ll remind you that Bijan Robinson drafted as many walk-ons as he could last year. Smart.

    • Hook 'Em 2
    • Like 1
  4. 37 minutes ago, ousux said:

    And while I'm on a roll, the bubble is beyond embarrassing at this point, especially after watching a few coach Prime vids and seeing how one of the worst P5 programs totally outclasses UT when it comes to indoor practice facilities.

    Now that a lot of the basketball facilities/arena projects are done it would make a lot of sense to see something about a bubble replacement soon. Honestly shocked it has lasted as long as it has.

  5. 2 hours ago, 6th Street said:

    Sark was signed for 6 years, $34M. Donors would be on the hook for $17M after paying Herman $15M to go away just a few years prior otherwise risk going into the SEC with Sark. 

    The football program generates like $150M yearly in revenue. Surely they can find $17M to improve the product on the field and go find a coach that actually has a decent resume. But then again they've already shown their incompetence at coaching hires 3 times. I got to the age where I started legitimately having an interest in football right around 2012 and only have vague memories of the dominance of the 2000s. I'm legitimately convinced at this point that I will never in my life see this program be successful.

    • Rage+1 2
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