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Posted

Collecting all the post-game analysis articles, including those behind paywalls, regarding the UTEP game here:

(Gerald Goodridge) No. 7 Texas 27, UTEP 10: Three things we learned

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The No. 7 Texas Longhorns looked lethargic yet again, playing against an outmatched opponent, struggling to get the offense going, and failing to launch both on the ground and through the air. Texas managed to come away with a win, but it has just two weeks left before the start of SEC play, and there are still plenty of questions remaining for the preseason favorite to win the conference.

The offensive issues are more than skin-deep

The offense looked out of rhythm and, frankly, inept in every aspect of its offensive performance, struggling to get any rhythm going at all. Texas leaned into the run in the game, whether that was the original gameplan or required due to the abysmal play of quarterback Arch Manning. After starting the game 3-5 for 58 yards, Manning’s next 10 passes fell incomplete, including a fourth-down interception in the red zone. He finished the game with 114 yards on 25 attempts and a touchdown, 4.56 yards per attempt. Part of the issue is that Texas still doesn’t know who its go-to receiver is in the group, with last week’s star, Parker Livingstone, effectively disappearing against UTEP.

Part of the issue with Texas’s offensive rhythm is that it lacks a standout at the running back position. Quintrevion Wisner missed his second consecutive game due to injury, and CJ Baxter left the game after one carry for six yards, leaving Jerrick Gibson, Christian Clark, and freshman James Simon to carry the load. Simon finished as the game’s leading rusher with 67 yards, while Gibson, who avoided his usual struggles with ball security, added 64 yards of his own. Manning was Texas’s most effective threat on the ground, rushing nine times for 51 yards and the Longhorns’ two touchdowns on the ground.

The defense can carry the team, again

While UTEP was able to put up numbers against Texas, they kept the Miners’ offense in check for most of the contest, surrendering the Miners’ lone touchdown of the game, which came with 1:57 left on the clock. The Miners managed just 2.2 yards per carry on the ground and 5.8 yards per attempt through the air, while turning UTEP quarterback Malachi Nelson over twice. Jelani McDonald and Graceson Littleton took advantage of Nelson’s struggles at quarterback, both securing their first interceptions of the season.

The Longhorns spent a lot of time in the UTEP backfield, with six tackles for loss in the contest, including bringing down Nelson for two sacks and two additional hurries. Hero Kanu’s sack marked the second consecutive week where a Texas defensive tackle brought the QB down, while Zina Umeozulu added the game’s other sack.

Texas’s special teams are growing

Jack Bouwmeester has already emerged as a threat for Texas, but the rest of Jeff Banks’ unit had a lot of questions left after the first three games. Texas fans finally got an extended look at Mason Shipley, who went 2-2 on the day from 30 and 31 yards, keeping the Longhorns comfortably ahead in the game. We also saw Ryan Niblett finally break out as a return threat, specifically on punts, finishing the game with 72 yards on three chances, including a long of 49.

It wasn’t perfect from the unit, with Warren Roberson notching two block-in-the-back penalties in the second quarter, pushing the Texas offense back before they even took the field. Unforced errors continue to plague the Longhorns, with 76 total penalty yards on the defense and special teams alone.

Eric Nahlin: Sarkisian Faces Tough Choices After Arch Manning’s Passing Struggles vs UTEP

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I’m writing this a little too immediately after the game. The absolutists are out in full force making strong declarations about how the whole season is going to go. They might end up being right, but they don’t know with nearly as much certainty as they think they do. I got a text from a buddy—one of our investors, actually:

“Gotta play Arch like Haynes King and mimic Georgia Tech. Protect the defense, ask Arch to make 10 throws a game, always kick field goals, never go for it on 4th down. Figure out how to get to 24 points each game. Best chance moving forward, imo.” Some stuff I agree with. Sounds like K-State in days of yore:

But also, that’s a bit absolutist as well—“always kick field goals” and “never go for it on 4th down.” His point about protecting the defense is well taken, though. My thinking is Steve Sarkisian believes this would be the floor for his team. He’s seeking alpha and upside. He’s an offensive coach and expects much more from his own side of the ball. However, if the offensive line doesn’t start blocking better, he’s going to have to run Arch a lot more than he ever anticipated. Another reason he’s going to have to run Arch more than expected…

He’s struggling mightily as a passer. I had confidence in Sark when he was 5–7. Many of you don’t have confidence in him now after The Rebuild. It’s a bridge too far for me to try to debate those people or to agree that Arch is a bust, but Sark may be a bit too proud in his ways. He also may have misjudged his offense.

