It's a credit to Strong that we won 6 games

[Brasky]

Coming into the year we had glaring issues.  OL was one.  Being 1 hit away from not habving a QB.  No depth.  Having kicked off or suspended the best talent from last year.  Honestly, I think under the same circumstances Mack would have won 3 games and the program would be on life support.

I think these guys overachieved by winning 6 games and that is a credit to the guys who suited up and the coaches who got them ready.  We simply weren't very talented and we weren't very deep.  Those 2 things will kill you.  Last night was disappointing to say the least but Arkansas was just way better than us this year.  They went toe to toe with some very good teams.  

If you could go back and not throw that beer bottle at your tv and just think about some of the bright spots this year and next you wouldn't have a broken tv.  

 

[streettopeschel]

while everything you said about talent, depth etc is true, i can't give charlie a complete pass. ideally, a team should improve and be playing it's best at the end of the year as the team becomes more comfortable with the new coaches and system.

but we weren't. both tcu and arky were dumpster fires. yes, they're both better than us, but each gave was over by halftime. 

that ain't good.

 

[LHornjack]

while everything you said about talent, depth etc is true, i can't give charlie a complete pass. ideally, a team should improve and be playing it's best at the end of the year as the team becomes more comfortable with the new coaches and system.

but we weren't. both tcu and arky were dumpster fires. yes, they're both better than us, but each gave was over by halftime. 

that ain't good.

Fully agree that there were some tough inheritence issues here...the Defense did improve some for sure...but the entire rest of our team was horrid and never showed signs of improving, in fact they may be worse at the end....I would have to give CS and staff a C this year...

 

[Brasky]

while everything you said about talent, depth etc is true, i can't give charlie a complete pass. ideally, a team should improve and be playing it's best at the end of the year as the team becomes more comfortable with the new coaches and system.

but we weren't. both tcu and arky were dumpster fires. yes, they're both better than us, but each gave was over by halftime. 

that ain't good.

Yes, but TCU is one of the best teams in the country.  I htink they could have won a playoff game.  Arkansas played what, 2 teams that were #1 in the country and took both to the wire?  We are nowhere near these teams in terms of talent, depth, cohesion, etc.

I just don't see those as good examples.  Realisticaly, we sucked this year and we played a bit above sucking, imo.

 

[streettopeschel]

arky finished dead ass last in the sec west and they housed us. put all the lipstick you want on that pig, but if we're not even competitive (and we weren't) with a 2-6 sec team, we got issues.

 

[CCausey11]

gotta go with Street here and i'm a big Charlie fan.  Coaches have to take a hit for these last 2 games.  I thought we were showing nice improvement until TCU..They were a very good team but we quit on the offensive side of the ball.  It will be very interesting to see the adjustments the staff makes between now and 2015 season.  To me the clock starts ticking now on this staff, in my book this past year was a massive clean out that had to happen.  Starting now they are responsible for the re-build.  Can they adjust as a staff?  Oughta be an interesting Spring and Summer.

 

[bcherry168]

Diggs tweeted that there are still problems in the locker room. Those have to go as well. There is a lot of work ahead for Strong

At least early playing time should be a good sales pitch in recruiting. Strong is clearly going to have to recruit a team that can and will play.

So far, there are some big time recruits on the way. He needs to finish off this class with a bang, and get on to 2016.

This will not be a quick fix.

 

[Brasky]

arky finished dead ass last in the sec west and they housed us. put all the lipstick you want on that pig, but if we're not even competitive (and we weren't) with a 2-6 sec team, we got issues.

Fair enough.  Arkansas shut out LSU and Ole Miss and lost to Alabama by 1, I think.  We aren't in the same stratosphere as any of those teams and to think we are is having completely unrealistic expectations.  We suck and it's because Mack Brown died the night Colt McCoy got hurt and nothing has ever been remotely close since.  

Charlie won 6 games with this team and I think, objectively, that is an overachievement.  

 

[Tejas fan]

Quite frankly to have won 6 with that o line and qb combo was quite an accomplishment. Next year will be an upgrade at both due to numbers on the o line and pretty much anyone will be upgrade at qb. The make or break part will be on defense which is Strong's strength.

