Shawn Watson..the only coach left for the "worthless!" Callahan era...enough said!!!

[huskerfan333157]

I'm going to quote something posted on HI free boards that should diffuse some of the talk about lack of creativity or change in the offense we ran against Texas as opposed to previous games this season.

I have to say, I wouldn't have noticed any of this. But I'm not paying close enough attention.

14 of the 21 pass plays, not including Taylor scrambles on called pass plays, had routes that haven't been run since Watson began at Nebraska. Watson had put together a game plan that was enough for at least 35 points on the board.

...

So, Watson adding a ton of new wrinkles to the passing game (14 of 21 called, see my previous post) that has never been see before from a Watson led offense in Lincoln isn't good enough for ya?

So, Watson/Cotton adding a few new wrinkles to the OL blocking (don't have a total number yet) that hasn't been seen in the 3 years Barney has been here, isn't good enough for you?

So, Watson adding a few different (minimum 6 that I counted in 1st half) breakaways from previous ran spread plays isn't good enough for you?

Just to give you an idea, the play where Rex dropped the TD pass is (1) a formation we haven't seen, ever, in Lincoln and (2) a route by all receivers (3 on this play) involved on play side. Why did it catch Texas off guard? That's right, it was game planning by Watson that caught a Muschamp defense napping and Rex didn't cap it off. Tough to blame Watson on that, the entire play was executed beautifully, to perfection, up to the point Rex touched the ball.

..

2, just off of memory is (1) Niles' first drop (I think 1st drop) when Kyler stretches the field and Niles runs under the coverage and (2) Burkhead short wheel route with twins split to play side with double slants to clear the sideline.

Muschamp has a similar pass defense philosophy as Pelini, pattern matching and our WR's open all afternoon wasn't because of a weak UT secondary, Watson put in routes that UT wasn't familiar with/haven't seen before from Nebraska.

Have to say it changes my outlook a little on the direction of the offense we are going in with Taylor. Doesn't sound like we were outschemed by Muschamp; to the contrary, it sounds like we had 'em, we had 'em, and we just couldn't do the job. Against a DC like Muschamp, that is damn impressive.

Where are the 35 points coming from? that was one good playcall when burkhead ran a wheel route, ill give him that. Our wrs always drop passes, thats not anything new. A DC like muschamp..oh yes, because UCLA and OU didnt move the ball on them lol. Texas D isnt that good this year, how is that impressive? Oh wait, UCLA has a high powered offense. Did you even watch the defense on the zone read? No matter what decisison taylor would have made, it would still be stuffed in the backfield yet he still ran the damn read play 20 teams when it WASNT working. Did you watch any of the ucla/ou film against them? If thats the case, why not adjust and put in some iform and ace to put in a new "wrinkle", did you see how texas couldnt defend counters or dives? Oh wait....he had to use those "wrinkles" because we were in 3rd and long situations. thats obviously a sign of a good gameplan, being in 3rd and longs all the time.

 

[huskerfan333157]

I don't think Shawn Watson can win - and I don't mean on the field or against Top 20 defenses, I mean with the fans. After reading post after post vilifying Watson for everything from preparation to his game plan to his comments to the press, I've come to the conclusion that many people are going to call for his termination regardless of his performance. If he runs "too many" running plays, he should be passing. Too many passing plays, why didn't we run. "Too many" zone reads, why not dives or powers or options. A balanced game plan, well he should have run or passed more. Etc, etc, etc. It wouldn't matter if the Huskers never lost another game under him, won 5 National Championships and scored 35 points a game - the fan base would still say he sucked ("I mean, if he was any good at his job the Huskers would be scoring 50 a game, sheesh") and needs to go. And the reasoning behind a lot of the ferocity of Watson-hatred is seemingly that he was under Callahan - and since Callahan is "Satan", then Watson must be as well.

Watson isn't perfect, by any means, but I'd say he's on par with or better than most O.C.s out there and looking around I'm not sure who we could pick up to replace him and see the instant results everyone seems to be wanting.

