Ketch's 10 Thoughts From The Weekend (The chance was there for the taking)
- Thread starter Ketchum
- Start date
Once Hayden Connor went down Baylor D lived in the offensive backfield. HCs backup is a better run blocker than pass blocker. QE is a young qb and he was getting smothered before he could move. You are putting way too much blame on QE, and not giving any credit to Coach Sark for the necessary adjustment to that situation to protect the game, the young qb and play to the strengths of the OL as it was. These eyes saw an offense that was doing fine and quite frankly wasn’t really stopped earlier.
The tale of the season was the team beating itself. Later on the team won on the road, learned to win close games late. The OL and DL were better than than last 10 years. The d rounded into shape nicely. Recruiting is very good. Development happened, not enough with the qb, but most everywhere else. Jim Hightower used to say “when you dig yourself a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.” That’s a good season and a step in the right direction. They finally stopped digging. Tom Herman was smoke and mirrors and even the Sugar Bowl win only pointed out that bad line play can be covered up with a great qb. CS was a bad coach in all phases.
Good season. Good Future.
That does not relax any standard going forward, things need to keep progressing. But painting it in a negative light is disingenuous at best.
The tale of the season was the team beating itself. Later on the team won on the road, learned to win close games late. The OL and DL were better than than last 10 years. The d rounded into shape nicely. Recruiting is very good. Development happened, not enough with the qb, but most everywhere else. Jim Hightower used to say “when you dig yourself a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.” That’s a good season and a step in the right direction. They finally stopped digging. Tom Herman was smoke and mirrors and even the Sugar Bowl win only pointed out that bad line play can be covered up with a great qb. CS was a bad coach in all phases.
Good season. Good Future.
That does not relax any standard going forward, things need to keep progressing. But painting it in a negative light is disingenuous at best.
But you are implying (and not subtly) the coaches were saying “Ewers sucks, we should not let him do anything but hand the ball off because he sucks today”.
When I believe the coaches were closer to “Baylor can’t stop our running game anymore, let’s run it till they show they can stop us”.
Your interpretation is negative towards Ewers vs just exploiting a Baylor weakness.
Well those actions include giving Ewers all the snaps, so I'm not sure why that would change this offseason. Especially as it pertains to Card and Murphy. If Manning looks great from the outset, then yeah that could lead to an actual competition. But I think Sark is fully committed to Ewers's development and views him as the starter for at least next year.
I am implying their actions suggested they said, "Ewers is struggling, we should not let him do anything but hand the ball off because he is really struggling at various critical moments today”.
I expect Ewers to be QB1 unless he loses it or someone takes it. That'll be hard to do.
Thanks for the kind words- one more thing- once Big 12 defensive coaches got film on Ewers, they learned quickly how to make life more difficult for him. Another reaosn he needs to study film like hel this off season- there's a book on him and his tendencies now that OU didn't have when it saw him this season.
Do you think that Card transfers? It's sort of an underrated threat to the success of next year's team. Would mean if QE gets hurt or just really struggles the backups have literally no experience.
Not a relevant comparison. Were the Horns gouging the D with the run every play vs OSU? They were vs BU in Q4. Only a dumb play caller would do anything but run the ball in that situation.…..even if his QB was named Montana, or Brady, or dare I say….Manning?
It was always the bridge he would have to cross and it's one of the reasons why his injury was such a killer. It threw the timing os when and how he could combat the adjustments.
What happened in October happened in November and we never saw him really work his way out of it.
What irks me about Sark is he wouldn’t let Ewers pull the ball and run occasionally to keep the defense honest. It was there all year and he waited until Baylor to run it on the goal line.
It was wide open because Baylor wasn’t expecting it. We wouldn’t have beaten OSU with just a few of those runs.
It was wide open because Baylor wasn’t expecting it. We wouldn’t have beaten OSU with just a few of those runs.
Thank you. This is the minimum in this leave given we have first or second recruiting class for the last 15 years running.
Well **** me. I agree pretty much entirely with Ketchum’s opening piece.
If this was the case, why did he wait until after he gave away more points to start doing it?
What was the longest sequence of run plays before then?
I'll hang up and listen.
I'm sorry I put you in that kind of position. No one should ever be made to feel that way,
I'm sort of ambivalent on whether this season is considered a "success" or not. I'll take the improvement in record and the bowl game as a starting point. I like our identity on defense... and it seems like the style of play on offense was beginning to emerge late in the year. Whether that carries over, remains to be seen.
