Only one Longhorn invited to NFL Combine.

[swVAHorn]

Exactly. This is a bunch of 20/20 hindsight BS. I don't recall any of these guys calling for this before now.

The narrative last year was Heard was going to be the stud to fix the long walk without a good QB.

You don't recall ANYONE calling for a juco or transfer BEFORE last season? Then you are being dishonest.

After Strong's first season everyone who knew anything about football knew Texas needed a QB and they knew a redshirt freshman wasn't going to be the immediate fix needed.

 

[bubba2023]

The narrative was we all hoped Heard would be the guy, but if your stance is that a JUCO or transfer QB is only a topic of hindsight your are being dishonest or you have got a lot of posters on ignore. This fanbase has been arguing for a JUCO when we were still in the Mack era, and it's been argued heavily since Ash's concussion issues started, and some before that.

 

[outhereincali]

Guys it's time to move on to 2016. Spring ball should be starting soon and I can't wait to see who surprises and move into the steering lineup, maybe someone we didn't see coming. Los of other good stuff were looking forward to.

 

[jsto60]

The narrative was we all hoped Heard would be the guy, but if your stance is that a JUCO or transfer QB is only a topic of hindsight your are being dishonest or you have got a lot of posters on ignore. This fanbase has been arguing for a JUCO when we were still in the Mack era, and it's been argued heavily since Ash's concussion issues started, and some before that.

I always liked Heard. Still do.

But to put all your eggs in year 1 lets RS him. And year 2 he is a stud as a RS frosh. Again, perfect timing to add an experienced guy. It made so much sense, it is mind boggling that so many are arguing.

I get it, you don't want to talk bad about Strong. I like Strong a lot. I just think in two areas he f'd up from the start. OC and QB. I love that he is addressing those now. I wish he would have done it more aggressively early on. We all knew with him coming in, those were key areas of need.

 

[BringBackRoyal]

Could have fooled me.

I mean just look back at the thread.

Heck, just look right above this very post I am referencing of yours. When someone has a one liner basically saying "who"? As if to say, there were just no options and you can't blame Charlie. I'm just saying that is categorically erroneous.

The vast majority of Texas fans on Texas message boards believe that Strong should have brought someone else in at QB by now. Those discussions are nearly always unanimous, objectors in this thread notwithstanding. In any case, that was hardly the main point of what I wrote.

 

[BringBackRoyal]

Longyac can respond on his own, but I'll add a few thoughts here.

1) Wittik was never ON board with Texas. I don't ever remember seeing him put on a jersey or take a single class here.

You keep saying this, but it really isn't an answer to anything. Buechele wasn't "on board" with Texas either before signing his LOI and enrolling, but the coaching staff certainly felt assured enough about his intent to attend Texas that they weren't recruiting other QBs. The staff felt the same about Wittek -- up until the time he got kicked out of USC in May 2014, at which point there weren't any other viable options.

2) The above being true, when the staff "lost" Wittik is when they could have gone after Kohlhausen or WHOEVER else. No one is saying he should have xferred to TCU and then left there to come here.

Kohlhausen announced several weeks before Wittek was expelled that he would transfer to TCU. What other appealing candidates were available in the middle of May? (By the way, you mentioned Brewer earlier, but he wasn't an option for 2014. Tech blocked him from being able to transfer to a Big 12 school without having to sit out a year.)

And he went all in on Wittik AND MISSED.

He gets the blame for that. Why excuse it?

Ultimately the blame will rest with Charlie for everything, because he will be retained or fired based on his win-loss record. If the refs were to rob us of three wins next year in the same fashion that they did with the Okie State game in 2015, Charlie will still take the blame for that too; no one is going to excuse, say, a 6-6 record that would have been 9-3 if the refs hadn't been crooked. The three losses may not really be Charlie's fault, but he would still take the blame for them.