I dont care that hes from the Callahan era. I have no bad feeligns for Callahan, sometimes nfl coaches just dont have "it" at the college level. I just dont like how watson never seems to adjust to what has worked int he past against that team. I did not see one counter, off tackle from under center and that is how ucla and ou ran all over texas. Maybe he can prove me wrong but he hasnt done anything yet to make me think any differently. If im wrong, im wrong, but can you PLEASE tell me what watson has done lately thats been imprssive? The offense seems poorly coached all around and have been for the past two years, in fact 3 years ago our offense got shut down when the defense got adjusted to it. Im waiting to see reasons or examples on how he is such a good offense coordinator..All i see is people saying "you hate watson because hes from the callahan era" I dont see any stats or reasons or how he has adjusted or how he mixes it up..or how hes so unpredictable.

 

[th3r0m]

I don't think Shawn Watson can win - and I don't mean on the field or against Top 20 defenses, I mean with the fans. After reading post after post vilifying Watson for everything from preparation to his game plan to his comments to the press, I've come to the conclusion that many people are going to call for his termination regardless of his performance. If he runs "too many" running plays, he should be passing. Too many passing plays, why didn't we run. "Too many" zone reads, why not dives or powers or options. A balanced game plan, well he should have run or passed more. Etc, etc, etc. It wouldn't matter if the Huskers never lost another game under him, won 5 National Championships and scored 35 points a game - the fan base would still say he sucked ("I mean, if he was any good at his job the Huskers would be scoring 50 a game, sheesh") and needs to go. And the reasoning behind a lot of the ferocity of Watson-hatred is seemingly that he was under Callahan - and since Callahan is "Satan", then Watson must be as well.

Watson isn't perfect, by any means, but I'd say he's on par with or better than most O.C.s out there and looking around I'm not sure who we could pick up to replace him and see the instant results everyone seems to be wanting.

I dont care that hes from the Callahan era. I have no bad feeligns for Callahan, sometimes nfl coaches just dont have "it" at the college level. I just dont like how watson never seems to adjust to what has worked int he past against that team. I did not see one counter, off tackle from under center and that is how ucla and ou ran all over texas. Maybe he can prove me wrong but he hasnt done anything yet to make me think any differently. If im wrong, im wrong, but can you PLEASE tell me what watson has done lately thats been imprssive? The offense seems poorly coached all around and have been for the past two years, in fact 3 years ago our offense got shut down when the defense got adjusted to it. Im waiting to see reasons or examples on how he is such a good offense coordinator..All i see is people saying "you hate watson because hes from the callahan era" I dont see any stats or reasons or how he has adjusted or how he mixes it up..or how hes so unpredictable.

I'm not sure what else I could post that I didn't already say above with regard to Watson mixing it up and the various fan reactions I've seen. I don't think that changing up the offense every week is a very good idea, especially when we seem to have trouble executing the offense we've had all season. Sure it seems like a good idea on paper to just add and change things every week to target defensive weaknesses, but it just doesn't work all that well in real life.

I haven't watched a ton of game film on Oklahoma or UCLA this year, but my assumption would be that they run those plays already and they didn't just put them in against Texas, although maybe they did. As for examples that he's a "good" offensive coordinator, what would you like to see? Every game that's posted as evidence of how bad he is is a loss (with the exception of OK last year), so I suppose to prove he is "good" one would post games we've won - but that just results in "well, those were bad defenses, so that doesn't prove anything."

 

[huskerfan333157]

I don't think Shawn Watson can win - and I don't mean on the field or against Top 20 defenses, I mean with the fans. After reading post after post vilifying Watson for everything from preparation to his game plan to his comments to the press, I've come to the conclusion that many people are going to call for his termination regardless of his performance. If he runs "too many" running plays, he should be passing. Too many passing plays, why didn't we run. "Too many" zone reads, why not dives or powers or options. A balanced game plan, well he should have run or passed more. Etc, etc, etc. It wouldn't matter if the Huskers never lost another game under him, won 5 National Championships and scored 35 points a game - the fan base would still say he sucked ("I mean, if he was any good at his job the Huskers would be scoring 50 a game, sheesh") and needs to go. And the reasoning behind a lot of the ferocity of Watson-hatred is seemingly that he was under Callahan - and since Callahan is "Satan", then Watson must be as well.