It’s one thing for Arch to have jitters against Ohio State—entirely something else to miss layups against UTEP at home. It’s one thing to replace four starters on the offensive line, but another to apply the same context Sark did in saying he still had experience returning. That experience isn’t showing up. I love the defense. I love the program culture. There were many other positives today that I’ll get into tomorrow, but Sark may need to rethink his approach based on team strengths and weaknesses.

 

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Posted

These guys are mouth breathing idiots. Best Texas team ever, arch looks great all the camp talk was so dumb they aren’t coaches, they don’t know shit. Waste of space on the internet if you ask me.

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Posted

In fairness, the offensive off season reports weren't exactly glowing.   There was just hope that the reason was because the defense was so elite and we were breaking in a new OL and skill players.  But in reality, shit is fucked.  This looks like late era Mack Brown ineptitude on offense.  

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Posted
15 hours ago, RabidM said:

In fairness, the offensive off season reports weren't exactly glowing.   There was just hope that the reason was because the defense was so elite and we were breaking in a new OL and skill players.  But in reality, shit is fucked.  This looks like late era Mack Brown ineptitude on offense.  

That's what I remember.  The 9.95 stuff I read about fall camp said the offense looked like shit.  

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Posted
16 hours ago, satyanash said:

Collecting all the post-game analysis articles, including those behind paywalls, regarding the UTEP game here:

(Gerald Goodridge) No. 7 Texas 27, UTEP 10: Three things we learned

Eric Nahlin: Sarkisian Faces Tough Choices After Arch Manning’s Passing Struggles vs UTEP

 

Any Scipio postmortem nuggets? 

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Posted (edited)
17 hours ago, troph said:

These guys are mouth breathing idiots. Best Texas team ever, arch looks great all the camp talk was so dumb they aren’t coaches, they don’t know shit. Waste of space on the internet if you ask me.

Well, really no more so than this board and these thread.  If you give them that much credibility.  Some have some good thoughts, others don't, or don't often, but no one has any real answers.

Arch was anointed based on essentially $9.95ers, the actual ones and the national ones, and some of us bought into it hard.  And that's not to say the "2A Lousiana" naysayer crew were right, either.

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
58 minutes ago, surlyujest said:

Any Scipio postmortem nuggets? 


If he analyzes the offensive line his post game write up might not be suitable for children. I watched a lot of football yesterday and I did not see a single game that featured an offensive line worse than ours. That included multiple G5 and Big 12 games. 

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Posted

(Scipio Tex) 2025 UTEP Postmortem: Offense

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A moribund offensive effort against a weak Group of Five team in Austin overshadowed another strong defensive performance. Unless something dramatically changes in the play of the offense or its personnel, Longhorn ceiling is being set and the floor is starting to show a few spots where you wouldn’t want to stand against any opponent with a pulse and a game plan.

Texas managed only 340 yards at a grinding 4.2 yards per play, going only 7 of 21 on money downs against a Miners defense that consistently handled the Longhorn offensive line, while Arch Manning never found the strike zone. The Longhorns were more or less dominated by a poor defense.

For comparative purposes, UTEP’s offense averaged 4.4 yards per play against the Longhorn defense. So on a per play basis, we’re to believe that the relationship between the units facing each other is more or less the same? I’m not buying that. That’s massive underachievement, even when you consider that I think the Longhorn offense isn’t all that talented.

