Life of Garrett

[TheCheshireCat]

This article boosts my confidence a lot. Gilbert will be facing a ferocious defense and has high expectations thrust on him.

 

NEBRASKA FOOTBALL: Life of Garrett

Horns' QB has big shoes to follow - and one heck of a tough assignment in Lincoln

 

by Samuel McKewon

October 13, 2010

 

Texas quarterback Garrett Gilbert

You don't need a cryptex to figure out how, over the last six years, Texas supplanted Oklahoma as the king of Big 12 football.

It wasn't defense, whether Greg Robinson, Gene Chizik or Will Muschamp was coordinating it. It wasn't UT's super-accelerated system of recruiting that locks up commits the second they step on campus for Junior Day and probably leads to more misses than hits in the Lone Star State.

The Longhorns can attribute their success, at day's end, to this: Two men and six years of unprecedented quarterback play. Certainly for Texas. And perhaps, with few exceptions, for the last 100 years of college football.

Scoff, then let it sink in. And check it: Vince Young didn't miss a single start in 2004 and 2005. No need to recount Young's virtuosity, other than to say if you were creating an all-time Big 12 team, he's the offensive captain.

Then Colt McCoy – only the winningest quarterback in college football history - didn't miss a start, either, in four years. He played hurt, bruised, concussed and darn near broken. While his myriad injuries in late 2006 – a shoulder stringer and a severe concussion/pinched nerve because of an illegal hit - might have kept UT from winning the Big 12 title, but it wasn't until his bizarre, dead-arm injury in the 2010 BCS National Championship that McCoy was stuck as a bystander.

Their career combined statistics: 19,293 passing yards, 4,716 rushing yards and 213 touchdowns. Over those last six seasons, the average year looked like this: 3,023 passing yards, 619 rushing yards and 32 total touchdowns. The true dual threat. Six Heisman-caliber campaigns. Two retired jersey numbers. More than 70 consecutive starts.

If you extrapolate those statistics out to a NFL-length season, you're talking about Brett Farve and Michael Vick, rolled into one, during their primes, without any missed starts, minus the Wranglers and electrocuted dogs, with midterms to take and girlfriends asking for Twizzlers and a box of Chicken in a Biscuit after practice.

Garrett Gilbert had to follow all of that. And still buy the crackers. And he chose UT willingly, knowing that burnt-orange rib roasts have unusually-high standards for quarterback play.

“He’s smart,” UT coach Mack Brown said. “He’s tough. He grew up in football and he understands that at Texas, you need to win games. He understands that he is going to be scrutinized as the quarterback. We told him that before he came here.”

Brown, good at telling old war stories, then proceeded to rattle off a few Gilbert's brilliant predecessors. How fans demanded Brown moved Young to safety. How McCoy wasn't tough enough to take the hits and keep ticking.

“I get all those calls and emails,” Brown said.

But, simply, the odds were and are against Gilbert - in 2010, and for his career, however prolific it may turn out to be. It's like bowling a 900 series on three successive nights.

The son of a NFL journeyman – I vaguely remember Garrett's dad Gale wearing the Chargers jersey that my wife doesn't like compared to the powder-blue ones – Gilbert knows the ropes, is attuned to the nuances of the game and throws a pretty good ball. He received more compliments this week from the Brothers Pelini than did Washington's Jake Locker. Maybe it's sympathy in advance for whatever it is the Blackshirts have in store for the kid.

Gilbert's 2010 numbers – 1,151 yards passing, 4 touchdowns to 5 interceptions – could be considered par for a new starter's course. He played sparingly in 2009 – only spelling McCoy when a game got ridiculously out of hand – until the BCS title game, when, pressed into action, the then-true freshman bumbled around for two quarters before catching fire in the fourth quarter for two drives while Alabama's offense counted chickens on the sidelines. Texas fell short, but on those two drives alone, UT fans thought they'd caught another wave of unprecedented efficiency.

