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Posted
22 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

The same people blaming Akina today were blaming Gideon in 2023. We've seen this playout with PK's defense twice now. 

BUT Akina is a known commodity. The criticisms were here when he coached here before.

And we remember that, right or wrong, he committed mutiny on Manny Diaz on national TV, and that destroyed that team. I am no fan of that, I don’t care who the coaches are.

Akina has been a great coach. He also has Mack’s stench all over him. I’ll remain skeptical, but I hope he does well here. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Tex Pete said:

BUT Akina is a known commodity. The criticisms were here when he coached here before.

And we remember that, right or wrong, he committed mutiny on Manny Diaz on national TV, and that destroyed that team. I am no fan of that, I don’t care who the coaches are.

Akina has been a great coach. He also has Mack’s stench all over him. I’ll remain skeptical, but I hope he does well here. 

A known commodity with a strong history of constantly developing NFL and Thorpe winning DBs. I just don't see anything different here than what we saw with young players in PK's defense early on. Our linebackers are struggling with depth. This happened before. Our safeties are struggling with their responsibilities. We've seen this before. And we are struggling with communication on the back end. This we've seen before. All of these things can get fixed with experience. Having so many young players out there end up meaning that someone is always messing up.

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Posted
17 minutes ago, Park Gothic said:

Here is Scipio's write up on the defense (credit to @satyanash) along with a scathing review of our DB play:

Relevant portion for those who don't want to click a link:

We were straight up bad all game, even before MacDonald came out. It was just covered up by our pass rush. Which is part of why it's nice to have such a good pass rush. 

What's news to me, however, is that Scipio puts a lot of the blame on Derek Williams. I've been blaming Guilbeau for most of the breakdowns. While I think Guilbeau definitely shares part of the blame, it may be that he's trying to do too much from the CB position to make for poor play from Williams. The more I watch the Vandy game the more I have to agree that Williams seems to have lost something in terms of his aggression and awareness. I still think Guilbeau is a poor fit at CB, however, and should move back to nickel. 

Who do we move to corner though?  Littleton?  Black is way too slow to be a CB imo.

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Posted (edited)
35 minutes ago, Park Gothic said:

Here is Scipio's write up on the defense (credit to @satyanash) along with a scathing review of our DB play:

Relevant portion for those who don't want to click a link:

We were straight up bad all game, even before MacDonald came out. It was just covered up by our pass rush. Which is part of why it's nice to have such a good pass rush. 

What's news to me, however, is that Scipio puts a lot of the blame on Derek Williams. I've been blaming Guilbeau for most of the breakdowns. While I think Guilbeau definitely shares part of the blame, it may be that he's trying to do too much from the CB position to make for poor play from Williams. The more I watch the Vandy game the more I have to agree that Williams seems to have lost something in terms of his aggression and awareness. I still think Guilbeau is a poor fit at CB, however, and should move back to nickel. 

Safety and LB were huge reasons the poor pass defense. Pavia threw 47% of his passes between the hashes and those represented 59% of his completions and 56% of his yards. Guilbeau and Littleton have been frequent targets of opposing offenses. Littleton gets break being a true frosh and in probably the most demanding secondary position. I dont think Vanderbilt is built to really test the CBs. 

Edited by Codaxx
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Posted

Pretty sure he will not be back next year so it’s pointless defending him. He was a bad hire at the time and it’s pretty obvious to everyone involved he cannot coach a secondary in zone defense if his life depended on it and that was the case twenty years ago and it’s still the case today. We lost to Florida partly because of this hire. I cannot imagine a scenario where he is coaching here again next year. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Jimmy Two Times said:

I don't put much stock in what Taaffe says. Love the guy, but he's essentially a PR rep for the program. 

Probably true, but I think Akina was well liked and a good teacher of coverage.  It's zones that are his downfall.  I suppose you could argue that zone is the only thing that really needs teaching  . . . . 

