Dreading Austin: Stocked Longhorns, Texas’ Monster Defense & Unkind History (Towards Bruins)
by Nestor on Sep 20, 2010 5:34 AM PDT
in Football
Email
PrintWhile the win against House was a nice baby step forward, the Bruins will have a mountain to climb this weekend against the undefeated and defending Big-12 champion Texas Longhorns. While these Longhorns are the not the same bunch that was led by Vince Young (who is probably one of the all time favorite non-Bruins in the greater Bruin Nation) and Colt McCoy, taking on them in Austin is going to be an impossible challenge for the guys in blue and gold.
Here is what Coach Rick Neuheisel had to say immediately after the Houston game while thinking about Texas:
" [We]'re going to have to fix a lot of things. It will call for a different plan. We understand the challenge of going to play a top 10 team. It's an undefeated team with great tradition, and we've got to make sure that we're not caught looking at all the people wearing burnt orange. This will be twice that crowd that we saw [at Kansas State]."
From the LA Times today:
The Cougars, though, are the Lone Star state's junior varsity compared to the Texas team UCLA faces in Austin on Saturday.
"There is no question, we're going up the ladder a little bit," Coach Rick Neuheisel said. "That is no slight on Houston."
But Neuheisel said that Texas "has everything. Their shelves are stocked. They don't long for anything. I think their recruiting class for 2017 has already committed."
While lot of chatter this week is going to be how the Bruin defense is going to match up against the Texas offense under Garrett Gilbert, what I am really worried about is how the UCLA offense is going to handle Will Muschamp's Long Horn defense. Honestly I am not sure right now whether our offense is going to be handle the Texas defense. If Norm Chow's unit doesn't clean up its act in terms of minimizing silly penalties, turnovers, and show a desire to catch the ball, Texas will get its revenge for Route 66, by destroying the Bruins.
Had a chance to watch a big chunk of Texas's last game against Texas Tech this past weekend. While the Long Horns' offense is still finding their way, it was their defense that carried the day for them in an extremely hostile venue in Lubbock, Texas. Thayer Evans of FoxSports.com wrote about the defense rescuing Mack Brown's Long Horns:
[O]n a night that sixth-ranked Texas had four turnovers and was dreadful offensively, it was saved by its defense, which actually turned out to be its best offense. It limited Texas Tech's high-powered attack to just 144 yards (including minus-14 rushing), allowed only one touchdown and caused turnovers that led to an easy 10 points.
"They looked really good," Texas coach Mack Brown said of his defense. "We were pretty dominating."
The dominating defense is led by Will Muschamp, who is probably one of the best if not the best DC in entire college football. More from Evans:
"We had a great plan and great execution with what we wanted to do," Muschamp said.
That provides plenty of confidence for a Texas offense that continues to struggle and totaled just 320 yards against Texas Tech.
The folks at Burnt Orange Nation detailed the role of Texas's amazing defensive line:
Defensive Line: Holt sh** these guys were amazing. Absolutely amazing. My game ball goes to Eddie Jones, who is about to start rocketing up NFL draft boards, if anyone's paying attention. He was absolutely brilliant: powerful, strong, technically superb, and faster-than-ever off the snap. He's been overshadowed by a slow to start to his career, and then the outstanding play of guys like Kindle and Sam Acho, but tonight he was the star of the show.
And how it's the Longhorns' defense that has kept Texas as one of the elite programs in college football:
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, of course, but for various reasons Texas football has been associated with its offense more so than its defense. With Vince Young and Colt McCoy at quarterback, and the defense lagging behind the offense for most of that time, it's understandable that the rest of the world has been slow to recognize the leap forward Texas has made defensively in the past 2.5 years.
In truth, after the brilliant offense of Colt McCoy carried us through the first half of 2008, falling one tragic play in Lubbock short of a national title berth, since the defense hit its stride in the back half of '08, it's been William T. Muschamp's charges that have been the difference between Texas football as it is now, and as it was when Mack Brown was still trying to elevate us to that next level. It was the offense that broke us through to begin with, but it's now the defense that's keeping us at the top.
So yeah, as good as the Houston win felt this weekend, the Bruins need to forget all about that and wonder how they are going to clean up their offensive issues to handle Muschamp's defense on Saturday. I don't think it's a secret that Muschamp is going to force the Bruins to win the game with our second year QB. They are going to load up their front to stop our running game combination of Jet Ski, Malcolm Jones and perhaps Derrick Coleman (hopefully JetSki and Jones will be getting bulk of carries).
Ultimately it will be up to Prince to manage Saturday's game with timely rushes and high percentage completions to his receivers and his F-Backs. Given what we have seen from our receivers and that F-Back position, not really feeling all that confident that Bruins are going to get it done.