One thing I really do like is what we are doing to improve our linemen on both sides of the ball. We took some lumps on the OL with underclassmen, but we have a very good 2-deep shaping up. While we lose some important pieces on the DL, we have enough for a viable rotation, and Bo Davis has done wonders at talent development. As long we continue to be in a position to win the LOS on both sides of the ball, I'm generally optimistic.
We may be going way overboard on the talk with Ewers. He fit the description of "freshman QB" pretty much to a "T"... and Sark seemed committed to have him learn many things the hard way with a young and inconsistent OL. I would expect the whole QB room is going to be developed via competition, so Ewers is going to need to dedicate himself to the mental part of the game. I didn't see any freshman QB take the Big 12 by storm... nor did I ever expect to see that.
Many of you in the peanut gallery leaned too much on recency bias and showed little confidence in PK and the defense before the year began. Shame on all of you.
We need to make sure the pendulum doesn't swing to far the other way, though... we lose some important pieces there.
One thing I really do like is what we are doing to improve our linemen on both sides of the ball. We took some lumps on the OL with underclassmen, but we have a very good 2-deep shaping up. While we lose some important pieces on the DL, we have enough for a viable rotation, and Bo Davis has done wonders at talent development. As long we continue to be in a position to win the LOS on both sides of the ball, I'm generally optimistic.
We may be going way overboard on the talk with Ewers. He fit the description of "freshman QB" pretty much to a "T"... and Sark seemed committed to have him learn many things the hard way with a young and inconsistent OL. I would expect the whole QB room is going to be developed via competition, so Ewers is going to need to dedicate himself to the mental part of the game. I didn't see any freshman QB take the Big 12 by storm... nor did I ever expect to see that.
Many of you in the peanut gallery leaned too much on recency bias and showed little confidence in PK and the defense before the year began. Shame on all of you.
We need to make sure the pendulum doesn't swing to far the other way, though... we lose some important pieces there.Could it have been even better yes it could but it was a step forward and with the past several years of this program and with a kid that had not played QB for 2 years it was a step forward Ketch whether you acknowledge it or not.
You can post all the silly emojis you want and I understand your point but as you often are you're wrong again. The Dallas Morning News had this headline...
Even without Big 12 title game, Texas’ season represents ‘progress as a program’
And SI ran this story a few hours ago...
Longhorns Culture Change Under Steve Sarkisian Evident Following Win Over Baylor
In arguably their biggest game of the year, Steve Sarkisian had the Longhorns prepared to face the Bears.- CONNOR ZIMMERLEE
- 11 HOURS AGO
There are a lot of positives from this season and yes negatives as well. When you tally them all up over all the season was a success and provides opportunities for more growth moving forward. The change in culture alone is a major success and fortunately for us and the team while you're a good guy and love OB's your not on the field and guys that know development are...!!
Agree with the entire post except the movie list not putting Raider of the Lost Arc as #1…it is a perfect movie and I‘ll bet it’s been watched more than all of the others since leaving the theaters. All of the top 10 are great, but Raiders is the best…not just for Spielberg, but all-time, for pure movie entertainment.
@Ketchum regarding your short-sighted take on Ewers, you are trying soooo hard to move the goal posts, it's comical. Let's summarize...you blamed Ewers for a slow developing pass play (called by Sark) and a busted pass protection that led to a sack fumble on Ewers. In reality, none of that play was on Ewers. Could he have taken the sack, sure, but in the heat of a moment he is just trying to mitigate risk and get rid of the ball. A strip sack is not on the QB, same as KSU's QB getting strip sacked vs KU and no one said a word. Shit happens.
Ewers Passer Efficiency rating (that you LOVE) displayed winning football. I don't recall one single throw that he made that was stupid or high risk. Did he make 100% perfect throws? Hell no, but neither did Patrick Mahomes tonight (see the interception in the end zone).
Ewers played winning football and Sark realized that the pass protection was sucking ass and decided to lean in on the run game until Baylor showed they could stop it. New flash, they couldn't and thus we never had to throw the ball again.
Throwing the ball, just cause, is stupid. If a team can't stop the run, then run you must.
Ewers Passer Efficiency rating (that you LOVE) displayed winning football. I don't recall one single throw that he made that was stupid or high risk. Did he make 100% perfect throws? Hell no, but neither did Patrick Mahomes tonight (see the interception in the end zone).
Ewers played winning football and Sark realized that the pass protection was sucking ass and decided to lean in on the run game until Baylor showed they could stop it. New flash, they couldn't and thus we never had to throw the ball again.