 

[J.B. TexasEx]

I'm with STP. Disappointed our last two games were arguably our worst efforts and performances on offense. 

Where's the pride and fire?

Where's the improvisation and game planning?

The 3rd Quarter was also our worst all season long. Where are the halftime adjustments?

I don't see 6-6 as any kind of "accomplishment". It's not totally unexpected given the depth issues at OL and QB, but I can do without five 20-point losses. That's unprecedented at Texas.

Charlie gets a C if I'm grading this season. We only beat the teams we should've. No real upsets, unless you wanna count WVU.

 

[North Texas Golfer]

arky finished dead ass last in the sec west and they housed us. put all the lipstick you want on that pig, but if we're not even competitive (and we weren't) with a 2-6 sec team, we got issues.

And then to top it off, last night was the worst offensive performance of any team in college football this year!

That is on everyone who represented THE University of Texas on the field last night starting with the head coach and going right down through all of the assistant coaches and the players.

Think about it. Charlie Strong coached the University of Texas team that had the worst offensive performance in college football for the year! He and the offensive coaches get NO credit as far as I'm concerned.

Tired of the damn excuses.

 

[tejasrulz]

Agree with OP. I know some guys, who are not doom and gloomers, who have T-man rings and they told me before the season started it was going to be a rough year. They stated it was way worse than people on the outside knew. They also believed CS was the right man for the job.

 

[ScoBro1]

I think we are underselling the job CS did this year. He said before the year we wouldnt be playing for championships. He knew how bad it was. To his credit he never threw the team under the bus talent wise that I remember. He did constantly talk about effort and nothing wrong with that. He came from a team with a first round QB to Tyrone Swoopes. A team with no line depth, no WR to speak of...it had to be frustrating to him to want to do different things but not have the players.  Getting 6 wins was an accomplishment that we probably cant even fathom. Like a QB throwing an interception because a WR ran the wrong route and QB getting the blame, Charlie has taken the shots rather than constantly point out the inadequacies he had to deal with this year. As far as the last two games, perhaps we should have been getting better. But TCU and Arky also had a whole season of games to study and game plan for and we were so limited in what we could do there wasnt a lot we could do about it. Im not a sky is always blue guy by any stretch but Im not discouraged at all by the year. Help is on the way and I think Charlie has a plan.

 

[J.B. TexasEx]

Im not a sky is always blue guy by any stretch but Im not discouraged at all by the year. Help is on the way and I think Charlie has a plan.

I'm not discouraged, but I'm certainly not encouraged by anything I've seen on offense.

I hope Heard is as good as advertised. We need a spark this spring and fingers crossed that he provides it!

 

[Sirhornsalot]

Here's a post from someone named "cricketslayer" who posts somewhere else. I thought it worthy of reposting:

I am not a sunshine pumper. I am beyond embarrassed about last night's "let's-watch-Texas-shart-itself-on-live-television-for-three-hours" disguised as a football game. And that abysmal performance is largely responsible for my recent foray into doing meth. However, I encourage everyone to take a step back and examine our program within a larger context.

If you want to blame someone for what we saw last night, blame Mack Brown. If most of your ire is focused on Shawn Watson and Charlie Strong, then you're not entirely wrong, but you're certainly not right. Our quarterback situation is a travesty because of Mack believing Garrett Gilbert was the next Joe Montana. He ended up being Hannah Montana. Tyrone Swoopes is clearly not a college quarterback, but Mack/Harsin wanted him instead of J.T. Barrett.

So Strong was forced to go with Swoopes, as if he had another choice once Ash went down. Oh, and Espinosa. Only the two most important players on offense. Suspensions took care of the offensive line and help at receiver. Sure, we could have played Heard and maybe only lost by 14 while unnecessarily burning his shirt. It's the same thing we bitched about last year when we thought Swoopes might be the future (HA!) and Mack burned his shirt instead.

Charlie is building for the future and refuses to take a misguided shortcut to give us some sort of temporary satisfaction while sacrificing the long term health of this program. That's what Mack Brown did. Regularly. That's also why Mack is no longer the head coach at The University of Texas. I mean, honestly, how devoid of talent are you on offense when you are forced to start a guy nicknamed NCAA (No Contact At All) because you don't have another option?

