texas-wyoming thoughts

[carbonpoke]

Two things that concern me the most about this game...

1. September Heat in Austin, at least its an evening game, but still its going to be HOT! Luckily, the pokes had an unusually hot laramie summer.

2. Texas New Defensive Coordinator Diaz. From the looks of the depth chart, they would be stupid not to run mostly 4-3 and 3-4. With their size up the middle it really makes for an effective run defense. However, they have been running that defense for years, and for the past 3 years they have been hammered. They always maintain one of the top run defenses in the country, but they lose to many games. How will this new coordinator change that.... back to that in a second.

Lets review texas's past season record and woes. It is clear... Against Run-centric teams, texas dominates. Its not even close. However,

-Sept 10, 2011 / texas narrowly escapes against BYU... 17-16 in "AUSTIN"
-Oct 8, 2011 / Texas gets blown out in the cotton bowl... 55-17 Sooners.
-Oct 15, 2011 / One week later, texas loses to the other oklahoma school by 12 in "AUSTIN", 38-26
-Nov 12, 2011 / Texas loses by 12 points Columbus Missiouri, 17-5
-Nov 19, 2011 / Texas loses by 4 points in "AUSTIN" to K-state.

What does this show? Texas has problems with well-coached spread offenses. Thats what it shows me, last years texas roster had problems slowing down High tempo control offenses.

There is film on all these games, and im sure gregg brandon has watched each one 4-5 times. One thing can be said about our current football program at wyoming. Our coaching is Excellent. Texas (even making Vegas a believer) has touted their new defense as on par with Hurrican Katrina, it can make third world countries sign over its oil rights and sign a peace treaty. Reviewing their depth chart... yup, they are big and they can Run-Forest-Run... but they are largely the same players on the field last year. They have mostly Juniors and seniors playing on defense. Meaning they were on the squad last year that got beat.

Okafor and jeffcoat are tall defensive ends 6-4 and 6-5, but both weigh in below 270. I expect an outside rush and very likely some deflected passes from those two. Their linebackers are the same size and build as ours. What gets me... texas defensive backs! They are grease lightening quick and good size. Vaccaro and Diggs are the standouts, but phillips and byndom are right there. But this is what gets me... both years we played texas, we heard the same thing. We have already heard about how good they are.

What texas doesn't see coming, is the effectiveness of our new offensive coordinator and quarterback. ACS was not the quarterback that Smith is, not even close. Smith's mind is so much more suited to sharing the football.

Texas stomped us the past two games. But against an equally impressive nebraska defense last year, we didn't get Stomped, we got beat, but it wasn't embarrising... well the student body right and left over and over got embarrising. But we showed that we can move the ball against a Bigger and Faster defense.

So back to their D-coordinator Diaz. How will he change their roster. How will he do in his first game against a decisive quarterback.

And how will tormey's new defensive scheme fair against a running game that would have destroyed us by 60 last year?

I don't know what's gonna happen. Theoretically, we should lose by at least 3 touchdowns. if they get up early, and can grind our defense down, running at will, it could get VERY ugly. If I was Mack Brown, after seeing what happens when wyoming's defense gets left on the field; I would run 75% of the game. With his quarterback issues, 99% sure this is what to expect.

HOWEVER, if wyoming can can do what other teams did to them last year, get an early lead and control the clock, manage and balance the spread... texas will be forced into a very precarious situation.

Odds of us getting an early lead in my book, 1 chance in 10. I say we have a 10% chance to get this game and make it interesting.

[J-Rod]

Good stuff carbonpoke. Texas tends to get a lot of calls in these tune-up games, but that is to be expected.

One concern I see is the encouragement of Brett Smith running a lot. He's almost UW's lead RB now. The more you run, the higher risk of injury. Even Cam Newton, who is 50lbs heavier than Brett, sustained some injuries last year from running too much.

While Texas' offense might be one of the most overrated units in college football, the defense is actually pretty good. They will hit hard, and hopefully Brett doesn't get carried away with leaving the pocket. The last thing Wyoming needs is for him to get hurt, small injury or big injury. The season goes down the toilet the moment Smith isn't himself.

[carbonpoke]

I agree J. Their d is extremely impressive. But we have to look at what our team did last year against some highly rated defenses in TCU, Boise State, Nebraska. We definetly didn't get shutout. I believe gregg brandon holds all the credit for that. He balances his offense, and while i saw a limited play book from him last year, he knows how to attack different zones of the field with his play calling.

our oline looked amazing in pass protection last year, and had stints of decent run blocking. bretts mobility and ability to get the throw out in less than the 2.5 seconds it takes for a rush is what really limits this teams sacks: so that made the line look better than it was. I expect to see texas db's playing up on the wide outs. To much film out there concerning smith's ability to hit the hot-route. I expect them to bump and run the hell out of our wide receivers, create some timing issues with brett and applying pressure.