“He didn't have the pressure of the media and he didn't have the pressure of the fans,” Brown said. Gilbert's performance had no subtext or context to it, no superego to hound the id around the gridiron. But after that game – even in a loss – Gilbert was immediately expected to pick up where Young and McCoy left off.

Three things worked against him.

*He didn't really have to win the starting quarterback job, as Young (in 2003 over Chance Mock) and McCoy (in 2006 over Jevan Snead) did.The BCS title game was, simply, his debut, and his backups are both true freshmen.

*The expectations based on three quarters of play.

*Texas, in an effort to better suit Gilbert's talents, switched the offense back to the one Young hated so much in early 2004: An I-formation, power-based attack. The offense failed miserably – in part because UT lacks the personnel and training to run it – and the Horns appear to be transitioning Gilbert back to spread passing game that resembles the McCoy era.

The problems reached a head in a 34-12 loss to UCLA in which all of the offseason illusions disappeared over the course of three hours in Austin. Gilbert, harassed constantly by the Bruins' defensive ends, lost a fumble early and spent the rest of the afternoon pitching pennies, little four-and-five-yard passes that risked little and gained less.

The Longhorns were gelded, fruitlessly working between the 20s without scoring points – the kind of football nearly any offense can play but nobody wants to see – drawing boos and dismissals from a Texas audience bloated with success and distracted by the sunshine pumped right up the Bevo by an adoring local media and a national press corps drawn to the money and copious number of cute girls flitting about UT's campus.

For a half, Gilbert's performance vs. Oklahoma wasn't much better. But he found some resolve in the second half, Brown said, helping lead a comeback that again fell short, but felt conspicuously like the Alabama game. Except with the pressure.

“Looking at those games, you try to have a short memory and just keep taking what you can and learn from it,” Gilbert said. “Being able to know where I can I stay in the pocket a little longer, where can I step up instead of flushing out and keep my eyes downfield - that sort of thing. Stuff like that is where I’m really trying to improve.”

Gilbert knows his way around QB rhetoric. We'll see if it does him much good against a Nebraska pass defense designed to humiliate quarterbacks who don't have a running game to compliment their arms. NU's secondary dares receivers and creates a fog of indecision inside a quarterback's head. Throw it there? There? Who's open? Why is the rush coming right at my face, and not from the side?

Young never had to answer those questions – at least not from Nebraska. When Bo Pelini coached at OU for one year, Young and UT were held scoreless, however. McCoy took the test last December and flunked pretty miserably, nearly throwing the game away. Now here's Gilbert, neither Vince nor Colt, saddled with the expectations of heritage, the pressure of leading that family against a clan with malicious intent and the questions posed the Huskers defense, without one damn bit of cover from his running backs and offensive line.

Some life, if you can get it.

 

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2010/10/13/4cb61f661ebe7

[Husker_x]

That about sums it up. Whatever measly offense Texas was able to muster last season is going to be even tougher to duplicate without an athlete like McCoy.

[TRIPP]

our crowd alone will win this game for us! its gonna be so loud. unless they somehow score quick and shut the crowd up, i dont see them winning. one big play from NE and the place will go crazy. no way garrett handles it. i see forced passes turning in to pick 6's

[TripleOption]

Yah, if Texas can score more than 10 points or so, it'll be because of turnovers or special teams play. Shut down those mental mistakes, and I think it's going to get real ugly for Texas.

[mnhusker]

Man I loved this read........ He hit it on the head and I think in some ways showed how valuable a great QB can be, TX is very good perhaps Luck in getting the QB has been part of the deal ............ I do think however that we create our own Luck but this year TX may have every thing but luck on their side........... We have BO and Martinez.

[Husker S Thompson]

Great read, that Brett Favre/Mike Vick line is priceless.

[ESPY]

Probably one of McKewon's best. And that's saying a lot coming from me 'cause all the extra rhetoric and conjuncture usually drive me up the wall.

[Moiraine]

We have BO

 

Speak for yourself