Texas played a lot of two tight end sets against UTEP. The idea was to simplify some blocking schemes against a moving and sometimes irregular front, get the run game worked out, and then hit the Miners over the top in single coverage from max protection.

The problem is that our tight ends can’t really move anyone, our offensive line isn’t getting more physical or technical anytime soon, and Arch missed all of the wide open touchdown throws. Texas was 3 of 7 in the red zone converting touchdowns and experienced goal line stuffs where the Horns were bullied at the point of attack. By the end of the game, Texas was in spread formations running zone read with #16.

Offensive Line

Since Ohio State, I’ve pointed out the fundamental issues on the offensive line here and on the Inside Texas Youtube channels. They’re not very strong, some of them have absolutely terrible bases, and they’re not technical. Sporadic lack of effort is also troubling. That criticism was so well received!

I’ve written for the public long enough to know that being early never has any reward, and you’re left managing the emotions of upset fans who would prefer to be lied to, as they employ the box score the way a drunk uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination. Eventually, reality catches up. The Iron Laws of OL play are eternal and immutable. So, are we all caught up now? We good? Then let’s move on…

Texas shifted from a 2:1 gap/zone blocking bias in their first two contests to nearly 60% zone running against UTEP. That was partly due to UTEP’s irregular fronts giving us problems by alignment and some free runners making plays, but also because they’re just looking for anything right now, and zone seems to better suit young James Simon who got a significant second half workload.

The truth is that this is a (poorly) zone trained OL and they’re much more comfortable just trying to get a hat on someone for a second and a half and calling it a block, even if moving and passing off defenders reveals athletic deficits. Connor Stroh had some doozies in this game, I’ve seen newborn giraffes negotiate I-10 traffic with more surety. It’s a hard watch at times. 

DJ Campbell contributed another pair of penalties. He’s now at five in three games. On a zone play, Texas had a 3 on 3 playside and Campbell managed to not block a single man, but did help the RB off of the ground after the untouched linebacker nailed him. Your 33 game starting senior. I’m told our issues stem from inexperience. By start 40 or 41, I'm sure he’ll be dialed in.

Goosby played well, but tried an ill-advised cut block on an edge where he completely whiffed and got Manning destroyed. When I say completely whiffed, I mean he jumped out sideways into a ball and no part of his body touched the defender. Like, why? Brandon Baker pass blocked well, but he got manhandled in goal line and he has a obvious strength deficit. Good feet and he tries though, and we can work with that.

Connor Robertson got 19 snaps. He did OK. Like much of the OL, he’s not game strong. Right now, the OL is a bit of a mishmash of skill sets and deficits that don’t play well together. There is no lineup that will yield a high level offensive line, but the coaches may want to think about what combination they can live and die with. Maybe just start the best athletes, simplify if necessary, and try to win with feet and motor?

Quarterback

I didn’t see a worse QB performance on Saturday if you control for opponent quality, though DJ Lagway’s five interceptions against LSU may belong in its own special category. Manning didn’t actively throw away the game with pick sixes, so that’s good. 

A smattering from my notebook:

  1.     Arch behind wide open Wingo.
  2.     Arch misses Wingo for easy TD.
  3.     Arch terrible interception throwing across his body in the red zone.
  4.     Arch misses a wide open Livingstone for a TD in single coverage, play action.
  5.     Arch misses an easy out to Wingo.
  6.     Arch misses tight end on a scramble. Difficult throw.
  7.     Arch throws behind wide open Niblett on the move, in-breaking route.
  8.     Arch throws behind Townsend in the flat.
  9.     Arch throws completion from his waist from a clean pocket. Why?

He finished 11 of 25 for 114 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He’s objectively bad right now. I don’t know why. Everything has degraded. He left an easy 21 points out on the field and the troubling thing is that even when #16 is struggling, he’s our touchdown scorer. He accounted for every score against Ohio State, San Jose State and UTEP, rushing or passing. He did fine as a runner from zone read and as a scrambler with 9 carries for 51 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Maybe the absolute floor of this offense is Manning throwing it 15-20 times, running it 10-12 from zone read and scrambles, limiting turnovers, and hoping the defense sets Texas up with short fields. The Longhorn offense will need to fail more for Sark to concede that though.

