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Posted
4 hours ago, RabidM said:

It was sobering as fuck to watch that analysis video.  Watching the DB's sit there and just wait for the receivers to run to them, because the DB knew they would and were correct was painful.  You can see pre-snap they know what is coming.  People have figured out Sark's offense the same way they figured out Orlando's defense.  Orlando had zero ability to run anything else and was hopeless and helpless.  I hope Sark is smarter, but I thought he would have figured this out after Georgia X 2 and Ohio State last year.  I'm not sure what to believe because this should have been fixed in the off season.  

We must have a MASSIVE self scouting problem.  We should be finding these problems before opposing coordinators.  I suspect this is something that is being severely neglected.  Does anyone know if we even have a dedicated self scouting team?  

People need to realize that Sark's offense is not complex. He's not gonna go and make it complex to make you happy. The complex portion of Sark's offense is the disguising and motions from the different formations that he runs his same set plays out of. The time it takes to diagnose it real time is what makes it tough. Each defender has to know what's going on exactly when it happens if the offensive players are doing what they're supposed to be doing. One person guesses wrong, and it can be an explosive. 

Posted

(Scipio Tex) 2025 Texas-Ohio State Postmortem: Defense/Special Teams

Spoiler

The old saying that defense travels certainly held true in Columbus. The Longhorn stop unit more than did their part to secure a win, limiting the Buckeyes to their lowest offensive output in a decade, but a fruitless offense and negligible special teams kept Texas from getting enough points on the board to support the defensive effort. 

A conservative Buckeye game plan certainly limited their output, but that conservatism also limited Longhorn opportunities for turnovers and big plays. It cuts both ways and Texas really did play well. The Horns were locked in. Pursuit was excellent, there was great physicality, and the defense only missed three tackles all game.

23 different Longhorn defenders played against Ohio State, with 18 getting double digit snaps. That’s high level depth and few coaches have the confidence to play that many players in a big road environment against the most dangerous pass catchers in college football. It’s clear that the defensive coaches trust their players.

The Longhorn defensive staff adopted a different strategy compared to their Buckeye peers on the same side of the ball, who all but dared Texas to punish them in the run game and focused exclusively on killing our pass game.

Realizing Ohio State was going to get big with 12 personnel to mitigate Texas pass rush, test Longhorn toughness, and to give Sayin more limited coverages to read, PK responded to Ohio State’s heavy and traditional sets in a variety of ways, but we ran quite a bit of three interior DTs in both 4 and 5 man fronts.

It was fun to see Texas in a classic 5-2 high school defense with three bigs, two edges and Lefau and Hill playing inside.

It worked. No Buckeye runner had a run longer than 8 yards and Ohio State yards after contact were rain drops in the Sahara. Their standard run game yielded only 87 yards at 3 yards a carry. Ohio St was also 4 of 14 on money downs. There was a lot of trust put in the Texas secondary and they held up save one long score.

Defensive Tackle

I was impressed by the quality, different play styles, and depth. None of them are impactful pass rushers yet, but they won consistently against a physical OL.

Hero Kanu is our most athletic interior guy. He played a ton of 3 and 5 technique. Good quickness, get off, and he’s strong for his size. He played the most snaps of any of our DTs and his positional flexibility and ball pursuit means that trend will continue.

Alex January’s growth has been remarkable. He’s reshaped his body and he’s getting off of the ball so much better. He’s physical as hell and his hustle down the line of scrimmage was noticeable on multiple plays. A pair of big time stops rallying to the football.

Travis Shaw played a ton of true nose and he plays differently than I anticipated. He long arms the center and then flows laterally between the tackles like a walked-up 340 middle linebacker. Much more mobile than I expected. People can get under him on double teams, but he big brothered the Buckeye center multiple times. You have to keep his snaps limited though.

Cole Brevard can’t really be moved. We played him at nose and 3 tech where he chewed up double teams and kept Lefau clean. Really nasty inside. Can’t give us much pass rush unless he can just bully a weaker guy.

Maraad Watson was the least impressive, but he wasn’t a liability. He struggled with physicality and literally got put on skates on Ohio State’s 2nd play of the game on a double team.