Watson isn't perfect, by any means, but I'd say he's on par with or better than most O.C.s out there and looking around I'm not sure who we could pick up to replace him and see the instant results everyone seems to be wanting.

I dont care that hes from the Callahan era. I have no bad feeligns for Callahan, sometimes nfl coaches just dont have "it" at the college level. I just dont like how watson never seems to adjust to what has worked int he past against that team. I did not see one counter, off tackle from under center and that is how ucla and ou ran all over texas. Maybe he can prove me wrong but he hasnt done anything yet to make me think any differently. If im wrong, im wrong, but can you PLEASE tell me what watson has done lately thats been imprssive? The offense seems poorly coached all around and have been for the past two years, in fact 3 years ago our offense got shut down when the defense got adjusted to it. Im waiting to see reasons or examples on how he is such a good offense coordinator..All i see is people saying "you hate watson because hes from the callahan era" I dont see any stats or reasons or how he has adjusted or how he mixes it up..or how hes so unpredictable.

I'm not sure what else I could post that I didn't already say above with regard to Watson mixing it up and the various fan reactions I've seen. I don't think that changing up the offense every week is a very good idea, especially when we seem to have trouble executing the offense we've had all season. Sure it seems like a good idea on paper to just add and change things every week to target defensive weaknesses, but it just doesn't work all that well in real life.

I haven't watched a ton of game film on Oklahoma or UCLA this year, but my assumption would be that they run those plays already and they didn't just put them in against Texas, although maybe they did. As for examples that he's a "good" offensive coordinator, what would you like to see? Every game that's posted as evidence of how bad he is is a loss (with the exception of OK last year), so I suppose to prove he is "good" one would post games we've won - but that just results in "well, those were bad defenses, so that doesn't prove anything."

Didnt we run dives, counters, tackles last year? Why were we so effective against Arizona? We were effective because he mixed it up and ran from both shotgun and under center formations. He mixed it up well so I had hope our offense would do the same this year. But i rarely see runs from under center and i see way too much zone read going on. Why cant you implement some runs under center like we did last year? It seemed like he reverted away from that because his own ego wont allow him to go away from the zone read. He didnt do well in any games except VT last year and the year before and the arizon game. I would like to see him pass it on first down, he didnt do that against texas. I would like to us to run some singleback, i form. Do runs from under center AND shotgun, not just shotgun. We arent balanced, passing 7 times a game (or passing when we are down when we are a lot) and running 50 times a game isnt balance by any means. Balance also means showing different formations from under center to shotgun. We always have mental mistakes on offense and our wrs always drop passes because they focus on blocking more in practice. Shouldnt the poor play of the wr's, oline, and rbs in big games be pegged on the coaching? You also cant just run "zone read" against a defense that is prepared for that one play and all variations of the zone readand you cant execute the zone read when the defense is faster than your offense. Where was the passing on first or second down when they were cheating up? It was blatantly obvious they were playing the run yet we never took a chance on first or second down until we were down by a lot. Also, if people payed attention, martinez didnt make the wrong reads on zone read, no matter what he did the defense would have stopped it. I dont think Watson is a good OC, hopefully he will change but our offens hasnt shown any improvement in the mental aspect, dropping passes, fumbles, etc.

 

[th3r0m]

I don't think Shawn Watson can win - and I don't mean on the field or against Top 20 defenses, I mean with the fans. After reading post after post vilifying Watson for everything from preparation to his game plan to his comments to the press, I've come to the conclusion that many people are going to call for his termination regardless of his performance. If he runs "too many" running plays, he should be passing. Too many passing plays, why didn't we run. "Too many" zone reads, why not dives or powers or options. A balanced game plan, well he should have run or passed more. Etc, etc, etc. It wouldn't matter if the Huskers never lost another game under him, won 5 National Championships and scored 35 points a game - the fan base would still say he sucked ("I mean, if he was any good at his job the Huskers would be scoring 50 a game, sheesh") and needs to go. And the reasoning behind a lot of the ferocity of Watson-hatred is seemingly that he was under Callahan - and since Callahan is "Satan", then Watson must be as well.