Posted

Akina was an idiotic hire likely meant to be some familiarity unit for Nansen. He lorded over the worst tackling era from defensive backs I've ever seen at Texas. Herman and Strong tried to surpass Akina in complete tackling ineptitude and couldn't manage it. Akina gets here and we're instantly tackling poorly in the defensive backfield and taking shitty angles. Maybe that's circumstantial. PK has been a lot of things, but he's never had bad tackling in the secondary since he's been at Texas. PK relinquished control over the back end and tackling has gotten gradually terrible this season.

What happened to the secondary against Vanderbilt cannot be excused by young, inexperienced players. That was an overt display of a poorly coached unit. They had no concept of responsibility. They were food. That single performance was so bad that it would be perfectly reasonable to dismiss Akina right now. If you don't want to be shitty for the sake of optics, then let him finish the season and be gone. But a serious program with serious goals doesn't allow that guy a second chance to do that. Nothing he suggests in a meeting should be taken seriously for the rest of this season.

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Posted
On 11/1/2025 at 2:50 PM, ztejas said:

Guilbeau is trash. Baffling how he hasn't been processed out. 

What's even weirder, or possibly worse, is that he was somehow starting ahead of Barron as a freshman. Like, wut? I know it took Barron a few years to get to where he is, but Guilbeau has remained consistently mediocre. The move to CB is especially dumb. He doesn't have the speed or instincts to even play the position. You can't look at me and tell me he's better than Kobe Black. Not a chance. I saw Black and he could hold his man for most of the time, even if the little we've seen of him, he's still running side by side, as a 6'2 200lbs DB. I don't expect Kade Phillips or Caleb Chester (especially right now, or even for another 2 years) to take over, but where is Santana Wilson? Roberson? Mack? Guilbeau, and it may be due to him having torn his ACL (just look at the speed Baxter has lost) being the reason for his struggles, but even if that's the case, he doesn't have the elite traits to make up for his lost speed (Baxter can due to his block and pass catching). 

So yeah, I do lay the blame for this catastrophe at the feet of Akina and mostly Orphey, since that's his position, not Akina's. Now Akina without Taaffe and Mcdonald is an avolanche of diarrhea. Maybe once Filsaime grows up, Jonah Williams gets a year older, Zelus Hicks gets older, or really any of our frosh or RS-FR get older they'll look more competent with his coaching, but I just don't think he has it. I expected JJ-R to to play more, but it's like Orphey/Akina have no idea how to utilize any of the pieces. I get not all guys work out, but give me a break. I've seen JJ-R play, and he's not some scrub. He wasn't lighting the world on fire as frosh, but he saw enough playing time when Williams went down that we got to see him actually be used properly with Gideon's help. How in the absolute fuck do you not have a guy covering the entire left side of the field for that long pass for a TD? Not a single safety outside of Derek Williams was even in the general vicinity, and that's only because he's a FS. Guilbeau got absolutely torched with no help whatsoever, which is on both Akina and Orphey. 

Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, William Bludworth said:

What's even weirder, or possibly worse, is that he was somehow starting ahead of Barron as a freshman. Like, wut? I know it took Barron a few years to get to where he is, but Guilbeau has remained consistently mediocre. The move to CB is especially dumb. He doesn't have the speed or instincts to even play the position. You can't look at me and tell me he's better than Kobe Black. Not a chance. I saw Black and he could hold his man for most of the time, even if the little we've seen of him, he's still running side by side, as a 6'2 200lbs DB. I don't expect Kade Phillips or Caleb Chester (especially right now, or even for another 2 years) to take over, but where is Santana Wilson? Roberson? Mack? Guilbeau, and it may be due to him having torn his ACL (just look at the speed Baxter has lost) being the reason for his struggles, but even if that's the case, he doesn't have the elite traits to make up for his lost speed (Baxter can due to his block and pass catching). 