We have five guys we can win with and who knows what some of the talented young freshman may flash as the season unfolds. 

Edge

Limited impact as Ohio State threw it only 20 times and more than half of those attempts came on quick throws. Texas still logged six pressures in 20 throws and a 30% pressure rate is good. I think it’s more frustration at the absence of sacks. The hopeful exploitation of OSU’s new tackles never really materialized. I wasn’t overly impressed by the edge rush on the handful of occasions that were true drop backs, but it was a pretty limited sample size.

Substitution wasn’t quite as liberal here, Umeozulu, Vasek and Spence all played. The mainstays were Simmons, Moore (he’s basically playing edge, at least in this game) and Burke. Burke was really stout against the run.

Linebacker

Liona Lefau was incredible. His weight gain has made him a much more physical between the tackles, he’s retained all of his quickness and pass defense ability, and he showed terrific instincts and played fast as hell. 9 tackles. He led Texas with 9 tackles and excelled in every phase.

Anthony Hill played like the 4th best linebacker on the field and the 2nd best on the Horns. Too much overpursuit. Physicality is never an issue. He’s just not always great against a lot of traditional run game stuff at LB. Never really has been. Let’s see how it plays out, but he’s still best as a point and shoot defender, in pursuit, interior blitzing. He’s so athletic and plays so hard that he was still an effective complement to Lefau. Tyanthony Smith is really fun to watch. He’s going to be really good. Texas kept the LB rotation tight and I would have, too. This isn’t the game where you risk a bad run fit and a cheap long run.

Defensive Backs

Sayin was 13 of 20 for 126 yards with about 1/3rd of his yards coming on one throw. He had four pass attempts longer than 10 yards over the entire game. We were more effective in coverage when we blitzed him. Michael Taaffe and Jelani McDonald never left the field. Taaffe was terrific in run support from depth – he had three hard tackles at the line of scrimmage, finished with 9 tackles overall, and got 80% of his snaps as a true deep safety. A handful of nickel snaps.

McDonald is still the best tackler on the team. He played all over the place: nickel, extra box defender OLB, true safety. Incredibly valuable player. He and Lefau are very complementary in their ability to tackle, cover ground, blitz, and become good zone defenders. Positionless basketball. 

Jaylon Guilbeau played OK except for the 40 yard Tate score. He was able to recover and get a hand on in there after the ball hung in the air, but Tate made a great catch. A more accurate ball is an easy score though. He’s the weak link right now, but that’s also a relative statement. We’ll see how the battle here plays out.

Malik Muhammad played well. Beautiful PBU and I could care less about his penalty. You can’t play receivers like that without being aggressive. The longest pass he conceded all day went for 9 yards and it was a great pass to a great route.

Kobe Black got some run at corner. He looks good. He just needs more game experience.

Derek Williams played about a dozen snaps, but he didn’t look quite ready for game speed. Missed tackle, bad angles in pass coverage. Didn’t show great recognition.

Ohio State targeted freshman Graceson Littleton 4 times in only 19 snaps. He surrendered only 14 yards, had a hard hit, locked down Inniss like the king’s virgin bride to be, and had a gorgeous pass break up. What an absolute stud. Terrific game speed. He just sees it out there.

Special Teams

Our punter is indeed good. A 46.3 net (not average, net) with three of four kicks downed inside the 20. His average hang time was 4.3 secoonds.

No work for Mason Shipley beyond a single extra point. We didn’t come to Columbus to kick field goals. We came to fail in goal to go.

The return teams were unhelpful. Wisner unwisely brought out a kick to only the 15 yard line. Not fielding punts cost us some yards.

You’d love to create a cheap score or more opportunity in a game like this.

Final Thoughts

The Longhorn defense is very deep and they can play waves of good to very good players. I’m curious to see what the third wave looks like when they play against San Jose State, UTEP and Sam Houston State.

While I’d be reluctant to take Taaffe, McDonald or Lefau off of the field when it matters, it’s impressive to have so many different athletes with varying strengths and body types to match up to opposing offenses and maintain a high standard of play for four quarters. Texas still has plenty of tests down the road, but this will be an exciting group to watch. 