Moreover, the history is not on our side. At least ever since yours truly became a diehard Bruin, UCLA hasn't had much luck with a second year QB starter against high profile programs on the road. A quick review of the gory bullets:
- 1991: Bruins went into Knoxville, Tennessee with second year starter - redshirt sophomore Tommy Maddox - and lost to Tennessee by a score of 16-30. Tennessee went 9-3 that season.
- 1994: Wayne Cook in his second full year as the starter for UCLA went into Lincoln and got torn apart by a score 21-49. Nebraska that year went 13-0 and won the national championship
- 1996: Tennessee again. Bruins led by second year - true sophomore Cade McNown - went into Knoxville and lost to the Volunteers again by a score of 20-35. The Vols (QBed by Manning) went 10-2 that year. Also, in the same years Bruins went to Ann Arbor and lost to Michigan by a score of 9-38. The Wolverines went 8-4 that season.
- 2003: Drew Olson in his sophomore season took the Bruins to Oklahoma and got bombed by a score of 24-59. Oklahoma also had a great team that season compiling a record of 12-2.
I know some might be bring up how Prince and his team-mates won in Tennessee last year but I don't really feel all that comforted by that example, since the Vols were being "led" by a loon and didn't have a legit quarterback directing the offense.
So everyone is going to talk about Route 66 heading into this Saturday. As memorable as that game was and the discernible impact it had on both programs (setting Texas in motion towards the Mack Brown era and thrusting the Bruins into a dark and painful roller coaster ride of mediocrity following 20 game win streak), I think it's game listed above that perhaps provide more relevant reference points on what is likely to take place this weekend in Austin.
Perhaps the Bruins will prove yours truly totally wrong and make me (happily) eat crow. The flip side of all the data points is that the Bruins are somehow "due." I am not holding out much hope.
GO BRUINS.
30 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
My biggest concern is out defensive front
Unlike Houston, Texas has a big offensive line. I am hopeful that our Dline’s problems were “missed assignments” as the coaching staff said, rather than just being overmatched against Stanford. We had great pressure against the pass and very good run stopping against Houston. I hope we can play the same against Texas.
I watched a lot of the Houston game...
and UCLA played with a lot of enthusiasm and aggression—I was really impressed with the defense. UT’s line is big, but they are not a smash mouth kind of team—they are trying to emphasize the running game this year but they are nothing like Stanford from what I have seen both this year and the last couple of years. They are a big play offense, but if UCLA can get some pressure on Gilbert, he may get rattled because it is only his fifth game as a starter. The key to the game is UCLA sustaining some drives and trying to win the time of possession battle. It will be interesting to see what happens and I do think UCLA has a decent shot to win.
Any given Saturday
That’s my motto for this week.
I don’t think our guys will be over matched , IF, we play within our scheme. I think our game plan is going to be the same as the longhorns, load the box and make Gilbert beat us thru the air.
I’ll be at the game cheering our boys to victory!
Go BRUINS !
Bruin for life!!!!
You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one. - John Wooden
You beat me to it.
‘On any given Saturday, any team can beat any other.’
Sure, we are going to have to play up to our abilities, and get some bounces to go our way, but nothing is impossible.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
UCLA needs to load up the box
Gilbert has not proven much as a thrower. I believe the Bruins best chance in this game is to load up the box for the run and do a ton of blitzing in passing situations.
Good points
but side note. Nestor, were you the inspiration for the old SNL skit “Debbie Downer”? ;-)
Texas D
is very, very nasty. If we want a chance to be competitve in this game and have a chance to win it, our offense MUST move the chains. CNC is going to have to open up the playbook. We need to get the Fauria/Barr/Pressley/Smith’s in position to take advantage of their mismatches in addition to the positive things our offense has been doing thus far. If the offense does not maintain the ball, our defense is going to wilt under the Texas heat.
Defensively, Bullough better not try to line up against the Texas OL man for man. If he does, he’s more of an idiot than I already think he is Bullough needs to be even MORE aggressive than he was against Houston. Speed is the strength of our defense and he needs to find ways to maximize it. Blitz like hell and create pressure so that Gilbert (I have a ton of respect for this kid and what he did against Bama as a True FR) does not get comfortable in the pocket. If we do that bull crap 3 man rush, I guarantee you we’ll get zero pressure (Texas OL has waaay more talent than Houston’s) and he’ll pick us apart.
I fully expect KP to be less rusty, our team to be more disciplined (fingers crossed) but to me, I’ll be looking to see if the coaches gameplan for us to shock the naysayers by being the aggressors or if they’re content with just not getting blown out.
I don't think
you should be calling one of our coaches an idiot.
