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View from the Cheap Seats-Spring Game 2017​
Well Toto . .. I don’t think we are in loserville. . .I mean Kansas any more.
We have now had our 1st taste of Coach Tom Herman, not hard to see why he was one of the most sought after D 1 Coaches in the nation. He replaces Charlie Flapping Strong, a guy the Cheap Seats thought was going to bring TEXAS back to prominence. . . .which reminded us why we don’t sit in the good seats and should never be put on a coaching search committee. CFS would leave with the worst record of any HC in TEXAS football history and be the only coach to never record a winning season.
What we saw from Coach Tom was intensity, organization and alignment. . . . alignment being Coach Tom’s favorite expression. He even brought it up in the post game interview. He’s got some talent to work with though he doesn’t have a lot of depth, he is installing a real scheme, one which puts players in a position to shine but most importantly, he’s instilling an attitude of winning that seemed lost the past 3 years. Now let’s tap the brakes on the hype machine . . .this is spring and what matters is what we see that can accomplished in the fall. Having offered the standard disclaimer, we saw nothing on the field that discouraged us from an 8-4/9-3 type year projection barring a rash of key injuries. 8/9 wins seasons used to be failure around here. Hopefully by year 2 we’re back to that standard.
Coach Tom had some fun, he capped off the warm ups with some mono y mono slobber knocking drills, 1st up Sam E vs our Walked on 3rd string QB, Sam won easily. Several really fun match ups featuring key players and did their team mates ever love the competition.
And you could not have asked for a better setting, 75 degrees, partially cloudy skies, cool breeze and the stadium was easily 25,000 full. West side was end zone to endzone packed while East side was about half of that. Got to hang out with my boy Walter Gragg, @weewilliewinkle on the board. . .see my signature below for more news on our latest resident author’s launch party for his new book. We scored seats which faced the aisle so lots of leg room and in the shade on row 53.
Keep in mind that Spring games are always zero sum games and not sure the 1s ever went vs the 1s so hard to get a “real look†at the team but there were some things we saw we really liked and things we saw that were not so great.
Now we’re going to begin by offending poor @UTwiz .. . . .any rumors of a QB battle are greatly exaggerated. Sorry, not even close. Buchele simply looked the part, poised in the pocket, moved easily to buy time and made some great throws. And oh boy is our offense scheme light years away from the High School crap (frankly an insult to our better HS O’s) we saw last year. We saw plenty of misdirection, we saw route packages designed to run players open and we saw routes across the middle. Now the Cheap Seats does have our prediction for the fall. That the internet coach coaches will be calling for Tim Beck to be lynched after our 1st bad game. .. and we promise, this team is not running the table, we have some holes. . . Tim Beck will be the designated whipping boy. You heard it here first. This offense is fun and will REALLY take advantage of our strongest offensive weapons which are our Wide Recievers.
Clearly the plan was to protect Toneil Carter, our sole healthy RB but he got some opportunities and Coach Herman clearly landed a quality RB. Make no mistake, D’Onte Foreman (who was at the game) will be missed this year, we might not have a 1000 yard back in 2017. But IF (big if) we can keep Warren Porter and Johnson healthy, we have some very real RB depth. If and when we can lean on the run game, this offense is going to really take off. Predicting even some of Greg Davis’ records start to fall before long.
Quarterbacks
We came away very impressed with Shane’s play, he is clearly QB 1 and Sam has a LONG LONG way to go to supplant him. Have not looked at the stat lines but we would not put too much stock in either’s. These observations are more “eye ball†tests, the way they moved in the pocket, scanned the field, put the ball in a catchable place. Shane looks like a guy in his 2nd year. . ..Sam looked more like the HS Senior he would be if he did not graduate early. Make no mistake, we have better real QB depth than we’ve had since . . .. . . not sure when. Shane was smooth, Sam looked forced. Now in Sam’s defense, he’s stuck playing with our 2nd team. Do you recall the mention we do not have good depth? Frankly our 2nd team OL was NOT good. Sam was under more duress than we’ve seen since the days of Bye Bye Bomar in 2005. If this were live (QB were not hit), not sure Sam survives. And he did show good evasiveness at times but often he got little help from his WRs. Next year the QB wars might heat up but this year, Shane is the man. This not to say Sam did not have his moments, he did make some great throws and he is clearly a talent. There is just a clear difference (ignore the spin) between them today. A difference we don’t project gets made up in T Shirts over the summer.
