Getting Back to the Winning Formula

Unable to defeat Oklahoma, win a Big XII title, or make a BCS bowl, Texas demanded that coach Mack Brown make some changes with his staff. Someone had to answer for the underachieving offense and the defense that gave up over 21 points a game and 153 yards a game on the ground. Ultimately Brown sacrificed Carl Reese who resurrected a terrible defense during his six seasons at Texas. But in 2003, that defense had slipped and Texas had underperformed and Reese was the sacrifical lamb.

This lead to a new era for Mack Brown. Some would call it the Vince Young era. And while VY is the biggest reason for Texas' new found ability to win the Big XII and make BCS bowl games, the defense also was a large part of the equation. The defense's resurgence was in large part due to the hirings of Greg Robinson and Gene Chizik. In Robinson's only season on the Forty Acres his defense gave up under 18 points a game and managed to improve the run defense at over 40 yards a game. The improvement continued under Chizik whose defense never gave up over 305 yards a game and averaged under 18.5 points per game given up.

Mack Brown had employed a new strategy bringing in top coordinators who brought with them top defensive strategies. It kept Texas' defense always near the top of the country and always challenging opposing offenses. It also became a position that was a stepping stone for head coaching jobs as Robinson headed to Syracuse and Chizik parlayed his success into the Iowa State job. This allowed Mack Brown of continuing to attract the top defensive minds to the University of Texas.

Unfortunately, instead of replacing Chizik with a top coordinator in 2007, Brown settled on his co-defensive coordinator in 2005 and 2006 Duane Akina and promoting Larry Mac Duff from within. While Akina was an important part of the 05 & 06 defenses, everyone knew that is was Chizik's defense. The mistake proved to be costly as the 2007 defense was one of the worst that Mack Brown has ever had. 25 points surrendered a game and over 370 yards of offense given up a game, and a disappointing 10-3 season for the Longhorns that never looked prepared.

The results were obvious and Larry Mac Duff took the fall. Akina was demoted back to his old spot as co-defensive coordinator and in charge of the secondary, and Mack Brown once again went cherry picking at his favorite orchard, Auburn University. Will Muschamp became Texas' new defensive coordinator and will try and return Texas' defense to the top of the heap. Muschamp is one of the top up and coming coordinators in the country and will be a hot commodity every season he is Texas' defensive coordinator.

Let's hope Mack Brown learns the lesson here. That hiring top assistants from outside the program is the way to keep your team near the top. While Akina could end up being a good defensive coordinator somewhere, why let him get his feel for the job at Texas when you could hire someone that is already proven as one of the best from another school. Yes, it means Texas will continue to lose defensive coordinators to head coaching jobs, but is that necessarily a bad thing? It gets fresh blood in consistently that is trying to prove itself and prepare to become a head coach. It also gives the defense a different look to Big XII offenses every few seasons, which is always a good thing.

It would be nice if that was the case with the offense, but that's another story for another day. Either way, it appears Mack Brown has learned the error of his ways, and is going back to his winning formula. If the University of Texas is a premier school, and a premier place to coach, then why wouldn't you use that to your advantage by recruiting top coaches to go along with top players.

9-3 Still an Overachievement

While Texas fans had grandiose visions of back-dooring their way into a BCS birth, when it came down to it, Texas ended their charade, and played like the 8-4 football team they are. Outside of the Texas Tech game, where Texas Tech declined to use a defense, the Longhorns have been a team that couldn’t play four quality quarters of football and couldn’t dominate in any phase of the game. The fact that they are 9-3 and have a shot to get another 10 win season, is a success in its own right.

The biggest flaw in this year’s Texas team was obviously the defense. The unit trying to cope with the departure of Co-defensive Coordinator Gene Chizik was obviously no where near the unit they were of previous years. The defense struggled to stop anyone all season and had an extremely tough time coming up with stops on third down. It just seemed like whether it was a 3rd and 3, or the 3rd and 20 in the first quarter of the A&M game, the Longhorns would figure out away to give up 4 or 21. The role of a defensive coordinator is to put his players in the position to succeed and to make adjustments throughout the game. While the Texas players often times didn’t make the plays when they were there, the defense rarely made adjustments or improved during the course of the game, and it seemed like the defense was caught off guard or out of position too much. (You may say that the defense stepped up in games against Nebraska and Oklahoma State, but just because the offense decides to run out the clock with 12 minutes left in the game doesn’t mean the defense is making stops.) The way the defense played this season leaves me to wonder whether Chizik was the brains of the operation, but I’m willing to chalk it up to a mediocre secondary and an atrocious set of linebackers and give Duane Akina another year of getting the defense to play in his system.

A more pressing concern has to be the play of Colt McCoy. His decision making in the A&M game might have been worse than his performance in the Kansas State game. After three weeks of playing solid football and making the plays that the defense gave him, Colt looked determined to win the A&M game by himself. As has been the case, when he tries to do too much he fails miserably. While his running game hadn’t been in full force the entire season and he struggled with injuries to his wide receivers, namely Limas Sweed, Colt still should have been better off. After a successful freshman season, Colt was given a larger responsibility in the offense, and he didn’t cope well with the responsibility. His 18 interceptions this season have been costly and keep this offense from achieving more. It is starting to appear more and more that Colt McCoy’s ceiling as a player lies somewhere between the reliable quarterback that played within the system that he was his freshman year and the improvisational playmaker he has tried to be this season. I think the best we can hope for out of Colt McCoy is a quarterback that relies on his running game, spreads the ball around to his extremely talented wide receivers and tight ends, and on occasion makes a few spectacular plays. I think if he tries to do more than that or Texas insists on being a pass first team centered around Colt McCoy, he will continue to have a Kansas State game and Texas A&M game a few times a season.

I think Colt can be a good enough quarterback to win BCS bowls and possibly a National Championship, but it won’t be because of Colt McCoy. If it were to happen it would need to be because Colt leads an offense built around Jamaal Charles and Vondrell McGee, that utilizes Jermichael Finley, Quan Cosby, and Jordan Shipley on the outside. But most of all it would need to be a team that has a National Championship caliber defense. Colt McCoy doesn’t have the ability to throw for 4,500 yards, 38 touchdowns and 4 interceptions, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t the right quarterback for the University of Texas. If Colt could find his niche and play within himself he could be a quarterback that throws for 3,500 yards with 28 touchdowns and 5 interceptions on a BCS team.The real question will be how Colt McCoy handles the pressure that will be present throughout his next two years at quarterback. If Colt McCoy is continued to ask to win Texas football games as oppose to leading the offense, then Colt will continue to have terrible games mixed in with the good and solid ones. If that is the case, then the Texas faithful will begin to clamor for someone who can win games for Texas, like their hero Vince Young. Colt McCoy will have to deal with John Chiles becoming more involved in the offense during his junior and senior season. It is unavoidable; Chiles is a talent that can give a new wrinkle to the Texas offense. But if Colt McCoy can’t handle the criticism or the competition much like Chance Mock, Texas will find itself a team without a leader bogged down in a quarterback quagmire that can’t compete with the elite teams in the Big XII.

Major Applewhite and Chris Simms was a difficult situation that ended with neither reaching their full potential. Chance Mock struggled with the future looking over his shoulder and it ended with Texas underachieving. Colt McCoy needs to be the quarterback for this team, but it needs to be in a system where he is not expected to be the All-American. Unfortunately, Greg Davis’ offense has only been truly effective for two years at the University of Texas, and that was when Vince Young was his quarterback.