In whatever spare time he’s afforded as a college football coach, Bryan Harsin likes to drag race. I’m sure he’s a great racer, but I picture him more as a master chef. In his two seasons at Texas, every play call arrived with the care of a five-course meal, complete with mass substitutions, motions and audibles. There’s nothing wrong with that in the right context. Sometimes the occasion calls for appetizers, salad, steak, lobster and dessert. But other times you just need to scarf down a turkey sandwich and move on with your life.
This brings us to Major Applewhite. As Mack Brown’s latest fix for the Texas offense calls for getting up to speed with the rest of the Big 12, the head Horn turns to his former quarterback to run the offense. In an era more closely resembling Steve Nash’s Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns teams than anything Darrell Royal ever envisioned, intricate detail has been dumped in the name of tempo and volume.
In other words, expect Applewhite and company to make lots of turkey sandwiches this year.
In advance of the first official depth chart on Monday, I decided to jot down the lineups I would like to see take the field against New Mexico State. I’ve had the same non-access to practice as you have, so this exercise lives closer to fantasy than reality – but let’s not real life bog us down today. This isn’t what I think will happen, but rather what I wish would happen.
Today we’ll cover the offense, and tomorrow we’ll take a look at the defense and special teams.
https://www.hornsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/USATSI_6886574_149008644_lowres-1-266×400.jpg Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports
Quarterback
- David Ash, Junior
- Case McCoy, Senior
- Jalen Overstreet, Redshirt freshman
Tyrone Swoopes, Redshirt
It was unfair to push Ash onto into a starting role as a true freshman. It was unfair to play McCoy a handful of snaps in the 2010 opener against Rice and then virtually not again the entire season. It would’ve been royally unfair to Overstreet to burn his redshirt for a televised exhibition against Oregon State. For once, coaches, let’s be fair to Swoopes and realize the jump from 1A to the Big 12 is too much to ask in merely a few months. Sure, the tools are there, but that’s precisely why he should redshirt.
From what my eyes showed me during the spring game, Overstreet is a more dangerous runner than Swoopes anyway. (Yes, it’s dumb to form an opinion based on one sample size, but one looks enormous when the alternative is zero.) And as unsexy as it looks, McCoy has proven to be an effective backup in a limited role.
Running Backs
- Malcolm Brown
- Johnathan Gray
- Joe Bergeron
I think Brown is clearly the best of the three, I just wish he’d stay on the field long enough to prove me right. But, really, the ordering here is interchangeable. What I want to see is the usage change, mainly by putting two of these guys on the field at the same time. Here’s hoping Major is hiding a Pistol in his back pocket.
Wide Receivers
- Mike Davis, Jaxon Shipley, Daje Johnson
- Kendall Sanders, Marcus Johnson, Bryant Jackson/John Harris
If Ramonce Taylor can handle oscillating between wide receiver and running back, there’s no reason Johnson shouldn’t do the same. Other than that, it’s high time we saw something from Sanders, Johnson, Jackson and Harris.
Tight Ends
- Just somebody please do something.
Offensive Line
- LT Desmond Harrison
- LG Donald Hawkins
- C Trey Hopkins
- RG Mason Walters
- RT Josh Cochran
 Offensive Line (2)
- LT Kent Perkins
- LG Darius James
- C Dominic Espinosa
- RG Sedrick Flowers
- RT Kennedy Estelle
Ideally, Espinosa is the first man off the bench at any of the interior positions, and if a tackle goes down, Hawkins slides outside and the junior from Cedar Park takes his spot.
For the record, I would have had Harrison in my starting lineup even before the good news of this week. Even if that meant sending him through one of those skin pigmentation surgeries like Robert Downey, Jr.’s character in Tropic Thunder and playing him under the name Gordon Quartersmith. Just get that guy on the field.
Last season, this group produced 5,650 total yards (3,421 passing/2,229 rushing) and 62 touchdowns on 891 plays. That’s an average of roughly 6.34 yards per play, and 14.37 plays per touchdown, on 68.5 plays per game. Factoring in the accelerated tempo and the wealth of experience this team employs, I think 1,000 total plays (eight and a half more per game, which is less Mack’s stated goal) at 6.6 yards per play and 13.75 plays per touchdown represent reasonable expectations for modest improvement. Reach those modest goals and suddenly this 40th-ranked offense from 2012 lives firmly inside the top 10 in both yardage and touchdown production.
With that in mind, there’s no reason Texas should have anything less than a top 20 offense this fall.
Now, about that defense….