Besides the fact that it’s inappropriate, the fact is that an idiot can’t learn. That has not yet proven to be the case with Bullough. He can still show us some imagination and get more aggressive with his playcalling.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
The D will be fine if
the offense can find a way to get first downs and not lose the battle for field position early. If the D has to play the entire game it will get ugly.
"Success is never final, Failure is never fatal. It's Courage that count's" - John Wooden.
Nice gallows humor from CRN
though with the state of recruiting these days, they probably DO have their 2017 class locked in.
I’m not going into the UT game with any expectations, unlike KState or Stanford. As long as the improvements we saw on Saturday are sustained or even exceeded, that’ll be enough. Frankly, if they don’t want to have another Stanford, they HAVE to improve on the UH performance. I fully expect Will Muschamp to load the box, and dare Prince to throw all day (and the WRs to catch what he throws).
As for talk of Route 66, I agree that it’s not as relevant as it could be to the current situation. Then again, CRN can still use it as a motivational tool. If the Bruins go into Austin and pull off a victory, then IMO they would handily leapfrog the memory of Route 66 no matter how much they win by. Even if it doesn’t exceed that win, it’d still be a heck of a story.
RIP Coach Wooden (1910-2010).
Even the best defenses can get tired if on the field too long.
So the key to the game may be time of possession for us. That means option running, option running, option running and passing underneath like we did so effectively the first half against Houston. That means playing for touchdowns and not field goals.
That means pressure, attacking defense to hold their offense to three and outs.
Keep our game plan simple. Let the players play. Rotate the young studs to keep our defense fresh.
We woke up last week. Texas hasn’t yet. That gives us a shot that no one thought we even had before last week.
If KP is just slightly more accurate or if our WR just fight for and hold on to the ball, our Pistol can be explosive against any team.
I will be there cheering us on no matter what.
GO BRUINS! BEAT TEXAS!
Texas looking ahead?
I hope Texas is looking ahead to Oklahoma and Nebraska, and don’t want to show everything yet.
If the Bruins play consistently, intensely, and mistake-free, they can put the pressure on the horns
should be looking ahead a bit to next week...
i doubt nebraska’s on their radar yet, but the red river rivalry is 10/2… so that might help. a distracted team might not click on all cylinders… or at least, that’s the hope…
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are." --John Wooden
This game will show a lot.
It was great to get the win last week. Houston came in highly regarded, and our guys took them to the woodshed. However, I’m not sure if the win was evidence of strong improvement. Our guys simply pushed their guys around. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to watch, but I wouldn’t say that the guys executed on a high level. I thought the game really evidenced the strength of the recruiting and weight program.
Of course, there were also improvements on execution. CRN and Co. need to keep the momentum going and have another strong week of practice. All we can ask is that the team show improvement and fight- if they do that, who knows what will happen on Saturday.
by AllHailMightyBruins on Sep 20, 2010 10:13 AM PDT reply actions
Keeping the faith
On defense if the UCLA offense can stay on the field a bit to help we should be OK.
I agree make them pass, talent wise I think we match up our secondary against the Longhorns WR. I want to see some creative pass rush schemes on clearly passing downs. Don’t let Gilbert get relaxed out there. Have to stop the run first and foremost and get them into passing downs.
Offense has to protect the ball first, and get some first downs to stay on the field. Try to get our athletes some touches in space and see what happens.
I think a low scoring game is our best chance, need the ball to bounce our way.
Empty the playbook...
…on both offense and defense.
What is there to lose?
Throw EVERYTHING we have at Texas. We have Washington State the following week and plenty of time before the meat of our conference schedule kicks in to reload our playbook and work on what doesn’t work (yet).
We cannot play predictable in ANY manner against Texas or we get crushed. I’d rather go down with guns blazing…
Same Mindset As We Went Into Knoxville Last Year With
Granted, Lame (or what was that clever phrase we had for him Saturday night?!) was still there but it was like Daniel stepping into the Lion’s Den nonetheless. We simply have to prepare as best as possible and go in there with the attitude that we can win this thing.
Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA Bruins!!!!!
by Minnesota Bruinfan on Sep 20, 2010 10:32 AM PDT reply actions
Lame=Douche canoe.
Looking forward to seeing how the Bruins respond to hostile Austin.
by orlandobruin on Sep 20, 2010 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions
God, That Was Soooo Good!
Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA Bruins!!!!!
by Minnesota Bruinfan on Sep 20, 2010 10:54 AM PDT up reply actions
Tennesee redo.....
Tough D and an efficient O. That will be the formula to sneak out of Austin with a win…People here in Austin are pissed they didn’t score more vs Texas Tech… They want a blow out heading into the Oklahoma game. Our guys need to come out and punch them in the mouth. Bullock needs to keep the attacking scheme this week… if we sit back the Longhorn skill guys will tear us apart… Attack, attack, attack!!!!