Running Back

CJ Baxter went out after his first run of the game. Clark, Gibson and Simon held it down, with each getting their respective time to ply their trade. Clark ran it into the hole more. He didn’t add much at contact. We tried to employ him in the passing game, to mixed results.

Gibson runs hard where he’s supposed to and there were no fumbles, but he didn’t push many piles. Simon maximized most of his runs, many of them zone runs, and he was the only Texas running back who consistently broke tackles.

All other Texas runners averaged around 1.6 yards after contact. Simon averaged 4.2. When you consider that Simon averaged less than 4 yards per carry, I’ll let you figure out where he experienced average first contact.

This room is about what I expected. One of the highest paid rooms in college football, but not remotely elite or even that good. It should have been re-hauled back in January, but now the goal is to see if Simon can help us. We could see a switch back to more zone running. I think we’re flailing around a bit.

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

The tight ends got a lot of run. No pun intended. I don’t think any of them added much to the running game and they accounted for two drops. For the season, Texas #1 WR Ryan Wingo has 23 targets with 9 catches for 97 yards. That’s remarkably bad. I can’t name a less efficient SEC #1 target. There are some very bad routes there, yes, but Arch has flat missed an open Wingo about 8-10 times.

Not much to write when the WR position totaled 5 catches for 55 yards on 10 targets.

Final

The waves of preseason hype are starting to shatter on the walls of actual game play. Right now, this is a bad offense. It will get better or worse, but it won’t stay the same. This unit makes a half dozen SEC games potentially losable. Typically, I can find trends or simple mistakes in a struggling offense that presage better days ahead when they’re cleaned up, but the issues here are myriad; some are fundamental. Some of them can’t be cleaned up on Tuesday and Wednesday. They’re baked in the cake. 

 

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Posted
4 hours ago, satyanash said:

(Scipio Tex) 2025 UTEP Postmortem: Offense

 

Thanks. I guess there's a chance that we just need to ice that cake and then "we're back".

Gotta be uncomfortable accountability wise in the coaches' room for Sark's core team of Flood, Milwee and Banks. 

Posted

I have noticed that OL recruiting hasn't been very good after Kelvin Banks and Cam Williams.  Lots of big, heavy 3 stars, which means Kurt Flood has to develop them physically and technique-wise.  Stroh, Robertson, Goosby, and Baker haven't been developed for strength.  The penalties show the issue with technique training.  College football is about coaches.  They either got stupid or lazy.

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Posted
27 minutes ago, Monahorns said:

I have noticed that OL recruiting hasn't been very good after Kelvin Banks and Cam Williams.  Lots of big, heavy 3 stars, which means Kurt Flood has to develop them physically and technique-wise.  Stroh, Robertson, Goosby, and Baker haven't been developed for strength.  The penalties show the issue with technique training.  College football is about coaches.  They either got stupid or lazy.

I mentioned this last year and got smoked for it but the vast majority of the OL/DL that were responsible for the 2023-24 playoff runs were Herman recruits. Sweat, Murphy, Collins, Broughton, Sorrell, Jones, Majors, Conner. Sark and staff did not ID and eval any of those. Kelvin Banks is the obvious exception but I don't know that you get a lot of credit for that eval, everyone in the country had an offer in and he was a stud from day one.

Fortunately it does look like the ability to evaluate and develop from start to finish is there on the DL side, which is impressive given coaching turnover. And certainly Flood did good work with Jones and Majors (less so Conner). But the career arcs of DJ Campbell, Cole Hutson, and Cam Williams are the first returns we have on Flood's ability to evaluate/develop his own guys and they are... a mixed bag. Campbell and Williams are/were both inconsistent and undisciplined, Cole Hutson is just bad. Goosby looks pretty solid at LT. I think you can cut Baker some slack as a second year guy, I don't even know if he's 20 years old yet. Campbell is another one who could have gone wnywhere in the country but his development, while not completely absent, does leave you wanting more. The rest of Flood's recruits either don't look great after several years or can't get on the field over guys that don't look great after several years. I don't know that we have proof of concept that we can actually evaluate OL talent.