Even though the blame rests with Charlie as it will everything else (just as it would have if Buechele had decommitted a few days before NSD), the point here is only that the failure to bring in a grad transfer in 2014 was not due to some sort of negligence on his part. Any coaching staff looking to land a grad transfer ultimately goes "all in" on one guy. How often do schools land more than one grad transfer QB? How often are schools pursuing more than one candidate with a little over three months before the season begins?

The staff felt certain that they had a grad transfer QB until events that they could not have reasonably foreseen occurred to prevent the player from graduating. What else should Strong have done in the middle of May 2014?

 

[BringBackRoyal]

Exactly. This is a bunch of 20/20 hindsight BS. I don't recall any of these guys calling for this before now.

The narrative last year was Heard was going to be the stud to fix the long walk without a good QB.

I don't recall hardly anyone saying that a RS freshman QB who generated only ho-hum reviews in practice reports was going to be some miracle-worker for us in 2015. Texas fans were virtually unanimous after 2014 that we needed to get a quick fix in here for 2015, with hopes that Heard or someone else would be ready to take over the following year if necessary.

 

[Son of Wasatch]

from Case McCoy to Swoopes to Heard...I have never seen such a run of bad play from the QB position since I have been watching them from 1962 on....I dont care who blames who...I just want to see it end. I have hope because we at least now have some choices. If this one doesnt do the job, next man up....we have a chance.

I agree.

Even in the dark days of Texas football (84-97), Texas still had guys like Todd Dodge, Peter Gardere, and James Brown. Even the guys we wiffed on were still pretty highly regarded. Shea Morenz and Steve Clements would have been an upgrade over our current situation.

Lately we have been both cursed and snake bitten at this spot. I'm still not giving up on Heard. If you care about recruiting rankings, Heard was the #4 dual threat QB coming out of high school in 2014. Patrick Mahomes was the #14 dual threat QB that year, can you imagine the meltdown this board would have had if we lost Heard and took Mahomes?

I go back to what I have said in the past, when it comes to Oline and QB you never know what you will get from those positions when you recruit.

One of my all-time favorite coaches was LaVelle Edwards who coached at BYU. He told the story that when he was recruiting Ty Dietmer the first time they met in person Ty was on the BYU campus for his official visit. Edwards said when he was coming to his office he expected to see John Elway walk through the door and in comes Peewee Herman.

Peewee Herman won the only Heisman in BYU history.

If we can find our own Peewee Herman, I'll take him any day over John Elway. Elway was a great QB, but I want to win, and Elway didn't do that when he was at Stanford.

 

[Superpup]

Not great, but the last two seasons wouldn't have quite as bad with a real QB. Also think Strong's discipline would've helped JT stay out of trouble.

Reading this makes me laugh, wow you are clueless.

 

[Metcalf #2]

Reading this makes me laugh, wow you are clueless.

Spoken like a true aggy. Thanks for the insight, genius.

 

[mm42]

Strong deserves a lot of the blame for many things, but only 1 draft worthy player is on Mack Brown. God makes NFL caliber players, not college coaches. You have to put in the work, but you have to have the athletic ability or the work won't matter.
Saban, Meyer, and Jimbo are very good coaches, but never be fooled. The biggest reason for there success is Jimmy's and Joe's not X's and O's. Player development works a lot better when you get all the best players to work with. Even Mack was a great coach when he had the best players in the country.

 

[bubba2023]

Strong deserves a lot of the blame for many things, but only 1 draft worthy player is on Mack Brown. God makes NFL caliber players, not college coaches. You have to put in the work, but you have to have the athletic ability or the work won't matter.
Saban, Meyer, and Jimbo are very good coaches, but never be fooled. The biggest reason for there success is Jimmy's and Joe's not X's and O's. Player development works a lot better when you get all the best players to work with. Even Mack was a great coach when he had the best players in the country.

Mack's recruiting never fell off until the very end. He signed top classes in 10,11, and 12 but nothing ever came of them.