 

Posted
6 hours ago, Atticus said:

People need to realize that Sark's offense is not complex. He's not gonna go and make it complex to make you happy. The complex portion of Sark's offense is the disguising and motions from the different formations that he runs his same set plays out of. The time it takes to diagnose it real time is what makes it tough. Each defender has to know what's going on exactly when it happens if the offensive players are doing what they're supposed to be doing. One person guesses wrong, and it can be an explosive. 

He needs to make changes. They don't have to be complex. They just have to not be predictable.  When the film shows the defense knows the routes as soon as the ball is snapped, you have an offense that has been figured out way too much to be consistently effective against good teams.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
12 minutes ago, RabidM said:

He needs to make changes. They don't have to be complex. They just have to not be predictable.  When the film shows the defense knows the routes as soon as the ball is snapped, you have an offense that has been figured out way too much to be consistently effective against good teams.  

Lol…. No. Down, distance, formation, alignment, player tendency all can dictate plays and known route combinations. It’s exactly what teams study, practice and scheme for.


Your team also has to know what to run, be comfortable with what they run and be able to execute what they run too. Football isn’t played in a vacuum or a madden screen.

Shit, our first play of the game is the same play we have run for each of Arch’s starts, (tOSU must have known that) and it was wide fucking open and Arch shot putted the ball into the dirt.

When individual play limits what you can execute schematically, magically shit doesn’t work as well.

Ewers struggled with the deep middle/post routes, and excelled at the mid and short passing game. Thus, our game plans and execution reflected that.

On Saturday Arch did not do anything well. We ran him, we moved him out of the pocket, we gave him short throws, long throws, throws over the middle, play action throws, etc….. nothing sparked him. Saturday was not his day, and our offense reflected that. 

If Arch was just “bad” instead of “terribad” on Saturday, we win that game.

 

Posted
1 minute ago, Fico said:

Lol…. No. Down, distance, formation, alignment, player tendency all can dictate plays and known route combinations. It’s exactly what teams study, practice and scheme for.


Your team also has to know what to run, be comfortable with what they run and be able to execute what they run too. Football isn’t played in a vacuum or a madden screen.

Shit, our first play of the game is the same play we have run for each of Arch’s starts, (tOSU must have known that) and it was wide fucking open and Arch shot putted the ball into the dirt.

When individual play limits what you can execute schematically, magically shit doesn’t work as well.

Ewers struggled with the deep middle/post routes, and excelled at the mid and short passing game. Thus, our game plans and execution reflected that.

On Saturday Arch did not do anything well. We ran him, we moved him out of the pocket, we gave him short throws, long throws, throws over the middle, play action throws, etc….. nothing sparked him. Saturday was not his day, and our offense reflected that. 

If Arch was just “bad” instead of “terribad” on Saturday, we win that game.

 

Arch was very good on the deep ball. That is clearly his strength. Even in what I pray is the worst game of his life, his deep ball was as advertised. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Fico said:

Lol…. No. Down, distance, formation, alignment, player tendency all can dictate plays and known route combinations. It’s exactly what teams study, practice and scheme for.


Your team also has to know what to run, be comfortable with what they run and be able to execute what they run too. Football isn’t played in a vacuum or a madden screen.

Shit, our first play of the game is the same play we have run for each of Arch’s starts, (tOSU must have known that) and it was wide fucking open and Arch shot putted the ball into the dirt.

When individual play limits what you can execute schematically, magically shit doesn’t work as well.

Ewers struggled with the deep middle/post routes, and excelled at the mid and short passing game. Thus, our game plans and execution reflected that.

On Saturday Arch did not do anything well. We ran him, we moved him out of the pocket, we gave him short throws, long throws, throws over the middle, play action throws, etc….. nothing sparked him. Saturday was not his day, and our offense reflected that. 

If Arch was just “bad” instead of “terribad” on Saturday, we win that game.

 

Almost every decent team since OU last year has dramatically slowed our offense down or completely shut it down for extended periods of time, with similar problems predating last season.  The feeling of the opposing defense being in our huddle has become quite familiar to us.  The book is out on Sark's offense and tendencies.  He either accepts this and adjusts or we're going to continue to get out coached by competent defensive coaching staffs.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
On OTF last night Shipley, CJ, and Rod couldn’t come up with an answer about what our offensive identity is

First thing I said when the game was over. I’m not sure what the fuck we’re doing on offense now.
Posted
Just now, Red Five said:


First thing I said when the game was over. I’m not sure what the fuck we’re doing on offense now.