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11 hours ago, gmr548 said:

Fortunately it does look like the ability to evaluate and develop from start to finish is there on the DL side, which is impressive given coaching turnover. And certainly Flood did good work with Jones and Majors (less so Conner). But the career arcs of DJ Campbell, Cole Hutson, and Cam Williams are the first returns we have on Flood's ability to evaluate/develop his own guys and they are... a mixed bag.

I think it’s obvious they really would have liked another year with Williams but that doesn’t explain weak shit interior play for three years running.

If it was released that DJ Campbell was actually deaf and couldn’t hear snap counts it would help explain a lot.  

Those Bama lines that got Sark and Flood the Texas jobs were mostly recruited under Brent Key, who’s clearly a badass. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, LCHorn said:

I think it’s obvious they really would have liked another year with Williams but that doesn’t explain weak shit interior play for three years running.

If it was released that DJ Campbell was actually deaf and couldn’t hear snap counts it would help explain a lot.  

Those Bama lines that got Sark and Flood the Texas jobs were mostly recruited under Brent Key, who’s clearly a badass. 

Yeah, Cam Williams was always going to be a project and him making a stupid decision to leave early isn't on Flood.

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Posted

(Scipio Tex) 2025 UTEP Postmortem: Defense/Special Teams

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The Texas defense played a vanilla defensive game plan against the UTEP Miners but continued to display a well-rounded set of playmakers and disruptors that go as many as 24 deep.

The Longhorns held UTEP to only 10 points and forced QB Malachi Nelson into a seemingly endless series of checkdowns while keeping a lid on the Miner running game with honest fronts. Nelson finished the game 24 of 36 for only 209 yards and 2 interceptions, but frankly Nelson played better than his five star counterpart on the other side of the ball. He kept his composure and had a couple of nice throws into tight windows, but my characterization of Nelson as a single read QB proved out.

It’s telling that UTEP didn’t attempt a single throw 20+ yards down the field. Nelson didn’t have the time and Texas always had two safeties parked deep. UTEP’s final average depth of target was a scant 4.8 yards. UTEP popped a 30 yard run, but on their 21 other normal carries, they yielded 26 yards. UTEP was 4 of 18 converting money downs, including an 0 for 3 mark on 4th down, including a terrific short yardage stop on their first drive of the game. 

Tone setter there. The DL did a fantastic job of not just getting lower than the Miner OL, but also burrowing, driving their legs, and resetting the line of scrimmage. The linebackers are then free to play over the top. That’s how you do it. Overall, this was a workmanlike performance and though you’d have liked to have kept UTEP from scoring a touchdown, it’s probably instructive that it came with 1:57 left on the clock against an assortment of second teamers running basic stuff.

DEFENSIVE LINE

Ethan Burke balled out. He had 5 tackles in only 29 snaps, a tackle for loss, a pressure, a QB hurry, and affected a screen with his long wingspan. He’s been great this year. Hero Kanu continues to be our most disruptive interior DL, which is impressive given that the others haven’t been slouches.

There was a four play sequence in the 3rd quarter that really highlighted his disruption. Play 1: Kanu penetrates into the backfield and forces the RB into a waiting Lefau. They split the TFL. Play 2: Kanu flushes Nelson from the pocket by driving the UTEP guard into his face, ends with Lance Jackson cleaning it up as Nelson stumbles forward. Play 3: Nelson, having just seen Kanu collapse his pocket, starts to feel constriction again and auto throws to sideline. Graceson Littleton is squatting in zone coverage for the INT. Play 4, Kanu dominates the guard and gets a tackle for loss on a run play.

Watch the Deep Dive this week, where I’ll be highlighting how his play is creating for others.