So yeah, I do lay the blame for this catastrophe at the feet of Akina and mostly Orphey, since that's his position, not Akina's. Now Akina without Taaffe and Mcdonald is an avolanche of diarrhea. Maybe once Filsaime grows up, Jonah Williams gets a year older, Zelus Hicks gets older, or really any of our frosh or RS-FR get older they'll look more competent with his coaching, but I just don't think he has it. I expected JJ-R to to play more, but it's like Orphey/Akina have no idea how to utilize any of the pieces. I get not all guys work out, but give me a break. I've seen JJ-R play, and he's not some scrub. He wasn't lighting the world on fire as frosh, but he saw enough playing time when Williams went down that we got to see him actually be used properly with Gideon's help. How in the absolute fuck do you not have a guy covering the entire left side of the field for that long pass for a TD? Not a single safety outside of Derek Williams was even in the general vicinity, and that's only because he's a FS. Guilbeau got absolutely torched with no help whatsoever, which is on both Akina and Orphey. 

Looked like some type of Cover 2 (Tampa 2). Technically, that is not Guilbeau's man. I believe it was Williams' man (though I didnt go back and look who was at safety). That said Guilbeau should carry the WR, if nobody shows up in his zone (nobody did). This also goes to football IQ. It is bad not to carry a WR in the 1Q, but its kind of WTF when you dont do it in the 4Q with a 10 pt lead with under 4 minutes to go. Who cares if you give up a catch in the flat in that situation. 

Edited by Codaxx
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Posted
9 minutes ago, William Bludworth said:

What's even weirder, or possibly worse, is that he was somehow starting ahead of Barron as a freshman. Like, wut? I know it took Barron a few years to get to where he is, but Guilbeau has remained consistently mediocre. The move to CB is especially dumb. He doesn't have the speed or instincts to even play the position. You can't look at me and tell me he's better than Kobe Black. Not a chance. I saw Black and he could hold his man for most of the time, even if the little we've seen of him, he's still running side by side, as a 6'2 200lbs DB. I don't expect Kade Phillips or Caleb Chester (especially right now, or even for another 2 years) to take over, but where is Santana Wilson? Roberson? Mack? Guilbeau, and it may be due to him having torn his ACL (just look at the speed Baxter has lost) being the reason for his struggles, but even if that's the case, he doesn't have the elite traits to make up for his lost speed (Baxter can due to his block and pass catching). 

So yeah, I do lay the blame for this catastrophe at the feet of Akina and mostly Orphey, since that's his position, not Akina's. Now Akina without Taaffe and Mcdonald is an avolanche of diarrhea. Maybe once Filsaime grows up, Jonah Williams gets a year older, Zelus Hicks gets older, or really any of our frosh or RS-FR get older they'll look more competent with his coaching, but I just don't think he has it. I expected JJ-R to to play more, but it's like Orphey/Akina have no idea how to utilize any of the pieces. I get not all guys work out, but give me a break. I've seen JJ-R play, and he's not some scrub. He wasn't lighting the world on fire as frosh, but he saw enough playing time when Williams went down that we got to see him actually be used properly with Gideon's help. How in the absolute fuck do you not have a guy covering the entire left side of the field for that long pass for a TD? Not a single safety outside of Derek Williams was even in the general vicinity, and that's only because he's a FS. Guilbeau got absolutely torched with no help whatsoever, which is on both Akina and Orphey. 

Guilbeau is a guy you want playing like 20 snaps off the bench.

It is what it is. Good players tend to hold teams together. When they are missing it makes everything look worse. 

I was concerned about this secondary from the get go. They have played well when everyone is healthy - they're just too thin. 

The DL meanwhile is turning into a bunch of fucking animals. 

The D isn't as good as last season but it can still be very good. Hopefully a lot is shored up during the bye. 

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Codaxx said:

That said Guilbeau should carry the WR, if nobody shows up in his zone (nobody did). This also goes to football IQ. It bad not to carry a WR in the 1Q, but its kind of WTF when you dont do it in the 4Q with a 10 pt lead with under 4 minutes to go. Who cares if you give up a catch in the flat in that situation. 