Throwing the ball, just cause, is stupid. If a team can't stop the run, then run you must.
Yes! But why are you assuming that?
If a defense can’t stop the run and so the coach just runs the ball, is it a reflection of the QB (who happens to be having a good statistical game)?
That is the argument you are trying to make. Which is very speculative. WHO won’t run the ball if the defense can’t stop the run?
It was pocket presence, and he clearly did not do as well in that area this week. You win.
If you want to throw stones though, we could always revisit the Kelvin Banks tackle prospect discussions 🙂
Odd response. I thought i was quite respectful about why I found it annoying for you to fail noticing the poor OL play and instead focus on Ewers. It's ok to recognize both and still believe Ewers primarily forced Sark’s hand.
And given that “Sark put Ewers on training wheels while also failing to give him a strong vote of confidence the week before,” it seems incongruent for Sark’s training wheels to kick in after the last sack, and not from the outset. It's almost as if he trusted Ewers and the protection until he could no longer ignore both were struggling.
Just my two cents.
agree that the record at this point doesn’t tell the whole story. recruiting has turned around, culture is improved, sense of professionalism (at least this year) around the program. we got arch and game day was here twice for pete’s sake. all of this is the INPUT to winning, which is what we all expect. there are shortcuts to winning - but these don’t last - so let’s stop quoting herman’s record. Sark has to deliver, but he’s taken a number of big steps and I respect the foundation he’s building.
I guess from the cynical, entitled UT fan perspective, the season was a failure. The reality is that UT football is not where it was at the heights of the Mack Brown era so to just blow off the fact that the team just finished with an 8+ regular season win total for only the second time in the last 9 seasons, comes across as very cynical. Many people assumed that this year's team would have a tough time reaching 8 wins this year, given the multitude of problems this team faced at this time last year. There were culture and commitment issues. The defense was probably the worst in team history and many weren't sure if we had the right guy at DC. The offensive line was a running joke among most posters on this board. Strength and conditioning was another major concern, as the run defense was non-existent in the second half of most games. Recruiting momentum was at a standstill, with only 2 unheralded players committed to play OL. We were losing our starting kicker/punter to the NFL. There was nothing but pessimism with regard to the future of our QB position. A&M and OU were ascendant programs and the thought was that 5-7 would only put us further behind those programs. We appeared to be totally F'd as a program at this time last year.
But if you look at where the team is today with any level of perspective, it's pretty clear that the team has come a long way from where it was and is being built in the right way and in a manner that should be sustainable for the long haul. The primary objective this year was to put enough wins on the board to keep the recruiting momentum going. Sure, there have been coaches that were able to stumble into a team of talented upperclassmen and see great success for a year or so (Baylor, TCU, etc.) But what Big12 team other than Texas is positioned for long term success?
But if you look at where the team is today with any level of perspective, it's pretty clear that the team has come a long way from where it was and is being built in the right way and in a manner that should be sustainable for the long haul. The primary objective this year was to put enough wins on the board to keep the recruiting momentum going. Sure, there have been coaches that were able to stumble into a team of talented upperclassmen and see great success for a year or so (Baylor, TCU, etc.) But what Big12 team other than Texas is positioned for long term success?
good postI'm sort of ambivalent on whether this season is considered a "success" or not. I'll take the improvement in record and the bowl game as a starting point. I like our identity on defense... and it seems like the style of play on offense was beginning to emerge late in the year. Whether that carries over, remains to be seen.
One thing I really do like is what we are doing to improve our linemen on both sides of the ball. We took some lumps on the OL with underclassmen, but we have a very good 2-deep shaping up. While we lose some important pieces on the DL, we have enough for a viable rotation, and Bo Davis has done wonders at talent development. As long we continue to be in a position to win the LOS on both sides of the ball, I'm generally optimistic.
We may be going way overboard on the talk with Ewers. He fit the description of "freshman QB" pretty much to a "T"... and Sark seemed committed to have him learn many things the hard way with a young and inconsistent OL. I would expect the whole QB room is going to be developed via competition, so Ewers is going to need to dedicate himself to the mental part of the game. I didn't see any freshman QB take the Big 12 by storm... nor did I ever expect to see that.
Many of you in the peanut gallery leaned too much on recency bias and showed little confidence in PK and the defense before the year began. Shame on all of you.
Joe Burrows top 2 receivers that year were Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson, arguable the top 2 wide receivers in the league. You’re damn right he had a good year, so would have any QB who was accurate.
I wrote that it was a step forward.
But, from what?
One of the worst seasons in Texas history.
Context is everything.