We’ll say it, Shane looks very cool and poised. . . very Colt McCoy-ish
Running back
Singular as Toneil Carter seemed to be the only scholarship RB getting carries. And he acquitted himself well. He made guys miss, he broke tackles, he was always “falling forwardâ€. He also showed some nifty moves on a flair route and seems to have soft hands catching the ball. He’s a nice fit for the limited amount of running scheme we were exposed too.
Wide Receivers
Collin Johnson is a FREAKING BEAST. At times he looked like a man playing with boys. He should have a big year in this scheme. He caught one ball on the sideline and completely faked Eric Cuffee out of his jock for a nice gain then beat Cuffee on a skinny post in the end zone on the very next play for 6. Frankly, it wasn’t fair. Johnson is going to ABUSE some BigXII secondaries this year.
Duvernay is going to be FUN to watch the next two to three years. They are going to find ways to get him the ball in space and he is the type of player that the crowd gets excited every time he touches the ball.
Perhaps the most interesting guy to watch is Lil Jordan Humphrey. He is a mismatch nightmare with his size and talent for defenses. That being said, he has to catch the ball better. He let several balls get away from him and seems to fight the catch at times.
We even saw Armanti Foreman line up in the backfield and get a carry. This scheme will put the ball in the hands of play makers.
This position group along with linebacker appear to be the two strongest and most talented units on the team.
Offensive line.
Clearly a big drop off from the 1s and the 2s. Let’s pray for health as our starters are good. One down side of being at the game is you cannot Tivo to back up and focus on players so we’ll leave our commentary here for now.
Scheme
It was refreshing to see a real scheme and plays run using mis-direction to get players the ball in space. Most of the day they ran players from a 5 wide set but we got to see just enough of the run game to know we like the scheme and we like Toneil Carter.
Defense
1s dominated the 2s so much it was hard to know if our D is that good or our 2nd team O simply that bad. The problem with the zero sum spring game. Out of pocket so unable to replay the game but will sum it up by saying both sides of the ball appear better than last season so we have upgraded.
Michael Dickeson is an excellent punter and his year was lost to many due to our poor record. He will be a force for special teams.
We’ve hit 100,000 posts and are taking a little break from posting. Largely because there isn’t much to report or discuss and frankly it’s nice just to sit back and take it all in. Keep in mind there will be an OB party (all Horn Sports crew invited) on May 6th celebrating the book release of our own weewilliwinkle’s The Red Line, encouraging all OBs and military thriller fans to attend.
Well Toto . .. I don’t think we are in loserville. . .I mean Kansas any more.
We have now had our 1st taste of Coach Tom Herman, not hard to see why he was one of the most sought after D 1 Coaches in the nation. He replaces Charlie Flapping Strong, a guy the Cheap Seats thought was going to bring TEXAS back to prominence. . . .which reminded us why we don’t sit in the good seats and should never be put on a coaching search committee. CFS would leave with the worst record of any HC in TEXAS football history and be the only coach to never record a winning season.
What we saw from Coach Tom was intensity, organization and alignment. . . . alignment being Coach Tom’s favorite expression. He even brought it up in the post game interview. He’s got some talent to work with though he doesn’t have a lot of depth, he is installing a real scheme, one which puts players in a position to shine but most importantly, he’s instilling an attitude of winning that seemed lost the past 3 years. Now let’s tap the brakes on the hype machine . . .this is spring and what matters is what we see that can accomplished in the fall. Having offered the standard disclaimer, we saw nothing on the field that discouraged us from an 8-4/9-3 type year projection barring a rash of key injuries. 8/9 wins seasons used to be failure around here. Hopefully by year 2 we’re back to that standard.
Coach Tom had some fun, he capped off the warm ups with some mono y mono slobber knocking drills, 1st up Sam E vs our Walked on 3rd string QB, Sam won easily. Several really fun match ups featuring key players and did their team mates ever love the competition.
And you could not have asked for a better setting, 75 degrees, partially cloudy skies, cool breeze and the stadium was easily 25,000 full. West side was end zone to endzone packed while East side was about half of that. Got to hang out with my boy Walter Gragg, @weewilliewinkle on the board. . .see my signature below for more news on our latest resident author’s launch party for his new book. We scored seats which faced the aisle so lots of leg room and in the shade on row 53.
Keep in mind that Spring games are always zero sum games and not sure the 1s ever went vs the 1s so hard to get a “real look†at the team but there were some things we saw we really liked and things we saw that were not so great.