The only identity I can think of and point to is sarks script….we don’t do anything exceptionally great 

Posted
On 9/1/2025 at 10:06 AM, Red Five said:

Scipio's postmortem is out. It's not pretty. 

 

I was very distressed about missing this game to coach youth football, but after checking the score and reading a few of the 200+ texts blowing up my iPhone, it turned out to be for the best. Rewatching it, even knowing the result and having scanned the box score, was remarkable.

I didn’t expect that my 6th grade volunteer staff would come up with a better game plan for the Spartans on two hours prep than what the Texas offensive staff dialed up for Ohio State after two months, but Saturday was full of surprises.

I pointed out that Matt Patrica would represent a unique challenge for Sark as he offered very little tendency to game prep. Patricia was going to build out a defense tailored to us. I didn’t expect total game plan domination and a diagnosis of our strengths and weaknesses like he was in our practice facility though. Patricia shrugged at the Longhorn running game as empty calories and focused solely on limiting passing game explosives.

The Buckeye DC assumed he’d get stops on money downs and in the red zone. He was right on both counts.

It’s difficult to bag on Sark’s game plan when execution by the QB and the larger passing game was so poor and our running game couldn’t punish overplay. Offensive success tends to allow for more success and we never got real traction. So it’s difficult to say what Sark’s game plan adjustments could’ve been if Arch hit basic throws or we had a legitimate running game.

The first Longhorn pass attempt was a wide open potential 25 yard gain to DeAndre Moore that Manning spiked five yards into the turf in front of him. We were in 11 personnel from the pistol with trips to the wide side and the TE split out up top. Ohio State busted their coverage and our reward was not a first down at midfield and a nice start, but 2nd and 10. That ain’t on Sark, folks.

Sark also schemed several numbers advantages in the run game where we had leverage and an opportunity to drop a big run and get them out of some of their shifting, occasionally junk defenses. Watch the sky view and sometimes Ohio State is misaligned with massive run bubbles. That yielded only workmanlike, irrelevant gains and apparently everyone has decided that this means our running game was good or adequate.

It was not.

Sometimes, I feel like Roddy Piper in They Live and I’m the only one wearing the special sunglasses that let’s you see the alien infiltrators.

I have good news though. There were several bright spots in this game and we’re really close to having a good offense if we can just tidy up a few executional areas.

Just kidding. It was mostly dog shit.

Quarterback

Manning threw 11 completely inaccurate balls in 30 attempts and made four high quality throws. He threw one pick and tried to throw another that ricocheted off of a DB’s hands. His misses ran the gamut from fastballs hurled at top speed to a receiver 5 yards away, to skipping balls in front of the receiver, to crossing routes thrown behind a receivers head.

Ohio State did a masterful job of keeping him contained while changing up their pass rush tempo and angles.

He struggled to recognize coverages and when he did have protection, he hurried throws instead of letting routes develop. There was a goal line sequence where Arch threw an errant fastball at DeAndre Moore on a crosser with perfect protection while Moore was blanketed. Spencer Shannon was wide open going to the other way for a walk in TD.

On the same series on 4th down, Wingo came open on a scrape route in front of him that could have been 6. Arch threw it early, incomplete to Livingstone in the end zone. You can find open receivers on any given play, but these were open receivers in front of him that were part of the read progression and he chose to throw to covered receivers from a clean pocket.

In fairness, Ohio State had our receivers blanketed for a lot of the game. Manning probably assumed his situation wouldn’t improve with time.

He scrambled somewhat successfully. The called QB run game didn’t really work.

I don’t understand what he’s done to his release. Are our QBs obligated to degrade mechanics the longer they’re on campus? We’ll see if it cleans up.

I thought he moved in the pocket well. He certainly competed through a lot of adversity.

Offensive Line

Trevor Goosby is a good pass protector. Surprisingly, Neto pass blocked better than he run blocked. Stroh and Baker hurt the offense several times.