Good snaps from Maraad Watson again. I’m realizing that he’s more of a finesse player, but his get off is improving and he’s understanding his role of a hard 30 snaps. Travis Shaw had a nice tackle for loss near the goal line when the UTEP guard tried to zone block him with just a hand. Shaw is a little too big and strong for that. Simmons was good and effective. UTEP was simply getting the ball out too quickly.

Lance Jackson and Zina Umeozulu had some flash snaps and look to be players. Care to guess PFF’s highest graded Longhorn defenders only three games into the season? Burke, Kanu, Taaffe.

LINEBACKER

Some surprisingly casual snaps from Ty’Anthony Smith. One saw him take a terrible angle at a jog on a run play and get lost in the trash. That’s not his nature. We need him flying around like a rabid dog. Lefau led Texas in tackles. He had one missed tackle early but had several hard hits at the line of scrimmage. He owes the interior DL some drinks, they set up him beautifully flowing the RB directly into his unblocked gap multiple times on zone runs. Lefau’s play strength 10+ pounds heavier is noticeably better.

I liked the snaps we saw from Moore playing off the ball at the 2nd level. Clearly an attempt to get him comfortable there for SEC play. We know he’s great in pursuit, but he did some traditional read-blocking-flow, step into interior gap old school LB stuff.

DEFENSIVE BACK

They hit Jelani McDonald for a 33 yard gain on a flawlessly thrown ball. McDonald got his redemption on the next play, snagging an INT as Nelson tried to throw across his body on a roll. Muhammad was a no go zone. Threw at him 3 times for a total of 7 yards.

Guilbeau had a penalty (eh, whatever) but I was more concerned about the 23 yard completion that he surrendered and two missed tackles. He did have some nice stops in coverage and in run support. He will be the target as we face more competent passing games. His play speed looks a step slow compared to his teammates and he’s not always in a great tackling position when he arrives. Four missed tackles on the year now and a 36% whiff rate. Let’s see if that gets better as the year goes on.

JJR had a beautiful PBU but got hit for a 43 yard gain. Or at least he took the fall for it in that coverage. I like his instincts. Seems like a very smart player. Littleton was fantastic covering the slot. They targeted him four times, he surrendered a yard and got an easy zone INT on a ill-fated out route. What a player. Taaffe pretty much hung out deep and flew to the ball. Six tackles, including two hard stops. He’s tackling much more under control this year and not overrunning with attempted missile shots.

Relatively pleased with the secondary overall, particularly considering that we were quite vanilla and barely blitzed.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Every week, the importance of this unit for this particular team crystallizes. Shipley is now 3 for 3 on the year and perfect on XP. That will become increasingly important if the Texas offense continues as it is. Bouwmeester had some field flipping shots. 47.8 average with an awesome 46.5 net.

Ryan Niblett had 3 punt returns for 72 yards, with a long of 49 yards. Finally, some value add in the kicking game. UTEP’s longest return went for 4 yards and they didn’t attempt a kick return. A clear win for the good guys in special teams. Let’s keep that going. This Texas team will need hidden yards wherever it can find them.

FINAL

Other than Guilbeau, tackling was on point after it got a little loose against San Jose State. Good pursuit to the football. Didn’t like the feeling of defensive intensity waning late.

Relatively pleased overall. The quality of offense that Texas faced was poor and the Horns did very little defensively besides line up and play ball. UTEP’s first ten possessions yielded 134 yards on 38 plays at 3.5 yards per play. Their last three possessions yielded 22 plays for 164 yards and a touchdown. I attribute that more to UTEP’s adjustments to a vanilla defense and generous Longhorn substitutions than the Longhorn defense tapping out, but you’d like to see talented second teamers come in and play to the standard with a bit more confidence and cohesion.

The Bearkats and a bye await. 

 

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Posted
On 9/14/2025 at 6:02 PM, satyanash said:

(Scipio Tex) 2025 UTEP Postmortem: Offense

 

He also seems to be back on the S&C tangent he was on in 2021, based on what he said on his podcast yesterday. Something about how the way we lift weights isn't translating to football strength and the top weight room performers are transfers.

