echeese
Premium Members
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2013
- Messages
- 2,474
View from the Cheap Seats-Maryland
Deja Vu. . . .All over again
To quote the late great Yogi Berra, it was deja vu . . . .all over again. Stop me if you heard this before, defense gets exposed, offense struggles and Sam hurts the team with late INTs. We'd like to cut CTH a break, we'd like to buy into the excuses being made. But it would be nonsense. There is too much talent on this team, too many 4 star and high 3 star players. Other than OU and USC, TEXAS has more talent on it's roster by a pretty large margin than anyone on the schedule. Especially Maryland, which candidly is not a good team though now they have a leg up on getting to a bowl game. Their schedule has Bowling Green, Temple, Indiana Illinois and Rutgers as winnable games for them. Without this win, virtually impossible for them to reach a bowl this year.
If you are looking for sunshine pumping, the Cheap Seats doesn't have much for you. We are reminded why we don't bet CFB anymore, we'd have taken the 10 points TEXAS was giving. Were we better than last year? Not sure, we gave up 24 points in the 1st half and the bulk of Maryland's yardage on our vaunted defense. Not sure we ever stopped the jet sweep, which is fundamental defense, never lose contain. Then when TEXAS climbed back and finished a 22-0 run to take the lead, we gave up an 11 play 75 yard drive TD scoring drive. Championship defenses slam the door at that point, they don't lift their skirts. Not to mention keeping several Maryland scoring drives alive with some REALLY stupid penalties by supposed team leaders. Cheap seats predicted no one would score 31 or more on TEXAS this year. That was blown early but it likely is reached often this year. Today we'd say at least 4 more teams reach that as there are much better offenses on our schedule. Want a silver lining? We don't have to worry about Coach Orlando going anywhere this year.
Sorry Tim Beck et al, we remain unimpressed with the passing scheme which seems far too basic. One play highlighted the difference in schemes. Maryland lined up with twins left (2 WRs lined up wide left). They ran an X, the outside receiver ran a skinny post to the goal line while the inside receiver ran an out to the sideline. The TEXAS DBs collided with each other and the outside DB went down leaving the outside WR wide open for a TD. A simple play design, not even a true "rub" route where the scheme "ran" a WR open. We don't do much of that and it doesn't seem like our WRs are coached to find a hole in the zone or come back to the QB when Sam scrambled. Now someone will get offended with that and say we aren't qualified to make that judgment. Fine, we're not chefs but we do know when the steak is over cooked or dinner isn't very good.
Thought Kris Boyd over all had a nice game but he gave up a huge 3rd down reception where the Maryland WR left him searching for his jock on a slant picking up a long 3rd down. Brandon Jones had a nice game but his biggest impact was in the punt return game where he certainly did his part. Otherwise, very little pass rush and only 1 sack which certainly didn't help the DBs. Gary Johnson took himself out of the game with an ignorant penalty. QB slides, don't lay into him especially into his head.
Offensively, we showed no creativity in the passing game at all. Now the Cheap Seats loved it when we went up tempo and basically out talented Maryland's D but that seemed the only time we could establish a running game. When they are dropping 8 into coverage and you don't see a WR open, Sam needs to take off, gain 5-7 then slide. Late 1st half and 2nd, when we did that, it worked well but dropping 8 means WRs/TEs/RBs usually covered up.
3-0
Single biggest stat of the game. We lost the turnover margin 3-0. All 3 came in the 4th quarter with the game on the line. 2 INTs, one a poor throw, the other a poor read and a fumble. All three came on drives where we seemed to have Maryland back on their heels. Other key stats:
Offense 3-15 on 3rd down, frequently we were in 3rd and long. And the key there was an overall inability on 1st down to gain 4 or more yards.
Field position. TEXAS lost this badly with only 3 drives starting in Maryland Territory. All 3 ended in TDs. Otherwise TEXAS was pinned to our own 33 or worse including 9 from the 27 or in and 4 inside the 10. How much we missed our Ray Guy winner while his cousin had a decent day save 2 horrid punts. Which is about how Dickson performed as a freshman, alternating good kicks with poor ones.
Penalties 10-102. They most often killed TEXAS drives or kept Maryland drives alive. Though the holding call on Shack was complete BS.
Offense 1 Sack. While the run blocking certainly wasn't what it needs to be against an undersized DL, the pass blocking was actually pretty impressive. Sam generally had a clean pocket to throw, he took one sack but that as much a coverage sack as anything. Of course it helps when you have a QB who did a very good job of avoiding/escaping pressure but OL is clearly better than last year.
Defense 1 Sack. And worse, generally little pressure on Maryland's QB which left the DBs hanging out to dry.
32:46, Maryland's Time of Possession
7 Maryland drives of 6 plays or more, 4 of which were scoring drives
SILVER LININGS
Brandon Jones-YUGE on special teams, 3 punt returns for 56 yards. 2 of them moving TEXAS from the shadow of their goal post to across the 30 and decent field position.
Cheap Seats called Lil Jordan Humphrey as our offensive star of 2018 and he did nothing to change that opinion. Duvernay laid out for a magnificent catch and Collin Johnson had an equally impressive TD grab in the end zone.
While his QBR score reflected his 2 late INTs, generally we thought Sam had a good game and he had some magnificent deep throws. As previously mentioned, Maryland's passing game scheme was far superior to ours.
22-0 TEXAS went on a 22-0 run from the 2nd quarter through the 3rd. Offense looked more like what we expected and in that run while the defense stopped Maryland 4 times on drives of 6 plays or less including a 4th and 1 STUFF which lost 2 yards.
FUTURE
It's been claimed that TEXAS isn't going to face as difficult a murder's row of QBs as it did in 2017 and that will be true. But don't confuse that with TEXAS is facing dogs. Will comment on some of the QBs in the BigXII rankings but both Tulsa (Luke Skipper) and USC (JT Daniels) had nice games against inferior opponents. Now Maryland did return 4 OL starters from 2017 so we need Coach Todd to make some adjustments to our pass rush from here our or it's going to be another underperforming year.
We said 8-4 would be the 2018 floor. Looking more like the ceiling right now. We suck until we don't and right now, we still suck. Seriously, hard to brag about looking "better" in this year's opening loss than last year. So we won't act like an aggie.
BIG XII RANKINGS
#1 OU Kyler Murray with a very nice start vs a tomato can
#2 TCU Shawn Robinson with 3 TD passes to 3 different WRs and 2 rushing TDs, again vs a tomato can
#3 WVU Will Grier kicked off his Heisman campaign leading WVU to a drubbing of SEC Tenn, 429 yards and 5 TDs. Likely the best QB the Horns face
Big Gap
#4 OSU Taylor Cornelius, a former walk on opened with 5 TDs vs a tomato can in Missouri State
#5 TEXAS
#6 KSU Eeked out a win over South Dakota, neither QB impressive
#7 ISU Opener with Neb cancelled due to weather
#8 Baylor Played ACU, another tomato can (seeing a pattern?)
#9 TT Drubbed by Ole Miss
#10 Kansas Needed OT to beat Nicolas
Sorry guys, wish we had something better to report. Though our OB lunch was fun.