Watson isn't perfect, by any means, but I'd say he's on par with or better than most O.C.s out there and looking around I'm not sure who we could pick up to replace him and see the instant results everyone seems to be wanting.

I dont care that hes from the Callahan era. I have no bad feeligns for Callahan, sometimes nfl coaches just dont have "it" at the college level. I just dont like how watson never seems to adjust to what has worked int he past against that team. I did not see one counter, off tackle from under center and that is how ucla and ou ran all over texas. Maybe he can prove me wrong but he hasnt done anything yet to make me think any differently. If im wrong, im wrong, but can you PLEASE tell me what watson has done lately thats been imprssive? The offense seems poorly coached all around and have been for the past two years, in fact 3 years ago our offense got shut down when the defense got adjusted to it. Im waiting to see reasons or examples on how he is such a good offense coordinator..All i see is people saying "you hate watson because hes from the callahan era" I dont see any stats or reasons or how he has adjusted or how he mixes it up..or how hes so unpredictable.

I'm not sure what else I could post that I didn't already say above with regard to Watson mixing it up and the various fan reactions I've seen. I don't think that changing up the offense every week is a very good idea, especially when we seem to have trouble executing the offense we've had all season. Sure it seems like a good idea on paper to just add and change things every week to target defensive weaknesses, but it just doesn't work all that well in real life.

I haven't watched a ton of game film on Oklahoma or UCLA this year, but my assumption would be that they run those plays already and they didn't just put them in against Texas, although maybe they did. As for examples that he's a "good" offensive coordinator, what would you like to see? Every game that's posted as evidence of how bad he is is a loss (with the exception of OK last year), so I suppose to prove he is "good" one would post games we've won - but that just results in "well, those were bad defenses, so that doesn't prove anything."

Didnt we run dives, counters, tackles last year? Why were we so effective against Arizona? We were effective because he mixed it up and ran from both shotgun and under center formations. He mixed it up well so I had hope our offense would do the same this year. But i rarely see runs from under center and i see way too much zone read going on. Why cant you implement some runs under center like we did last year? It seemed like he reverted away from that because his own ego wont allow him to go away from the zone read. He didnt do well in any games except VT last year and the year before and the arizon game. I would like to see him pass it on first down, he didnt do that against texas. I would like to us to run some singleback, i form. Do runs from under center AND shotgun, not just shotgun. We arent balanced, passing 7 times a game (or passing when we are down when we are a lot) and running 50 times a game isnt balance by any means. Balance also means showing different formations from under center to shotgun. We always have mental mistakes on offense and our wrs always drop passes because they focus on blocking more in practice. Shouldnt the poor play of the wr's, oline, and rbs in big games be pegged on the coaching? You also cant just run "zone read" against a defense that is prepared for that one play and all variations of the zone readand you cant execute the zone read when the defense is faster than your offense. Where was the passing on first or second down when they were cheating up? It was blatantly obvious they were playing the run yet we never took a chance on first or second down until we were down by a lot. Also, if people payed attention, martinez didnt make the wrong reads on zone read, no matter what he did the defense would have stopped it. I dont think Watson is a good OC, hopefully he will change but our offens hasnt shown any improvement in the mental aspect, dropping passes, fumbles, etc.

He's running what he's running because Martinez is the quarterback. With Lee at the helm from the beginning of the season, I think we would see a less zone read oriented, more "mix it up" type of offense because Lee is not the running threat Martinez is and as such Helu and Burkhead and the passing game would be more utilized than they have been. I'm not saying they'd never run the zone read, but it probably wouldn't be called quite so often. But Lee isn't starting, Martinez is, so Watson is scheming to Martinez's strengths while at the same time being hampered by his weaknesses (redshirt freshman with a more limited playbook and less developed passing skillset.) No one has said that this offense is in any way balanced, it's very run heavy to take advantage of Martinez's speed. As such passes are usually only going to come on 2nd and long and 3rd and long situations (you would think being run heavy would satisfy the fans, who've been calling for it, but SURPRISE!!!, now the Huskers don't pass enough)

As for passing on 1st or 2nd down, with the way the receivers were catching - or rather not catching - running was a higher percentage play regardless of how Texas was playing it and that Martinez was only averaging 2 yards a carry and Lee 3. As for Martinez not making the wrong reads, he was and has been for quite a while - several people have re-watched the game and posted about it. That said, even making the right reads wasn't going to get him a bunch of break away touchdowns on Saturday, but he was LOSING yards just about every time he ran in the second and third quarters.

