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Texas Preview
Posted by Sheriff Blalock on October 23rd, 2009 under Football
You know what? They’re good. Really good. As Phenom has pointed out in both versions of Stats That Matter, even though Texas has struggled offensively (if you want to read more on the Texas offense, click here, and be sure to say nice things about us Toofers. And, holy crap, 129 comments!?! I think I’d be happy with 12.9 readers!)
To summarize Scipio Tex’s thoughts on the Texas offense, Greg Davis sucks. Even though Texas leads the nation in scoring, there are plenty of concerns on the offensive side of the ball. Making significant changes to the offensive philosophy and personnel halfway through the season is certainly a sign that things are not as rosy as they seem, especially given the success they had scoring in 2008. McCoy has been a combination of 2007 and 2008, which is to say an all-conference type player, not a Heisman finalist. One major change has been McCoy’s impact in the run game. After a 2008 season which saw Colt have games of 103, 84, 83, and 78 yards by this time of the season, McCoy’s rushing high this year is 44, against the Wyoming Christensens. He had 11 rushing touchdowns last season, to only one this year. From Matter’s Behind The Stripes blog post:
The Horns are averaging almost 5 yards a carry on first down but have been slow to generate much success in the first half, averaging just 2.9 yards per carry before halftime. (That average jumps to 5.6 in the second half). … More than half of UT’s yardage has come when it leads by more than two touchdowns.
That gives me some home that Missouri can handle the run well enough. The Tigers had trouble with Nevada, but looked pretty good against a very good running team in Stillwater last week, after bottling up Helu for most of the game two weeks back. I am inclined to chalk up the Nevada to the oddities of playing against the pistol and say that Missouri has a solid rush defense, which will be aided by the return of Will Ebner.
McCoy was unbelievably great in 2008. Those numbers are insane. I don’t think it’s much of a shock to see more pedestrian (yet still really good) stats from him this season. Matter has a great stat about McCoy on third down that shows just how good he is still:
Here’s one McCoy stat that displays the most glaring difference between a seasoned veteran who’s one of the game’s all-time prolific passers and a sophomore still learning the nuances of the college game:
On third downs this season, McCoy is completing 68 percent of his throws and has turned 40 percent of those throws into first downs. On third downs, Gabbert is completing 48 percent and converted 30 percent of those chances.
Defensively, all I can really say is holy shit! Take Nebraska’s defensive line, subtract a little bit from their DT, but make everyone else better. Then add a fantastic secondary, good linebackers, and a great DC. I’m not sure I see any opening for the Mizzou offense. We’re going to need good Jake Harry back, for sure.
Talk about some scary stats. Again, from Dave Matter:
A few more numbers on the UT rush D: The Horns have given up just two runs of 20 yards or more. … Opponents are picking up just 2.5 yards on first down, just 1.3 on second down. … Good luck running on UT on third down: On 22 tries, opponents have picked up the first down just three times. … And forget running in the red zone: Opponents have gained just 2 yards on 18 carries inside the 20. TWO YARDS! … Of the 215 rushing yards gained against Texas, 147 have come when UT leads by more than two touchdowns. That’s almost 70 percent. In other words, garbage yards. When opponents are within two touchdowns of the Horns, they’ve run 101 times for 68 yards. Not a misprint.
Doesn’t exactly sound like an opportunity for a breakout game, does it?
I also like the matchup between a QB with a bad wheel and Will Muschamp calling blitzes as much as I liked the matchup between Rick Ankiel and anyone that can throw a ball left-handed. If I write about it more, I may give myself heart palpitations, so lets just end it with these statistics:
Texas’s opponents are averaging 3.6 yards a play, leading the nation.
Texas has allowed 215 rushing yards, leading the nation.
Their 1.3 yards/carry allowed leads the nation.
They’re only 31st in the nation in sacks, with 16, but third in sack yards, with 163.
The best stat I can find is this one. 7pm. At least we’ll have plenty of time to drink ourselves in to a stupor.
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DocNice said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 am
I’m not saying that we can run on Texas, but mainly because we’re Missouri. They obviously have a legit run defense, but I don’t think it’s impenetrable by a good running team, or at least that they’ve proven that yet.
The best rushing team they’ve played by far is Oklahoma. First, OU is not nearly as good running this year as previous years. They haven’t even averaged 4.5 yards a carry against an FBS team, and only Tulsa was above 4. They rank 67th in yards per carry. Okay, arguably, Louisiana-Monroe is a respectable rushing team, but still, it’s Louisiana Monroe, and they did average nearly 3 yards a carry against the Horns.
Also, my understanding of the OU game is that Texas sold out against the run and dared OU to beat them with the pass.
My belated point being, dominance over mediocre rushing teams is not the same as shutting down a good and balanced attack, such as Florida, Alabama and some of the other good rushing teams out there.
What does that mean for Mizzou? I don’t know. I don’t expect to solve our running game this week, but I’m do think our running troubles have been due to us as much as to defenses. If we fix that, we might average 3 yards a carry agains the Horns, and see 6 to 8 yard gains with some regularity. That’s a glass half full viewpoint obviously, but I don’t see Texas loading up on the run against us, and especially if they play a nickel/dime, we could get some lanes. If they stay in the base defense, that hurts us more, but of course opens up the passing game more which could be good for us.
anyone but 3 MNC in a row said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
I agree the Texas D, while good, is extremely overrated. If they ever played a team with a legit O, its weaknesses would get exposed. A team like an Arkansas would easily blow a hole as wide as a dumb truck in that D. If anyone noticed in the OU game, the Texas D consistently has issues with tackling in space against athletic opposition (there are just so few of those in the B12). You could see this issue in the CU game as well with Steward slipping out of several tackles.
The Texas D is good because it is so athletic overall, but, outside of the secondary, Texas has no dominant, game changing players on its D. It’s D is full of very good players, but very few great, difference making type of players. Outside of the secondary, Texas will not have any its D players selected within the first two rounds of the draft, and no Kindle will not be. He is athletic, but that is all that can be said for him and even that aspect of his game is overrated. In a conference like the SEC, just look at Bama, there are a whole slew of more impressive athletes running around on D than Kindle and they happen to also produce on the field.
That said the Texas D will look SEC good against this Mizzou O. The Mizzou O is a perfect matchup for Texas. It is not physical, can’t push them around, is no threat to run down hill, has no real athletic threats at WR, and is stuck with a stationary QB who is not very accurate. The only way Mizzou stays in the game is if the Texas O stinks it up or Muschamp decides to play a defensive scheme which allows Mizzou to stay in the game. Anytime the Texas D wants to, it will be able to shut down the Mizzou O. It is only a matter of desire on the part of Texas. And despite of all this, no, I still do not think that the Texas D is all that great. It is way overrated both in stopping the run and the pass. Against a decent O, both aspects would be exposed, I think. It’s just that UT hasn’t played any legitimate O’s so far and with the way the conference has gone to the shit hole, it is unlikely to face one in conference play. I said this before, the UT D last year was heads and shoulders better than this unit. Assuming the opportunity presents itself, time will prove me right on this one.