Spring Game Preview
What the spring game shows us are the bare bones of a team, who’s at the top of the pecking order, what the most basic formations and calls are, and how well the team knows to execute those calls. There are layers and layers of context in spring games that you have to sort through which include vanilla play-calling, blue jerseys for QBs, play-calling designed to entertain or practice certain looks rather than being designed to win the contest, and often key players being held out. Nevertheless, an x-ray of the team’s bare bones can still tell you a great deal about the team’s identity.
Here’s some of the bones I’m hoping to get a look at in this x-ray.
X-raying the skull: Where are the QBs right now?
It sounds like Shane Buechele is the clear leader but primarily due to his overall mastery of the playbook and his consistency. Those things being equal, it would seem that Sam Ehlinger would be the guy.
The first glance at the skull will be to verify this diagnosis and the next to try and get a sense of how far behind Ehlinger is in terms of executing the playbook and protecting the ball. One way I intend to evaluate this is to check out the passing of these two guys when throwing to the boundary.
Evidently the staff is planning to keep Collin Johnson as the boundary WR at all times this upcoming season... [T]he smashmouth spread needs an inside runner, a speedy constraint weapon to use in space on the perimeter, and then the ability to punish teams when they play man coverage in order to free up a safety to deal with those problems.
There’s no better place to have your coverage-beating trump card than on the boundary, so naturally that’s where Collin Johnson will go. If the QB can consistently hit back shoulder fades down the field to his boundary receiver then the boundary safety can’t hedge much and really has to be all in up his business to help take that away.
If Buechele is consistently ahead of Ehlinger in identifying opportunities and throwing to these guys, he’ll be the man in 2017, as that will set the stage for the rest of the offense.
[T]he next big question is where these two guys are in terms of making good, quick option reads and getting the ball to the right spots at the right times. That’s the nuts and bolts of this offense and where Buechele is presumably ahead and needs to remain consistent.
X-raying the back bone: How is Texas looking in the trenches?
Both lines are returning several starters that have played in a lot of games. We already know that this OL can maul people on the left side, that the right side has been porous against the pass-rush in the past, that Poona Ford has the capacity to be disruptive but can also get caught and washed out, and that Chris Nelson is a solid run-stopper. That’s all been demonstrated from game film.
So if we see Malcolm Roach wreaking havoc on the left side, for instance, that’s a better indicator of a high ceiling in 2017 than if he abuses the right side. If we see a young guard like Elijah Rodriguez or Pat Hudson get movement on Nelson or successfully stave off a nice Ford stunt those are similarly positive indicators.
What we really need to know is whether Texas has depth inside to survive injuries (they need to find one guy that could realistically be a starter at either guard spot) and whether they can send five guys into pass patterns without worrying that poor play at RT is going to cause a turnover or an injured QB.
On the DL we know that this group has the ability to do damage on stunts and slants because we’ve seen most of the major actors here and we’ve seen them do really well in those circumstances. That means that they can provide a nice test of whether the OL is coming along in picking stuff up, just as DL resistance in base schemes to the straight ahead power of Connor Williams, Patrick Vahe, and Jake McMillon will be instructive on where that unit is at.
An ideal scenario is probably one where we see Roach get the best of Connor Williams a time or two, wreck shop against the RT, but then see that RT pick things up well against everyone else. That could mean Texas is okay at RT but potentially has All-Americans on both lines…that’d be nice, you can build a good team around that without needing to be Mensa.
X-raying the hips: Linebacker and safety play between the hash marks
This is probably the realm of the game where Texas has been the most deficient over the last couple of years. A crew of defenders that know where their help is against a given block, run, route, or route combo and can work together is going to be much more effective than a group of insanely talented athletes that don’t.
We’ll have a pretty good idea after the spring game if these guys know what they’re doing in base calls because that’s pretty much all they’ll be doing. They should be diagnosing the offensive plays and charging hard and fast into their assignments or there’s cause for at least some concern.
I’m guessing that the offense will at least run some simple RPOs (run/pass options) that combine gap/zone run schemes with bubble screens or other outside throws and that should give a great glimpse into whether this interior five are “attached at the hip” or not.
The key here is not whether the play is successful or not. The offense may be rolling out suspect blocking TEs that can’t block anyone or walk-on RBs that can’t make much trying to run away from Malik Jefferson in any circumstance. The key is whether the LBs and DBs play their assignments speedily and with good technique. If that is happening more often than not, then don’t worry about the results in the spring plays, things will come together in the fall when it matters.
[More @ IT]