As for the mental mistakes, they are not just limited to our offense and in fact plague the defense as well, it's just that it's easier for the defense to "correct" their mistakes due to their speed. The overall mentality of the team with regard to making mistakes needs to be addressed from the top down from Bo to Carl and Shawn then to the assistants and the players. At the same time, it also needs to be a grass roots movement from the players that they are not going to allow this type of error prone mentality to exist any more.

 

[quitou]

He's running what he's running because Martinez is the quarterback. With Lee at the helm from the beginning of the season, I think we would see a less zone read oriented, more "mix it up" type of offense because Lee is not the running threat Martinez is and as such Helu and Burkhead and the passing game would be more utilized than they have been. I'm not saying they'd never run the zone read, but it probably wouldn't be called quite so often. But Lee isn't starting, Martinez is, so Watson is scheming to Martinez's strengths while at the same time being hampered by his weaknesses (redshirt freshman with a more limited playbook and less developed passing skillset.) No one has said that this offense is in any way balanced, it's very run heavy to take advantage of Martinez's speed. As such passes are usually only going to come on 2nd and long and 3rd and long situations (you would think being run heavy would satisfy the fans, who've been calling for it, but SURPRISE!!!, now the Huskers don't pass enough)

As for passing on 1st or 2nd down, with the way the receivers were catching - or rather not catching - running was a higher percentage play regardless of how Texas was playing it and that Martinez was only averaging 2 yards a carry and Lee 3. As for Martinez not making the wrong reads, he was and has been for quite a while - several people have re-watched the game and posted about it. That said, even making the right reads wasn't going to get him a bunch of break away touchdowns on Saturday, but he was LOSING yards just about every time he ran in the second and third quarters.

As for the mental mistakes, they are not just limited to our offense and in fact plague the defense as well, it's just that it's easier for the defense to "correct" their mistakes due to their speed. The overall mentality of the team with regard to making mistakes needs to be addressed from the top down from Bo to Carl and Shawn then to the assistants and the players. At the same time, it also needs to be a grass roots movement from the players that they are not going to allow this type of error prone mentality to exist any more.

I don't think you're wrong, but the fact is that the Defense is staying more consistent through the season. They're not as good as last year, but they are consistently that good as the season goes on... perhaps even improved a bit. The Offense is better, and I still think we'll have a better year than last. But if the same moments of ineptitude are happening on the Offense regardless of how much better they get, that's not a measure of talent or experience. That's preparation to get a group of college kids to play at the highest level. That's motivating those same kids to lay it all out on the field. And if it's the Offense... that's not Bo's job, and we've known that since he got here. The moment he got here, he gave the baton to Watson and said 'don't screw up'. It's not happening often, but it's annoying when Bizarro Offense plays instead of our typical Offense at least once a season. Shawn is the man in charge of getting the Offense ready to play... physically, mentally, and play-wise. If he doesn't change this habit, something will break soon.

 

[Enhance]

I didn't post on the board (or even read the board) for a few days because of threads like this that I knew were going to pop up. Here's what I think about Watson and what I think about play-calling in general.

When a play doesn't work, arm-chair coaches always scream "why the hell did we run that play!". Truth of the matter is this: if a play works, everybody is happy. If it doesn't work, then you get complaints from the fan base. I think it is important to keep this in mind, because it is very often not the play-calling that is the problem but the players trying to execute the play.

I do think Watson deserves a little heat for his approach to this game. Throughout the entire game I kept finding myself being reminded of the 2006 performance against USC, where we played like we were trying not to lose and played extremely conservative. Watson, despite it's non-success, continued to use the zone-read and similar looking plays over and over. Watson has made it abundantly clear that the zone-read is an intricate part of our offense and is one of our "bread and butter" plays, but there comes a point when you just have to realize that the zone-read game isn't going to get every-one. You will be shut down eventually, which is why you have to be able to attack the field in other ways.