I think our offense will be able to run the ball on Texas. They have young DT’s and haven’t been tested this year. This will cause them to stack the box, and we will have to hit some key passes to move the chains and keep the Horn’s D off balance!! The Horns DB’s are all fast, and athletic like ours. Their safeties are good as well and they hit. Christian Scott is like Larimore so K. Prince better keep his head on a swivel!!!
It can be done. The Texas players are not better than the $C players. We just need to play our game like we did at Tennesse and we can have a big party at my house in Austin Saturday nite!!!!!!
Trainer24
Is Tepa
out for the year? torn pectoral muscle? loved the defensive play against houston, have concerns about line depth with Jones already out.
Not going to be as concerned with the final score...
as with the product that UCLA puts out on the field. Only way I see us winning is if we limit the Texas running game to 100 yards, get some plays from our secondary, go at leat +3 in turnovers, and Forbath connects on a couple 50 yarders. This might sound silly but honestly Locke is going to be one of the main keys to this game. I’m fully expecting UCLA to be dominated in the trenches on both sides of the ball, and when that’s the case it gets pretty hard to “open up” the playbook. Thus, I envision CRN and Coach Chow playing a very conservative field position game, and if Locke can consistently pin the Texas offense inside the 10, and we muster enough offense for Fobath to kick 4-5 FG’s, then we may get something going.
Other things I’ll be looking for on Saturday:
1) Whether we can run against an elite team that expects it, and still have some success (4 yards a carry would be great). JetSki and Malcolm are gonna have to do a lot of running down hill this game, because they’re likely going to be getting hit 1-2 yards out, the question is can they fall forward, secure the ball and continue to pick up yards after the hit.
2) How Prince handles the pressure cooker in Austin. This’ll be the craziest atmosphere he’s ever played in. We’ll learn a lot about Prince on Saturday just by looking at his eyes during the first drive. Will he be the deer in the headlights, or will he have heightened focus? If he can emerge with 200 yards passing, a 50% completion rate and no turnovers against a team with 8-9 in the box, I’ll be impressed.
3) Whether Larimore and Ayers can continue their dominant play. We’ve had a ridiculously good LB combo thus far (although the overall quality has been only average because Westgate has struggled pretty badly). I’m not expecing our D-Line to give our LB’s much help, so we’ll see if Ayers and Larimore can continue to shed blocks and plug the gaps…
thank you
for giving a sensible and reasonable take on what it will take for us to win the game, and on how the one area we may have a genuine advantage is going to be key if we are to be successful.
That said, I will be much more than impressed if Prince manages the numbers you describe, after not passing for 100 yards in the last 2 games, not managing to avoid turnovers in any game, and averaging under 44% passing thus far…
by britishbruin on Sep 20, 2010 3:21 PM PDT up reply actions
While there's no way I'm expecting to win this gamer this weekend,
I think this game is a lot more winnable than people are giving us credit for. Texas is not the same Texas team from last year – they’ve struggled against Rice, Texas Tech, and to a lesser extent, Wyoming. Their offense is clearly not the same as it was last year (that kinda’ goes without saying), but as mentioned, their defense is quite formidable.
That said, if the Bruins play anywhere near the level of how they did on Saturday, they have as good a shot as coming out of this game with a W as anyone else. Muschamp’s defense – although it has looked very strong this year – has given up points in gobs in other years (particularly 2008), although the team was quite young on defense in 2008.
Bottom line: Texas isn’t nearly as good as they were last year, but I still don’t think that means the Bruins can win, but if the Bruins can rattle Gilbert, they have a real shot in this game, as Texas still hasn’t seen a feature back emerge – even, if I may say so, to the same extent that we’ve seen JetSki emerge as our feature back this year. Tre’ Newton has been starting but he wasn’t able to do much against either Wyoming or Texas Tech.
Texas is definitely working out the kinks early in the season
However, I don’t see us winning this game if we continue to make mistakes (TOs and penalties). If we can play a clean game and be aggressive on both sides of the ball, we are going to have a shot. As I said … not holding my breath.
Energy level.
Our boys played with more effort than I thought possibe, its tough to do that on back to back weekends, even tougher on the road. I hope they can pull it enough, all I ask is a solid showing with us competing for the win.
I hope we have a good showing
Its always nice to see UCLA on a nationally televised game; but, Texas scares the crap out of me. Either way, I’m going to have the beer chilled with the chips and salsa ready to go. I just don’t know if I am going to be screaming out of joy or anger yet haha.
With the Revolver
We can both run and throw without having to play smashmouth football. If our OL can stay in front of their defensive players, the deception of the Revolver can (and has) produced yards. That’s an advantage in this kind of game.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Bruins Nation
Related FanShots on Bruins Nation
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