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Posted

Bobby Burton: Adversity

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For those of you wanting obvious answers or quick fixes to the QB conundrum, Steve Sarkisian offered none yesterday. At his weekly press availability, Sark acknowledged the issues his QB is having but focused instead on the idea that Arch Manning will be better for it once he comes out on the other side. Of course, Texas fans are wondering when exactly we are going to see the other side. Will it be in 2025? The offense has been so lackluster that lofty pre-season aspirations have already been reduced.

I’ll admit, there is wisdom in what Sark said. Facing adversity, then overcoming it, it makes us all better. And maybe that’s what Manning is going through now. Yet here’s the issue Texas fans are grappling with: Not all quarterbacks overcome that adversity before eventually flourishing. Some just wither. Despite what Sark said, there’s no guarantee that adversity will make Arch Manning a better quarterback, or a quarterback that will eventually lead Texas to a college football playoff. Instead, Sark is making a projection into the future. The problem? A projection doesn’t win games in the here and now.

**

One thing I feel comfortable with is this: Sark is the coach making these statements and these decisions. This is not his first time shepherding a talented young QB through early season woes. He knows better than us whether or not Manning will eventually come through the other side. For those wondering, I remain a big believer in the future of Arch Manning. I don’t think a QB looks tremendous one year and overwhelmed the next. Not without a level of talent that is hard to stop from eventually blossoming. The problem is, Manning’s development is behind what we all expected. Well behind.

**

I’ve seen some comments about moving on to Matthew Caldwell at QB. I’ll agree that Caldwell might be a better immediate option if Manning continues to stumble. But I also want to be clear in this overall assessment: Texas isn’t going to win an SEC title if Caldwell has to start 6 conference games for the Longhorns. The Texas OL isn’t good enough for that, and the other pieces of the offense aren’t either. It’s a reminder to us all that it’s not just the QB who is having issues on offense currently. While so much national focus is on Arch, the offense as a whole has not played well to date. 

 

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Posted
36 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

He also seems to be back on the S&C tangent he was on in 2021, based on what he said on his podcast yesterday. Something about how the way we lift weights isn't translating to football strength and the top weight room performers are transfers.

I remember how proud he was this summer to tell his audience that he got great early odds for Clemson winning it all. He’s always ahead of the game, even when he’s behind. 

Posted
19 minutes ago, Ricky Butler said:

I remember how proud he was this summer to tell his audience that he got great early odds for Clemson winning it all. He’s always ahead of the game, even when he’s behind. 

I can't for the life of me figure out why Paul Waddlington, who maxed out as an undersized LB/EDGE in H.S., has a following.  He's not a coach, aside from his kids peewee team.  He doesn't have experience.  I guess he uses big words to sound smart?  He points out obvious stuff and uses rhetorical traps to call anyone who would disagree with him stupid?

Posted
14 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

I can't for the life of me figure out why Paul Waddlington, who maxed out as an undersized LB/EDGE in H.S., has a following.  He's not a coach, aside from his kids peewee team.  He doesn't have experience.  I guess he uses big words to sound smart?  He points out obvious stuff and uses rhetorical traps to call anyone who would disagree with him stupid?

I like some of his stuff, just not the condescension. We’re all in “we’ll see” mode about all of this.

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

He also seems to be back on the S&C tangent he was on in 2021, based on what he said on his podcast yesterday. Something about how the way we lift weights isn't translating to football strength and the top weight room performers are transfers.

He's intimating back to the dark days at the foundation of the program it seems

Edited by BurgleBro
Posted

Waddlington has obviously read Rippetoe's Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training and subscribes to the methods described there as "Strength = Ability to Apply Force against an External Resistance."  What he leaves out is that Rip also says that a novice will demonstrate incredible strength gains for months or even years, especially a genetically gifted 18-year old, even in a sub-standard training program.  Basically if you weight train an undertrained novice, they will progress, period.  Of course a better program with a Novice Linear Progression is always best.