All that said, this is why our offense looked pathetic Saturday.

1) Watson called his regular game plan. The running game and zone-read game wasn't working.

2) Watson tried to air it out and spread out the defense. Receivers dropped balls, Martinez tried to force some plays, and 3&outs ensued.

3) Fourth quarter rolls around, nothing is working. Watson is still trying to run his offense, and players are continuing to drop balls and not execute when they have to.

So, this isn't entirely Watson's fault in my eyes, because the players need to be held accountable as well. There is no excuse for the fumbles and dropped passes we experienced, and there is little Watson can do to get these guys to stay focused and not make those mistakes. That said, Watson is starting to get more rage from me. Players don't have an excuse for this stuff, but it is becoming abundantly clear that Watson's offenses hit these roadblocks in every major (and sometimes non-major) games they face. To me, it's a player problem when it happens every once in awhile, and it's a coaching problem when it happens consistently.

tl;drWatson doesn't deserve this type of railing from the fan base as there isn't a lot he can do about dropped passes and fumbles, but if these problems persist it becomes less of a player issue and more of a coaching issue. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[zoogs]

Enhance, I think Watson called a very good game against Texas. There are aspects that frustrate us, but we do have an offense and it's not exactly the mix-it-up, call whatever you want video game playcalling that always works. We stick to our bread and butter simply because it is our bread and butter. And many of the key adjustments that are made, are the little things that enable big things to happen on the field, but are invisible to most people watching the game, like changes in the blocking assignments on zone reads which happened on Saturday. That went way beyond me, at least.

There are some good posts on the HI free board breaking this down. Against Texas, we introduced new wrinkles that threw off the best D we had faced all year. We had wrinkles in the blocking scheme, we showed new looks (multiplicity coming into play) and hit them with routes they were not prepared to defend, scheme-wise. Unfortunately, the execution was lacking on what easily could have been a grand offensive day, in retrospect.

Comes down to a few things:

1) Motivation/focus preparation by the staff. I'm disappointed, but we do hold Bo to a pretty high standard in this regard.

2) Bad situations. Poor reads on first down consistently had us in bad, hard-to-call situations on 2nd and 3rd. This is the kind of trouble Taylor can get us in, and has gotten us in consistently, over the year. The difference, he made some clutch bail-us-out throws on 3rd down against Washington, and KSU I believe. Those weren't there against Texas. Bad situation, game-wise too, in getting down early and not having the pluck to pick ourselves back up. The trouble is we should be getting ourselves into less bad situations. It will open up everything else and we'll see great things happening. If we keep executing poorly on downs 1 and 2, we're stuck on down 3. Bad reads are not part of the playcall. There was no reason other than Taylor's weaknesses being exposed that led to us getting into so many poor situations.

Now we rely on Taylor to bail us out with that 'nuclear' ability of his. But when those few plays a game aren't there, we are often left scrambling for options and are behind the eight ball, both on the field and in the OC's booth. Nonetheless, we still had the bull by the horns in this one on more than a few occasions. Unfortunately, exactly how the chess game breaks down is hard to see for most fans, including me. We are often harder on coaches and their gameplans than they deserve, mostly out of lack of perception.

 

[sd'sker]

Enhance, I think Watson called a very good game against Texas. There are aspects that frustrate us, but we do have an offense and it's not exactly the mix-it-up, call whatever you want video game playcalling that always works. We stick to our bread and butter simply because it is our bread and butter. And many of the key adjustments that are made, are the little things that enable big things to happen on the field, but are invisible to most people watching the game, like changes in the blocking assignments on zone reads which happened on Saturday. That went way beyond me, at least.

There are some good posts on the HI free board breaking this down. Against Texas, we introduced new wrinkles that threw off the best D we had faced all year. We had wrinkles in the blocking scheme, we showed new looks (multiplicity coming into play) and hit them with routes they were not prepared to defend, scheme-wise. Unfortunately, the execution was lacking on what easily could have been a grand offensive day, in retrospect.