Exactly. Absolute potato.

Posted
12 minutes ago, Chooky said:

PK relinquished control over the back end and tackling has gotten gradually terrible this season.

What happened to the secondary against Vanderbilt cannot be excused by young, inexperienced players. That was an overt display of a poorly coached unit. They had no concept of responsibility. 

I don’t know what failed, but on the long uncovered TD, Guilbeau and Trey Moore were arguing about the coverage bust when they were on the 40, trailing the receiver on the 20 headed in for the TD. That’s bullshit and Akina needs to control that. Players should never argue on the field. They need to know who has what assignment and do their job. 

Posted
8 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Guilbeau is a guy you want playing like 20 snaps off the bench.

It is what it is. Good players tend to hold teams together. When they are missing it makes everything look worse. 

I was concerned about this secondary from the get go. They have played well when everyone is healthy - they're just too thin. 

The DL meanwhile is turning into a bunch of fucking animals. 

The D isn't as good as last season but it can still be very good. Hopefully a lot is shored up during the bye. 

Texas was healthy vs Florida and Kentucky. Both hurt Texas with the pass. The implosion vs Vandy was likely due to injury (coaches and players are still culpable here), but I think there we are seeing signs this defense is closer to the 2023 defense than the 2024 defense. Both were good vs the run. 2023 defense was not great vs the pass. 2024 defense was legit at every level. The one big positive for this defense vs the 2023 is the pass rush. That will mitigate some of the issues. 

Posted
9 minutes ago, Tex Pete said:

I don’t know what failed, but on the long uncovered TD, Guilbeau and Trey Moore were arguing about the coverage bust when they were on the 40, trailing the receiver on the 20 headed in for the TD. That’s bullshit and Akina needs to control that. Players should never argue on the field. They need to know who has what assignment and do their job. 


The problem is Akina himself likely does not understand zone concepts so how the fuck is he supposed to teach that to anyone else? The mistake was made when Joseph and Gideon left to hire a 70 something year old coach who can only teach man to corners to go with our mostly zone defensive coordinator. This is on Sark. 

Posted
30 minutes ago, Codaxx said:

Texas was healthy vs Florida and Kentucky. Both hurt Texas with the pass.

Muhammad was out against UF. Kentucky only threw for 258 on 39 throws against Texas. The main issue in that game was the offense couldn't stay on the fucking field. It's easy to put up close to total 400 yards when you run 86 god damn plays. I thought our LBs were bad in coverage that game, too.

I think our pass D with MM and Taaffe is better than '23. 

Agree this D as a whole may be closer to '23s. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, ztejas said:

Muhammad was out against UF. Kentucky only threw for 258 on 39 throws against Texas. The main issue in that game was the offense couldn't stay on the fucking field. It's easy to put up close to total 400 yards when you run 86 god damn plays. I thought our LBs were bad in coverage that game, too.

I think our pass D with MM and Taaffe is better than '23. 

Agree this D as a whole may be closer to '23s. 

It's Kentucky. They killed Texas underneath all game and held on to the ball. Kentucky hasnt been that efficient all year outside of piling up passing stats in a blow vs Tenn. 

I did not say the secondary is worse or even at the same level as the 2023 group. I just said it closer to teh 2023 group, than the 2024 group. 

Basically, this defense is probably not elite this year. Still damn good, but I think you can attack the secondary. Probably later in games as the pass rush tires 

Posted
1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Guilbeau is a guy you want playing like 20 snaps off the bench.

It is what it is. Good players tend to hold teams together. When they are missing it makes everything look worse. 

I was concerned about this secondary from the get go. They have played well when everyone is healthy - they're just too thin. 

The DL meanwhile is turning into a bunch of fucking animals. 

The D isn't as good as last season but it can still be very good. Hopefully a lot is shored up during the bye. 