It's a combination of both. There are certain players that will be in the NFL regardless of the college they choose, and there are those that just don't have regardless of what college they choose. Then there are those in the middle, where certain styles and schemes can get more or less out of them. It's hard as fans to look at an NFL draftee and determine if he was one that was destined to be in the NFL or if he's one that blossomed because of coaching.

Your argument is the antithesis of the stars don't matter rants. It's not one or the other. Both coaching and stars matter.

 

[Longyac]

Mack's recruiting never fell off until the very end. He signed top classes in 10,11, and 12 but nothing ever came of them.

It's a combination of both. There are certain players that will be in the NFL regardless of the college they choose, and there are those that just don't have regardless of what college they choose. Then there are those in the middle, where certain styles and schemes can get more or less out of them. It's hard as fans to look at an NFL draftee and determine if he was one that was destined to be in the NFL or if he's one that blossomed because of coaching.

Your argument is the antithesis of the stars don't matter rants. It's not one or the other. Both coaching and stars matter.

They call that rating bump due to who you are committed the 'Bama bump' these days. Don't get caught up in class ranking. If the ranking sites' guys were that good of talent evaluators they'd be on some program's staff.

Agree with the other part, coaches can develop some guys into NFL talent.

 

[bubba2023]

They are far from perfect, so are coaches for that matter, but the statistics are out there that services do a good enough job. Their scope is limited to only a certain piece of the puzzle, so you'll never get the full picture with any recruiting service.

 

[mm42]

Mack's recruiting never fell off until the very end. He signed top classes in 10,11, and 12 but nothing ever came of them.

It's a combination of both. There are certain players that will be in the NFL regardless of the college they choose, and there are those that just don't have regardless of what college they choose. Then there are those in the middle, where certain styles and schemes can get more or less out of them. It's hard as fans to look at an NFL draftee and determine if he was one that was destined to be in the NFL or if he's one that blossomed because of coaching.

Your argument is the antithesis of the stars don't matter rants. It's not one or the other. Both coaching and stars matter.

I am not a huge fan of the star ratings. I think bias (who has the most subs) and incompetence (Luicci and Ketchum etc..are not experts) make star ratings highly questionable. However, if Saban, Meyers, Miles, and Fischer all want I guy - he can play regardless of stars.
Coaching matters a lot in winning games, although not as much as talent imo.
Some blue blood schools like Notre Dame, Texas, Michigan etc.. always have highly rated classes. But their classes are not really always elite. I would include A&M, as we are often overrated in recruiting but not a true blue blood. Everybody knows the schools selecting instead of recruiting currently: Alabama, Ohio State, maybe LSU, maybe FSU. Just saying their hit rates on NFL caliber guys are going to be a lot higher than everybody else. The delta between Saban and Myers and everyone else is much wider the first week of February than in the fall.

 

[bubba2023]

Those guys wanted a lot of the recruits in Mack's later classes as well. Mack wasn't just signing highly ranked guys that the elite programs didn't want. I think we are on the same page. I would weight talent more than coaching as well, but at some point talent without coaching = not a good football player. It can become circular if you believe coaching develops talent.

 

[swVAHorn]

Those guys wanted a lot of the recruits in Mack's later classes as well. Mack wasn't just signing highly ranked guys that the elite programs didn't want. I think we are on the same page. I would weight talent more than coaching as well, but at some point talent without coaching = not a good football player. It can become circular if you believe coaching develops talent.

I agree with you bubba.....Mack was getting guys that a lot of other coaches wanted. It wasn't like Texas was the only offer they had.

Coaching does matter...,but you can't make a 4.85 forty a 4.4 forty. The players have to have some skills and be coachable (do their assignments).