Comes down to a few things:

1) Motivation/focus preparation by the staff. I'm disappointed, but we do hold Bo to a pretty high standard in this regard.

2) Bad situations. Poor reads on first down consistently had us in bad, hard-to-call situations on 2nd and 3rd. This is the kind of trouble Taylor can get us in, and has gotten us in consistently, over the year. The difference, he made some clutch bail-us-out throws on 3rd down against Washington, and KSU I believe. Those weren't there against Texas. Bad situation, game-wise too, in getting down early and not having the pluck to pick ourselves back up. The trouble is we should be getting ourselves into less bad situations. It will open up everything else and we'll see great things happening. If we keep executing poorly on downs 1 and 2, we're stuck on down 3. Bad reads are not part of the playcall. There was no reason other than Taylor's weaknesses being exposed that led to us getting into so many poor situations.

Now we rely on Taylor to bail us out with that 'nuclear' ability of his. But when those few plays a game aren't there, we are often left scrambling for options and are behind the eight ball, both on the field and in the OC's booth. Nonetheless, we still had the bull by the horns in this one on more than a few occasions. Unfortunately, exactly how the chess game breaks down is hard to see for most fans, including me. We are often harder on coaches and their gameplans than they deserve, mostly out of lack of perception.

i agree. there were a lot of drive killing fumbles, sacks, and dropped passes. what can watson do about that? the team played unmotivated, which is all of the coaches fault. but i do think watson called a good game. martinez makes the right reads, learns how to go down at the line of scrimmage instead of 6 yards back, does not put the ball on the ground, (and most importantly) they catch the passes, it is a whole new ball game. and if we catch those passes, muschamp has to adjust and then the run game opens up.

i know bo would never do this, but this loss falls on the players for lack of execution. and i think that has to do with so much focus on making this "just another game". this was a big game, and they should have treated it as such, otherwise the players come out and play flat.

 

[suh_fan93]

I realize the drops counted for some yards and possible points but other teams who have played against Texas have had dropped passes and turnovers as well.

For comparisons sake Nebraska had 202 total yards of offense vs Texas Saturday. This is the exactly how much 2-5 Rice had. That's right. Rice.

 

Wyoming, another team with a losing record (2-5) had more offensive yards against Texas than Nebraska did. That's right. The Wyoming Cowboys.

 

UCLA a team who's .500 right now (3-3) not only had almost 100 yards more of total offense than Nebraska did against Texas they buried Texas into the ground and scored 4 touchdowns in the process.

 

[Danimal]

I realize the drops counted for some yards and possible points but other teams who have played against Texas have had dropped passes and turnovers as well.

For comparisons sake Nebraska had 202 total yards of offense vs Texas Saturday. This is the exactly how much 2-5 Rice had. That's right. Rice.

 

Wyoming, another team with a losing record (2-5) had more offensive yards against Texas than Nebraska did. That's right. The Wyoming Cowboys.

 

UCLA a team who's .500 right now (3-3) not only had almost 100 yards more of total offense than Nebraska did against Texas they buried Texas into the ground and scored 4 touchdowns in the process.

Uh we didn't have a normal amount of drops or missed scoring opportunities. We had a ridiculous amount. If we catch those damn balls our yard total about doubles and we score WAY more points. Plus if we catch those damn balls Texas has to loosen-up some against the run and we move the ball there too. It made a huge difference.

 

[bshirt]

I realize the drops counted for some yards and possible points but other teams who have played against Texas have had dropped passes and turnovers as well.

For comparisons sake Nebraska had 202 total yards of offense vs Texas Saturday. This is the exactly how much 2-5 Rice had. That's right. Rice.

 

Wyoming, another team with a losing record (2-5) had more offensive yards against Texas than Nebraska did. That's right. The Wyoming Cowboys.

 

UCLA a team who's .500 right now (3-3) not only had almost 100 yards more of total offense than Nebraska did against Texas they buried Texas into the ground and scored 4 touchdowns in the process.

Uh we didn't have a normal amount of drops or missed scoring opportunities. We had a ridiculous amount. If we catch those damn balls our yard total about doubles and we score WAY more points. Plus if we catch those damn balls Texas has to loosen-up some against the run and we move the ball there too. It made a huge difference.

