Chris Simms was TERRIBLE. Did you notice the 4 or 5 passes that <i>almost</i> got intercepted? Against a better team, a couple of those passes would have gone the other way for TDs. Texas will not win with that kind of QB play against OU, Colorado, or whoever they might play (hopefully) in the Big 12 championship game. Major is a better choice for QB when UT has a running game to keep the opposing LBs honest. It won't matter anyway, because Simms is going to get himself hurt by hanging back in the pocket and taking hits because he can't read what is happening down the field. Applewhite, I. Williams, and Benson are going to lead the offense by the end of this year. Just my opinion. btw, Vasher is a freakin' star!
Simms did okay. He got hit a couple of times by not picking up the blitz, but in general he got the ball off. Besides for when hit, he did great. UT did not call plays most suited for the defense, they called plays they wanted to run. Mack Brown said it best today when he said (paraphrased) that UT could have passed all day long with five wides since they didn't have the corners to match up. This caused a lot of situations in which NMSU had more rushers than blockers. UT only ran 3 rushing plays. Benson may see some 1st half next week. The defense was great besides a lapse in the third.
Mack said that they could've run the spread the whole game and scored 60, but he wanted us to establish the run. WE ran maybe 10% of our offense.
<B>Mack said that they could've run the spread the whole game and scored 60, but he wanted us to establish the run. WE ran maybe 10% of our offense.</B> The question is whether we will do this against OU. Establishing the run is nice, but if you can score 60 in the air, do it. OU is likely going to destroy our running game, and we have had this psychotic tendency the last couple of years to keep trying when its obvious that the run isn't working. It's like watching someone bang their head against a brick wall hoping it will crack. If the run doesn't work against OU, I hope we don't wait until we're down by 10 or 20 points before committing to the spread offense.
Shanna, I think we will do whatever it takes to beat the land thieves. Against NMSU, we didn't have to open it up. BTW, Blow-U is doing the same thing. They haven't revealed half of what they're gonna do on offense. Expect them to open up whenever they play Bill Snyder's crew.
<B>Shanna, I think we will do whatever it takes to beat the land thieves. Against NMSU, we didn't have to open it up. </B> I hope you're right. I was at the Stanford game last year and we kept hoping they'd stop running the ball and open things up ... never seemed to until late in the game. Then again, the receivers weren't quite as proven yet.
Some have pointed out that maybe Mack jumped the gun in yanking Simms last year against USL. The prevailing thought was we should have continued to run our offense and execute. I think UT doesn't have a talent problem. I think their blocking schemes may have something to do with the lack of protection and run-blocking.
I think Cedric Benson is a different type of back, though. Hodges Mitchell is exactly the wrong kind of back against a great defense, imo. Heady and smart, but he didn't possess the sheer speed or power to do much against teams like OU. I think that kind of back plays best against average defenses. Against weak defenses, they don't get the 75 yard runs that the athletic guys do, and against good defenses, they can't gain yardage at all. Against average defense, their smarts have the most effect (BC and Texas each had that kind of back last year, and I watched most of both teams games).