If Waddlington is going to go with Rippetoe, the better definition would be Power (aka Explosion)which is the ability to express Strength rapidly.  The standing vertical jump is a good examples of demonstrating and measuring power production vs. squat or deadlift for strength.  Unfortunately, power is less trainable than strength, it's very genetic.

Nowadays, kids showing up are usually trained.  They've been doing weight training for 5-8 years at least.  They're beyond the novice phase and into intermediate where the gains are slower.  So the training programing needs to be different.  I suspect that while yes maybe the S&C program could be improved, the issue in the o-line is less raw power and more technique (pad level, leg drive), genetic gifts, and especially coordination.  It's not lack of strength that is making our O-line trip on their own feet and fall on their face, or dive and miss a cut block, or miss on a reach or combo block.

https://startingstrength.com/article/the-state-of-strength-conditioning-coaching

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

 I suspect that while yes maybe the S&C program could be improved, the issue in the o-line is less raw power and more technique (pad level, leg drive), genetic gifts, and especially coordination.  It's not lack of strength that is making our O-line trip on their own feet and fall on their face, or dive and miss a cut block, or miss on a reach or combo block.

https://startingstrength.com/article/the-state-of-strength-conditioning-coaching

I don't remember him attributing those mistakes to lack of strength. It's losing at the point of attack. It's getting driven backwards by D-lineline 40 pounds lighter. It's an inability to move people at the goal line. Off the top of my head I remember him specifically calling that stuff out on his latest podcast breakdown.

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Posted
16 minutes ago, CurlyDumps said:

I don't remember him attributing those mistakes to lack of strength. It's losing at the point of attack. It's getting driven backwards by D-lineline 40 pounds lighter. It's an inability to move people at the goal line. Off the top of my head I remember him specifically calling that stuff out on his latest podcast breakdown.

I'd also say the defense is in the same S&C program. We have no issues there, so I'm pretty confident the problem isn't our S&C training. The offensive side of the ball just has bad and poorly taught players. 

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Posted
47 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Waddlington has obviously read Rippetoe's Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training and subscribes to the methods described there as "Strength = Ability to Apply Force against an External Resistance."  What he leaves out is that Rip also says that a novice will demonstrate incredible strength gains for months or even years, especially a genetically gifted 18-year old, even in a sub-standard training program.  Basically if you weight train an undertrained novice, they will progress, period.  Of course a better program with a Novice Linear Progression is always best.

If Waddlington is going to go with Rippetoe, the better definition would be Power (aka Explosion)which is the ability to express Strength rapidly.  The standing vertical jump is a good examples of demonstrating and measuring power production vs. squat or deadlift for strength.  Unfortunately, power is less trainable than strength, it's very genetic.

Nowadays, kids showing up are usually trained.  They've been doing weight training for 5-8 years at least.  They're beyond the novice phase and into intermediate where the gains are slower.  So the training programing needs to be different.  I suspect that while yes maybe the S&C program could be improved, the issue in the o-line is less raw power and more technique (pad level, leg drive), genetic gifts, and especially coordination.  It's not lack of strength that is making our O-line trip on their own feet and fall on their face, or dive and miss a cut block, or miss on a reach or combo block.

https://startingstrength.com/article/the-state-of-strength-conditioning-coaching

I like him, but he can go a little crazy when he gets into the S&C aspect of things. I prefer him to just stick to game breakdowns. 

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Posted (edited)

Scipio does this weird thing where he can’t make a point without pretending that there’s a swath of people who have been arguing the opposite. It’s not enough to analyze the offense and say the OL is weak at the point of attack. He has to build this pretend group of people who are saying they just need time to gel or they’ll be okay because they need experience. No one worth listening to is saying that! He can’t just be right—someone else has to be wrong. To Scipio’s credit, he knows he’s arrogant. 
 

At any rate, he def loses some credibility not just for taking Clemson in all these bets but also for saying he knew they’d be awesome the day after they lost to UT in the playoff (while others only came on later to Clem). 

That said…I’ve read just about every word he’s written since early Barking Carnival and always enjoy his stuff. 

Edited by Bobby Western
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