Uhhh....."if"....."if"....."if"....."if"....

I don't think anybody would mind giving SW a pass for the rare "if" game. But when it happens every time we play a decent defense "and" even some very, very marginal ones (Iowa St, SDSU, etc) "and" we're in his 3rd year now....well, the "ifs" simply don't hack it.

Would we give Bo/Carl free rides if the defense got blown out several times every year? I highly doubt it.

 

[Hunter94]

for over a year the players carried around reminders of last years game, don't tell me this wasn't a big game for them, i call bullsh#t on that one.....but the line played like school girls, it starts with them and they should be ashamed of their effort. i am also not impressed with the D line either, Crick hardly got his name called, just a lame effort from some guys who should be exerting their will and dominance over their opponents. the front 4 has been a disappointment all year, the secondary is holding them up.....the real point here is this team is not getting better, at least on the defensive side of the ball like last year, and that is unacceptable.

 

[suh_fan93]

I realize the drops counted for some yards and possible points but other teams who have played against Texas have had dropped passes and turnovers as well.

For comparisons sake Nebraska had 202 total yards of offense vs Texas Saturday. This is the exactly how much 2-5 Rice had. That's right. Rice.

 

Wyoming, another team with a losing record (2-5) had more offensive yards against Texas than Nebraska did. That's right. The Wyoming Cowboys.

 

UCLA a team who's .500 right now (3-3) not only had almost 100 yards more of total offense than Nebraska did against Texas they buried Texas into the ground and scored 4 touchdowns in the process.

Uh we didn't have a normal amount of drops or missed scoring opportunities. We had a ridiculous amount. If we catch those damn balls our yard total about doubles and we score WAY more points. Plus if we catch those damn balls Texas has to loosen-up some against the run and we move the ball there too. It made a huge difference.

Right but do you seriously think this game should have boiled down to a couple of dropped touchdown passes to begin with? Do you not think Wyoming and Rice and UCLA and Texas Tech for that matter didn't have dropped passes or have even more turnovers than Nebraska did? I fully realize that the dropped touchdown passes if caught may have won this game but if you want to hold your breath on 1 or 2 individual plays each and every time you play a halfway decent team well hats off to you then. This is about a team that played predictable football, didn't mix things up at all whatsoever, kept running more or less the same running plays over and over again and in the end could only muster 2 field goals and ZERO touchdowns offensively. Thank goodness we had a reliable kicker or things really would have been bad. This game and several other losses that come to mind should not have come down to 1 or 2 plays.

I really hope we win the rest of our games but if Okie Lite and Missouri and whoever else plays us watches the Texas and SDSU game and then ol' Watson tries to play run the ball down the their throat throw on 3rd down football then you better cross your fingers.

 

[zoogs]

for over a year the players carried around reminders of last years game, don't tell me this wasn't a big game for them, i call bullsh#t on that one.....but the line played like school girls, it starts with them and they should be ashamed of their effort. i am also not impressed with the D line either, Crick hardly got his name called, just a lame effort from some guys who should be exerting their will and dominance over their opponents. the front 4 has been a disappointment all year, the secondary is holding them up.....the real point here is this team is not getting better, at least on the defensive side of the ball like last year, and that is unacceptable.

I feel part of the problem was that it was a very big game for them; maybe they didn't internalize what Bo was preaching enough. Pure speculation, I don't know.

But we saw a team that got behind and started to really press, and struggle, and not settle down and mount a steady comeback. This is about the mental composition and fortitude of the team, and I think we still gotta wonder what's going to happen, in any game the rest of the way, where we have a fight on our hands and we're either down, or in a close game at the end. Hopefully, we see improvement.

suh_fan, we weren't predictable, and in fact we caught Texas off guard at times, but simply didn't execute. The lack of 'bringing it' to begin with (sorry, but a lot of this falls on Taylor's shoulders) put us in a lot of bad situations where we really had our hands tied, with the playcalling. And heck - we still had our shots to score, finding ways to get guys obscenely open against one of the best secondaries in the nation.