Also, good point about b smiths health. I think he will slide more this year. we don't need smith taking shots like tank put on him.

On paper, these kinda games never look good from a prediction standpoint. But, looking at it from a coaching style versus coaching style, we look a little bit better. If this was a joe glenn team that had three yards and a cloud of dust, I don't think i would even watch the game (jk).

All in all, I want to see how we've devoloped this team to an upper echeleon mountain west competitor. My real hope is too have a shot at winning the mountain west, not beating a mack brown texas team. I just want a competitive team that shows cowboy tough.

[Bobby_Batronic]

Two things that concern me the most about this game...

1. September Heat in Austin, at least its an evening game, but still its going to be HOT! Luckily, the pokes had an unusually hot laramie summer.

2. Texas New Defensive Coordinator Diaz. From the looks of the depth chart, they would be stupid not to run mostly 4-3 and 3-4. With their size up the middle it really makes for an effective run defense. However, they have been running that defense for years, and for the past 3 years they have been hammered. They always maintain one of the top run defenses in the country, but they lose to many games. How will this new coordinator change that.... back to that in a second.

Lets review texas's past season record and woes. It is clear... Against Run-centric teams, texas dominates. Its not even close. However,

-Sept 10, 2011 / texas narrowly escapes against BYU... 17-16 in "AUSTIN"
-Oct 8, 2011 / Texas gets blown out in the cotton bowl... 55-17 Sooners.
-Oct 15, 2011 / One week later, texas loses to the other oklahoma school by 12 in "AUSTIN", 38-26
-Nov 12, 2011 / Texas loses by 12 points Columbus Missiouri, 17-5
-Nov 19, 2011 / Texas loses by 4 points in "AUSTIN" to K-state.

What does this show? Texas has problems with well-coached spread offenses. Thats what it shows me, last years texas roster had problems slowing down High tempo control offenses.

There is film on all these games, and im sure gregg brandon has watched each one 4-5 times. One thing can be said about our current football program at wyoming. Our coaching is Excellent. Texas (even making Vegas a believer) has touted their new defense as on par with Hurrican Katrina, it can make third world countries sign over its oil rights and sign a peace treaty. Reviewing their depth chart... yup, they are big and they can Run-Forest-Run... but they are largely the same players on the field last year. They have mostly Juniors and seniors playing on defense. Meaning they were on the squad last year that got beat.

Okafor and jeffcoat are tall defensive ends 6-4 and 6-5, but both weigh in below 270. I expect an outside rush and very likely some deflected passes from those two. Their linebackers are the same size and build as ours. What gets me... texas defensive backs! They are grease lightening quick and good size. Vaccaro and Diggs are the standouts, but phillips and byndom are right there. But this is what gets me... both years we played texas, we heard the same thing. We have already heard about how good they are.

What texas doesn't see coming, is the effectiveness of our new offensive coordinator and quarterback. ACS was not the quarterback that Smith is, not even close. Smith's mind is so much more suited to sharing the football.

Texas stomped us the past two games. But against an equally impressive nebraska defense last year, we didn't get Stomped, we got beat, but it wasn't embarrising... well the student body right and left over and over got embarrising. But we showed that we can move the ball against a Bigger and Faster defense.

So back to their D-coordinator Diaz. How will he change their roster. How will he do in his first game against a decisive quarterback.

And how will tormey's new defensive scheme fair against a running game that would have destroyed us by 60 last year?

I don't know what's gonna happen. Theoretically, we should lose by at least 3 touchdowns. if they get up early, and can grind our defense down, running at will, it could get VERY ugly. If I was Mack Brown, after seeing what happens when wyoming's defense gets left on the field; I would run 75% of the game. With his quarterback issues, 99% sure this is what to expect.

HOWEVER, if wyoming can can do what other teams did to them last year, get an early lead and control the clock, manage and balance the spread... texas will be forced into a very precarious situation.

Odds of us getting an early lead in my book, 1 chance in 10. I say we have a 10% chance to get this game and make it interesting.

Sup Poke fans,

UT fan here. Just thought I'd drop by for some football talk. A few corrections to make to the above post.

The most important being that this is Manny Diaz's second year at UT. He's not a new coordinator, and has great things in store in the near future. I hope we can hang on to him. He doesn't have any defensive alignment that's easily recognizable. 4-3 under is used a lot, but with all kinds of personnel packages. We also play a lot of nickel.