Charlie Strong inherited a program rife with culture problems and much less talent than the national media (LOOK AT THOSE FOUR STARZ, THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE ALL THE SADS!) would have you believe. Well guess what? This is what a culture change looks like. It's ugly and painful and it sucks, but it's exactly what we wanted. It took us a few problematic years under Mack to get to this point, and I don't care if Vince Lombardi awakes from the dead and comes to Austin, it's not going to get fixed in a single season.

Before the bowl projections were announced, college football experts were saying that no one wanted to play Arkansas. So Silve worked his redneck voodoo, got his SEC boys the best possible match-up and we (not surprisingly) got boat raced by team that was a perfect match for our weaknesses and which shutout Ole Miss and LSU. We looked awful, and we were not prepared to play. I get that.

So yes, Charlie Strong has a lot of work to do, but he doesn't "sugar coat" it and doesn't appear to be oblivious to the myriad problems this team has. And yes, his players--not HIS recruits, by the way--appeared to be listless and completely unmotivated. However, this often goes along with, you know, the entitlement and culture issues which have plagued this program for years. And for the love of all that is holy, can we please stop comparing Strong's early returns against Nick Saban? Virtually ANY head coach you put up against a living legend is not going to compare. Nick Saban is not coming here. Something about a house in Austin. Money-whipping, imo. Let. it. go.

I also don't have enough evidence to judge Shawn Watson. I don't think he's shown us anything yet. I also don't think if you asked Matt Kenseth to drive a 1987 Ford Fiesta at Daytona that he would fare very well: "I get that it's a Fiesta, but Jesus, Jimmie Johnson wouldn't go low like that in turn four!!! Hell, we should've just thrown some money at Richard Petty!"

It's still a f*cking Fiesta.

Charlie is just now starting to get his players in place. His culture is just now starting to take hold. He's bringing Malik and his first true recruiting class--while far from perfect--has a legitimate shot to be ranked in the top ten, if not higher.

So while his rebuilding has not gone as swiftly or smoothly as I would have liked, I'm damn sure not going to sit here and demand changes to Strong's staff after the awful shape in which Mack left our Horns. At least not now. Knowing about our cultural issues, our lack of talent, the suspensions and the injuries, this season has been as expected as disappointing. That doesn't make it okay, but it does help me paint a more accurate picture of what's really happening and what to reasonably expect moving forward.

I still think Charlie Strong is the answer, though it doesn't make it any easier waiting for the turnaround to happen. Just my two cents.

 

[echeese]

arky finished dead ass last in the sec west and they housed us. put all the lipstick you want on that pig, but if we're not even competitive (and we weren't) with a 2-6 sec team, we got issues.

Your first post was pretty spot on. . .this one is absurd. . . .

No unranked team in FBS history had blanked 2 top 10 teams back to back. . .

the only "lipstick on a pig" is trying to sell Arkie as anything but a damn good football team playing it's best ball at the end of the year.

Well, anyone who knows anything about football.

 

[Sirhornsalot]

Your first post was pretty spot on. . .this one is absurd. . . .

No unranked team in FBS history had blanked 2 top 10 teams back to back. . .

the only "lipstick on a pig" is trying to sell Arkie as anything but a damn good football team playing it's best ball at the end of the year.

Well, anyone who knows anything about football.

Agree. The Pigs shut out two very good teams in LSU and Ole Miss. They should have beat Bama and aggy.

Arkansas stands a decent chance of winning the SEC West next year.

 

[Sirhornsalot]

Interesting entry by JS this evening. Appears there is some friction going on between Wick and Watson over the failure to give Heard meaningful snaps in the bowl practices. Heard was apparently running the scout team with walk-ons (as he has most of the season) while the walk on got second team reps. Cigar says no wonder Heard looks bad, anyone would look bad playing first team D with walk-ons.

I won't go any further, but a very interesting humidor. cigar says we have two silent commits now.

 

[hoskins5]

Definitely not making excuses for last night. I am firm in my belief that everytime UT steps on the field we should win for at least compete with anyone. Having said that, Arkansas is a drastically improved football team. If you asked me at the end of the year what team I would not want to play, It's Arkansas. If aggy would have played them last night it would have been just as much of a beat down. They're lucky they didn't play them after they developed an identity.