No, the OL didn’t play well. Ohio State played a light box and we didn’t punish them for it. When space condensed they dominated us on money downs and they got consistent pressure on Manning when they needed it. They made up for a light or honest box with physicality and effort and we never matched either.

Please read this. The timing of my writing was not a coincidence.

Explosiveness? We had zero runs over 15 yards against a light box and some Buckeye misalignments where we had numbers before the snap. Want to run someone out of exotic coverages, blitzes, and crazy presnap shifts in a light box? Drop explosive runs on them. Texas couldn’t.

Consistency? No fumbles. Not a lot of negative runs. Passing grade. We met the JAG standard.

Situational? Fail.

The box score is lying to you. Ohio State conceded exactly what they wanted to.

On short yardage, the OL fired out like mummies and got jacked up. Feet stopped moving at impact. No control or fit. Defenders slip off and rally to the ball. Except for the 4th and 1 Manning sneak where the playside laid down on their bellies like they were on a slip and slide. Every Longhorn OL lost on that play.

Pad level? Generally bad. Finishing blocks? Not often. Initial contact, stand straight up, feet stop moving. Baker did have a pancake on Sonny Styles when he got low and drove him over a pile early in the game. That didn’t happen often enough. Cole Hutson also got a 1 on 1 with Styles early. He got jacked up and thrown into the runner.

Stroh is slow-footed. He makes initial contact and then defenders slide right off.

Kenyatta Jackson – a 265 pound DE – lined up in a 3 technique backside and drove Neto Umeozulu – who was blocking down on him – so far across the line of scrimmage that he used him to plug the playside hole three gaps away. That’s a 55 pound weight differential and the Texas guard had the angle advantage.

Our OL is not very strong at the point of attack. The ability to run the ball was directly correlated to Ohio State’s box count and whether they had reserves in.

Ohio State had so much contempt for our running game that they played a light box on 1st down on their 9 yard line, fearing we might try to throw it in.

We were 70% gap run, but our angles on pulls are terrible. The puller who should turn up in the hole and find the first enemy jersey is overrunning and then trying to loop back. They need to scrape it tight and turn quickly. Not drift aimlessly.

We had a goal line Arch run where we motioned the RB out to clear the safety standing at LB depth. Vacant spot. Ohio State had light numbers! Looking good. Going to stroll in. We ran counter towards the only LB remaining…and he made the tackle. Maybe run to the vacant space. That you vacated with the motion. It’s why you sent your RB in motion.

WR/TE

I love Jack Endries. Ball player. Willing blocker, super reliable receiver. Hands. Good routes. Played very hard. He overran on pulls like the OL. Pretty clearly not a teaching point for Flood.

Our receivers are an incomplete due to a great pass denying game plan from Patricia, inaccuracy, and a lot of Buckeye bodies in coverage. Livingstone won in single coverage for a TD against a grabby Ohio St cornerback.

I didn’t see a lot of separation, but I have no idea how DeAndre Moore can be evaluated with five bad balls thrown at him.

We’ll see, I guess.

RB

Baxter had some good blitz pick ups. Both he and Wisner repeatedly stumbled out of their breaks to daylight and neither added much to their runs after contact.

Watch Wingo’s acceleration on the end around. Then watch our RBs run. Very different explosiveness.

Matt Patricia was not scared of any Texas RB that played on Saturday hurting his defense, I can promise you that. They were game planned as an irrelevance.

Closing Thoughts

Use the next few weeks wisely. This offense has a few issues, some that were foreseeable, many that can be addressed, but a couple that are genuine surprises. Units can improve dramatically over time and openers can be particularly jarring, but this was a bit of a wake up call for the Longhorn offensive staff and players.

damn, i read this after i finally ended my end of the world stage of grief.  

back to being a doomer i go 

  • Haha 1
Posted

I do agree that the box score is a bit misleading but Texas would not have produced like that on the ground against even the exact same game plan last year. Arch was not constantly running for his life. In the context of it being the unit's first start, Goosby's injury, Stroh's first meaningful action, and Baker's first game as a starter, the unit exceeded my expectations, though I admit they were low.

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