Let's talk about the games you mentioned:

17-16 W vs. BYU
Returning QB Garret Gilbert was benched early in this game after multiple turnovers and was replaced by true frosh David Ash and redshirt frosh Case McCoy. Ash, this year's starter, was slated as the 4th QB for the year before Connor Wood transfered to CU and Gilbert imploded, and the younger McCoy, while scrappy, is a shadow of his older brother athletically. UT started 4 freshmen or redshirt freshmen on an offensive line that featured 4 guards and a true frosh LT. You read that right. We played a guard at tackle. We also had two true frosh running backs, a receiving core that consisted of meh, and TE's in name only It was ugly, but the defense did yeoman's work and we salted away the win off of a fake jet sweep where WR Shipley passed to Ash for a game clenching first down. The BYU QB Heaps was benched in this game as well.

17-55 L vs. OU

It was ugly early and often. The lone bright spot was a Fozzy Whittaker KO return for TD. OU scored 4 TD's that were directly related to turnovers by the offense as our young and disfunctional O was simply overwhelmed. The defense did ok in it's first baptism by fire in a new system.

26-38 L vs. OSU

This was a much more competitive game that included UT being turned away inside the OSU 5 on downs, and multiple turnovers by QB Ash. We had a few chances late, but some busted assignments led to long TD runs that iced the game.

5-17 L vs. Mizzou

The defense played very well in this game. Third string RB Whittaker started the game before tearing his ACL early leaving us with 4th string RB Hills to fight his way for yards behind the offensive line mentioned above, and our two top WR's were injured. In short, we had nothing offensively. I think we still held them to close to 300 yards.

13-17 L vs. KSU

Another offensive meltdown for UT. Again, we had chances late, and some very questionable officiating early kept UT off the board in the form of a muffed punt overturned by a phantom kick catch interference and some very liberal interpretations of pass interference in favor of the KSU DB's. Sounds homerish, I know, but check the film. KSU was held to right around 100 yards of total offense. Mull that over. The D came to play as the settle into their new schemes.

The comments about UT not performing well against high performing QB's is laughable. Who does? Keep in mind that we faced Weeden, Jones, Doege and RGIII last year and still finished the year 11 in total defense, 42 in pass, 6 in rushing, and 33 in scoring. We were top ten in adjusted stats and yards per play if I remember correctly. And it's not like our offense was doing the defense any favors.

This year's defense is deep and stout. We have 6 legitimate DT's, 4 DE's, 4 LB's, and a DB position that runs 7 deep. JUCO DT Moore will anchor the line, Jeffcoat and Okafor may be the best DE tandem in the nation, and the secondary is littered with all conference types with a dollop of Thorpe candidates. LB features newer faces. Steve Edmond is a force in the middle, but we'll have to see how he handles the pass. More likely Cobbs and Hicks will handle spread offenses in our base cover two read nickel. Expect to see fire zones, and pressure up the middle. This group won't be fun to face.

The offense presents more opportunities for opponents. The line has been revamped, but depth is thin. JUCO LT Hawkins was brought in and locked down the tackle spot immediately. Former LT Cochran was moved to RT. The interior line is both a strength and a weakness. We have a three guard rotation that's stout, but our C struggles with 0 tech NT's with some ability. He pass protects fine. All backups of note are true frosh, redshirt frosh, or journeyman seniors. As for TE's, we have none of note. Greg Daniels is an able blocker, but none of them are threats in the passing game. Expect to see different TE's trotted in based on down and distance, and 3 OT Poehlman trotted in to take on the blocking TE role. The WR's will be strong when healthy, but Davis and Shipley are nursing an ankle and hammy respectively. Backups are true frosh, injured returning starters, or freshly back from the Olympics in Goodwin. Watch for Goodwin though. He's a deep threat if he can shake press coverage at the line. Our RB rotation is sick. Malcom Brown will be the workhorse, Joe Bergeron the hammer, Gray is the 5 star can't miss of the future, and we have some speed specialists in Monroe and Johnson though the latter is suspended for the first game. Which brings us to QB. Ash won the battle and will start. McCoy will come in for relief if needed and late in the game. Ash is a big athletic kid with all the tools, but in reality this will be like redshirt freshman year. He was criminally underprepared as a true frosh last year and deserved time to develop. He's a true soph with a live arm, some running ability, and a developing feel for the college game. Expect him to flash a few big plays and have some 3 and outs as well.

Special teams will be interesting. Our P transferred from Duke where he was a high performer. Our PK transferred from PSU where he also was a high performer, but he'll be out with a groin injury until later in the season. That leaves us with a true frosh PK who "won" the job. Might be interesting. Our kickoff specialist has a strong leg, but that doesn't really matter anymore with the new college rules. Starting kick returners are DB Diggs, and boutique back Monroe. Mykelle Thompson might see some time as well. Diggs is dependable with some ability to break the play, but the other two are legitimate threats if not as reliable with their hands.