I agree with all of this. 20 snaps at best. Great tackler, slow af, gets picked on as a senior - terrible combo. 

We need someone out of Black/Phillips/Wilson to separate themselves, and I would prefer that to be Black at this time. 

Also, yeah, we are disasterously generous with our lack of DB/S in the room, and we only have 2 CB's and a S committed. I imagine they'll go to the portal, but honestly, it's past time we should be hitting the portal for DB's. We should have enough, and that's a failure on the defensive as a whole. But whatever. Maybe we'll land another Mukuba or someone. 

Posted
8 minutes ago, Codaxx said:

Kentucky hasnt been that efficient all year outside of piling up passing stats in a blow vs Tenn. 

Their yards per play was higher against Ole Miss but they were a little better on 3rd down against Texas. Agree Kentucky played a tight, well-executed game vs Texas. So did Miss St for large stretches. 

You can definitely attack this secondary. They can attack you back, though. McDonald and Muhammad both lay the wood for their positions and we are pretty good at picking balls off. 

Posted
31 minutes ago, Navin R. Johnson said:

How many times do we have to give up a free ten yards on the sideline until it’s determined that Akina is asswater?

This was a feature of our defense before PK. I know y'all want to play everything on the coach that has been here for less than a year, but these aren't new problems for us. We expect a lot of defenders and when they are inexperienced, it tends to lead to problems. I just don't see how any of this is Akina's fault. When the experienced guys play, our coverage is much tighter. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, Scholz said:

A man who has coached in college football for almost half a century doesn't understand zone defense?  Sure OK.  Just say he's old and you don't like old people.  


Yes that is exactly what I am saying. We knew this from his time at Texas. This isn’t new information. When asked to do more than coach up corners to play man defense he failed miserably. 

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Posted

Teams don’t tend to challenge Manny often so the opposite corner is going to see a lot of work. Gilbeau is average at best, and whoever is asking for Black, he has been worse IMO and looks even slower. Roberson can’t stop committing stupid penalties, Mack is a nickel, and I don’t even think Wilson is on the depth chart at this point. If Littleton can play CB not sure why we haven’t tried moving him over and putting Mack at nickel. The secondary as a whole seems to lack speed, just like the offense does.

Posted
11 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

A known commodity with a strong history of constantly developing NFL and Thorpe winning DBs. I just don't see anything different here than what we saw with young players in PK's defense early on. Our linebackers are struggling with depth. This happened before. Our safeties are struggling with their responsibilities. We've seen this before. And we are struggling with communication on the back end. This we've seen before. All of these things can get fixed with experience. Having so many young players out there end up meaning that someone is always messing up.

Several years ago, posters were calling for Terry Joseph to be fired too. Then after our secondary matured, our defense became elite and now Terry is coaching in the NFL. Akina has been here less than a year, and we have a roster full of young DB's and the same pattern is repeating.  

Posted

Does anyone remember this headline from back in the day….

Mack Brown Addresses Tackling as an Issue in America

Guess the epidemic has returned bigger and stronger than ever.
Any chance we can go outside America and find some Nigerian tackling nightmares. 
American Samoa, is that still considered Merica?  

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Posted
21 hours ago, Scholz said:

A man who has coached in college football for almost half a century doesn't understand zone defense?  Sure OK.  Just say he's old and you don't like old people.  

happy-gilmore-hal-l-you-re-in-my-world-g

happy-gilmore-threat.gif

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Posted (edited)

Akina is a phenomenal man-to-man coach. Always has been.

Akina is a dogshit zone coach. Always has been. 

Akina is the same dude he was a decade ago, but mixing zones and disguising coverage are even more critical now.

 

Edited by Pods
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Posted

Right. Mack is a hall of fame coach. But he sure as shit wasn’t in 2010, 2011, or 2012.

Using what someone did in 2005 as justification for no criticism in 2025 is a sure fire way to waste a lot of money and lose games. 

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