I think it is like 60-40 skill-coachable

 

[UT1997]

More combine invites than Texas:
Duke - 3 (decent football school lately)
Harvard - 2
Liberty - 2
North Dakota St - 2
Southern Utah - 3

 

[Belldozer1]

OU had some guys invited but it was interesting reading the scouting report on a couple of them, especially Tapper. Evidently he has poor technique etc. He was a starter. How does that happen after 3 or 4 years of college coaching?

 

[Son of Wasatch]

Strong deserves a lot of the blame for many things, but only 1 draft worthy player is on Mack Brown. God makes NFL caliber players, not college coaches. You have to put in the work, but you have to have the athletic ability or the work won't matter.
Saban, Meyer, and Jimbo are very good coaches, but never be fooled. The biggest reason for there success is Jimmy's and Joe's not X's and O's. Player development works a lot better when you get all the best players to work with. Even Mack was a great coach when he had the best players in the country.

completely disagree

I think talent follows the coaches but coaches build these kids. Southern Utah has 4 guys in this draft combine. They didn't suddenly get talented. They were developed.

 

[swVAHorn]

Last year Texas had 4 players invited to the combine from a 6-7 team.

 

[UT1997]

OU had some guys invited but it was interesting reading the scouting report on a couple of them, especially Tapper. Evidently he has poor technique etc. He was a starter. How does that happen after 3 or 4 years of college coaching?

Scouting reports in general try to exaggerate faults, and minimize the positives, so take them with a grain of salt. If someone is a freak athlete or a force of nature, there isn't much to add to that so it's easy to dwell on technical/fundamental flaws. Not sure how old you are, but think of say Barry Sanders, Mike Tyson, Shaq in their prime. The scouts say Sanders doesn't like contact, can't run between tackles ... Tyson lacks stamina, short reach, not technical ... Shaq can only dunk...but who would take first if your picking teams on the playground?

 

[q1w2e3]

Last year Texas had 4 players invited to the combine from a 6-7 team.

Yeah, four defensive players. From a defense that finished with the second best scoring defense and the best total defense in the Big 12. That's despite the strain that one of the worst offenses imaginable put on the D.

 

[swVAHorn]

Yeah, four defensive players. From a defense that finished with the second best scoring defense and the best total defense in the Big 12. That's despite the strain that one of the worst offenses imaginable put on the D.

I was pointing out the number of combine invitees is not the end all be all. There seems to be only 2 camps (it is not that simple)..1. Strong did a great job but had no talent. 2. Strong could have done better with the talent he had.

I am more in line with both being true.

 

[Son of Wasatch]

Here is my thinking with this class.

When we signed to 2012 class, it was a great class full of guys with lots of potential.

But the previous staff didn't develop anyone, they were too busy passing out punch and orange slices with their participation trophies. That staff allowed this class to be weak, to be lazy and to thing they were entitled to something they didn't earn.

In steps Charlie Strong, he kicks out the guys that won't follow his rules and has no problem with starting the kids who he brings in. Thus you have a lost class.

Then you factor in the injury to Gray, and the loss of our QB in this class and Malcolm Brown leaving early the year before and you are left with a class that produced nothing.

Is Strong to blame? some but it's his job to win football games and prepare his team each week to compete. If he does this by starting a bunch of young guys then so be it, that is his choice.

The only thing we should hold Strong accountable for is winning games, graduating his athletes, and making sure they don't embarrass The University.

 

[Belldozer1]

More combine invites than Texas:
Duke - 3 (decent football school lately)
Harvard - 2
Liberty - 2
North Dakota St - 2
Southern Utah - 3

A lot of people made fun of Mack Brown with his parity remarks but he was partially right. Times have changed. See TCU and Baylor as prime examples.

 

[bubba2023]

A lot of people made fun of Mack Brown with his parity remarks but he was partially right. Times have changed. See TCU and Baylor as prime examples.

Not sure what Mack's parity comments were, but there is absolutely more parity now than in years past. A few random non football schools having more combine invitees isn't necessarily evidence of that. The NFL rosters have been littered with those guys for quite a while.