Now we’re going to begin by offending poor @UTwiz .. . . .any rumors of a QB battle are greatly exaggerated. Sorry, not even close. Buchele simply looked the part, poised in the pocket, moved easily to buy time and made some great throws. And oh boy is our offense scheme light years away from the High School crap (frankly an insult to our better HS O’s) we saw last year. We saw plenty of misdirection, we saw route packages designed to run players open and we saw routes across the middle. Now the Cheap Seats does have our prediction for the fall. That the internet coach coaches will be calling for Tim Beck to be lynched after our 1st bad game. .. and we promise, this team is not running the table, we have some holes. . . Tim Beck will be the designated whipping boy. You heard it here first. This offense is fun and will REALLY take advantage of our strongest offensive weapons which are our Wide Recievers.
Clearly the plan was to protect Toneil Carter, our sole healthy RB but he got some opportunities and Coach Herman clearly landed a quality RB. Make no mistake, D’Onte Foreman (who was at the game) will be missed this year, we might not have a 1000 yard back in 2017. But IF (big if) we can keep Warren Porter and Johnson healthy, we have some very real RB depth. If and when we can lean on the run game, this offense is going to really take off. Predicting even some of Greg Davis’ records start to fall before long.
Quarterbacks
We came away very impressed with Shane’s play, he is clearly QB 1 and Sam has a LONG LONG way to go to supplant him. Have not looked at the stat lines but we would not put too much stock in either’s. These observations are more “eye ball†tests, the way they moved in the pocket, scanned the field, put the ball in a catchable place. Shane looks like a guy in his 2nd year. . ..Sam looked more like the HS Senior he would be if he did not graduate early. Make no mistake, we have better real QB depth than we’ve had since . . .. . . not sure when. Shane was smooth, Sam looked forced. Now in Sam’s defense, he’s stuck playing with our 2nd team. Do you recall the mention we do not have good depth? Frankly our 2nd team OL was NOT good. Sam was under more duress than we’ve seen since the days of Bye Bye Bomar in 2005. If this were live (QB were not hit), not sure Sam survives. And he did show good evasiveness at times but often he got little help from his WRs. Next year the QB wars might heat up but this year, Shane is the man. This not to say Sam did not have his moments, he did make some great throws and he is clearly a talent. There is just a clear difference (ignore the spin) between them today. A difference we don’t project gets made up in T Shirts over the summer.
We’ll say it, Shane looks very cool and poised. . . very Colt McCoy-ish
Running back
Singular as Toneil Carter seemed to be the only scholarship RB getting carries. And he acquitted himself well. He made guys miss, he broke tackles, he was always “falling forwardâ€. He also showed some nifty moves on a flair route and seems to have soft hands catching the ball. He’s a nice fit for the limited amount of running scheme we were exposed too.
Wide Receivers
Collin Johnson is a FREAKING BEAST. At times he looked like a man playing with boys. He should have a big year in this scheme. He caught one ball on the sideline and completely faked Eric Cuffee out of his jock for a nice gain then beat Cuffee on a skinny post in the end zone on the very next play for 6. Frankly, it wasn’t fair. Johnson is going to ABUSE some BigXII secondaries this year.
Duvernay is going to be FUN to watch the next two to three years. They are going to find ways to get him the ball in space and he is the type of player that the crowd gets excited every time he touches the ball.
Perhaps the most interesting guy to watch is Lil Jordan Humphrey. He is a mismatch nightmare with his size and talent for defenses. That being said, he has to catch the ball better. He let several balls get away from him and seems to fight the catch at times.
We even saw Armanti Foreman line up in the backfield and get a carry. This scheme will put the ball in the hands of play makers.
This position group along with linebacker appear to be the two strongest and most talented units on the team.
Offensive line.
Clearly a big drop off from the 1s and the 2s. Let’s pray for health as our starters are good. One down side of being at the game is you cannot Tivo to back up and focus on players so we’ll leave our commentary here for now.
Scheme
It was refreshing to see a real scheme and plays run using mis-direction to get players the ball in space. Most of the day they ran players from a 5 wide set but we got to see just enough of the run game to know we like the scheme and we like Toneil Carter.
Defense
1s dominated the 2s so much it was hard to know if our D is that good or our 2nd team O simply that bad. The problem with the zero sum spring game. Out of pocket so unable to replay the game but will sum it up by saying both sides of the ball appear better than last season so we have upgraded.
Michael Dickeson is an excellent punter and his year was lost to many due to our poor record. He will be a force for special teams.
We’ve hit 100,000 posts and are taking a little break from posting. Largely because there isn’t much to report or discuss and frankly it’s nice just to sit back and take it all in. Keep in mind there will be an OB party (all Horn Sports crew invited) on May 6th celebrating the book release of our own weewilliwinkle’s The Red Line, encouraging all OBs and military thriller fans to attend.