Expect us to run early and often and play action off of it. TE and depth are our only real weaknesses on O, and we have none of note on D. I expect a semi sloppy 38-16 type victory with some margin for an unexpected blow out or an uncomfortably close victory. If we stay healthy we might just shock the nation and make a BCS bowl or win the conference. 8-4 is very real too if things don't break our way. Time will tell. The heat won't be that big of a deal. We've had a nice cool down in Texas. Come on down and see us. Austin is a great town.

[carbonpoke]

thanks for posting bobby. Most of us round here like down-to-earth conversations without chest pumping. I and others appreciate that you took the time to give us some inside scoop on your team. We know how good you guys are.

I made the mistake, after reading some spring articles of your about diaz, he was implementing changes and I took that as he was a new guy. from what i gather, he does multiple packages and is aggresive. Sounds like a winner.

Tormey is our new d coordinator, and he is trying to build depth to get to a multiple look defense, with blitz packages. Over the last 4 years we have been very vanilla on d. We are so glad to get the change.

special teams, you guys should have us in the return department. Our punter is new, and will be interesting to see how he does, but he can boom it. He's an aussie, has problems kicking with a rush in his face.

wish i could post a little bit more, but wife just got home with my son... its his feeding time. Will post more here later.

[Bobby_Batronic]

Good deal Carbon,

I hope that didn't come off as too much chest thumping. It's hard to talk about the defense in any other terms. The offense still has issues and is still a year or two away from making the transition from the Greg Davis spread to Brian Harsin's Boise St. offense. The starting 5 on the OL, top 3 WR's, and RB's are good to go. TE and QB are to be determined. We might need another year of recruiting from Texas and JUCO's to address it if Ash doesn't pan out. We already have a JUCO TE commit for next year.

I looked at the Poke's defense stats and at first glance they aren't that impressive, but saw that y'all had some close losses late in the year against some quality opponents.

The good news for UT is that we play in a passing conference and see spread concepts week in and week out. The bad news is that our offense is not so good at replicating that for our defense. They're all experienced outside of MLB Edmond so I'm not to worried about it. I can't think of too many places to attack it other than hoping to get Edmond in space, picking at the edges when we drop into cover 3, or hope that somebody doesn't defend their gap properly. Last year we were kinda eaten up with flat passes in cover three as our S Gideon just could get there. That should be a problem with Vacarro or Phillips.

I would pressure our C as much as possible if I were the defense as that gums up everything and he, while having gained strength in the offseason, is still not out and out strong. Our TE's can be ignored as well. Expect a lot of inside and outside zone, power, pull and pin, shift of strength and formation and play action off of all of it. Ash is an adept ball handler and is very good in the screen game and on boots. We tend to call the trick plays on momentum downs right after a turnover or a big first down. You can count on 2-4 being called in this game. Monroe is dangerous on the sweep, but can't catch.

I have to run as well. More later. Oh, and I apologize as I didn't realize how many typo's I had in the first post.

[carbonpoke]

all right, back.

so bobby, I will give you some insight so when you go to the stadium with your buddies you can comment and they will be taken aback by your knowledge of cowboy football.

start with our db's and safety's. primarily you will get 5 guys too look at. Starting with luke ruff. He's a team captain, and solid. with his experience it would be hard to keep him off anybody's roster. He quick, tackles well and breaks on the pass well. He is a honor student. Very high i.q. guy. Has had scouts at practice looking at him. He is the general of our d... he calls coverages presnap.

Next are our db's. both texas products. blair burns and "quest" huff. We hired a new db coach to get these kids ready for being on an island. You should look him up, name renaldo hill. fresh out of the nfl, and when he coaches he actually demonstrates... laces up his cleats and all. Blair burns is a freshman all american... huff is the most experienced and doesn't get thrown to alot.

then nzeocha... you will like this kid's play style. he's our freak, a german product that is 6'3 225, runs a 4.4. he lays the wood. coaches will be letting him go during the texas game in run support. look for some big hits, i expect him to gather your respect during the game. really, keep an eye on him.

then we have anderson, our 6th man. he may be one of the fastest kids on the team. 4.3 guy from texas. blinn cc product. instictive player that has learned to play whereever we need him too. we use him in the 3-3-5 as a hybrid db/linebacker.

Enough for our defense. On to our offense. Im sure most of texas has heard of brett smith, but haven't seen the kid play. He is our guidon bearer... the team rally's around him. A real hardnosed competetor that has the mind for qb. You guys respected ACS when we played last, but he was very one dimensional. Brett on the other hand is what every team in our conference wants under center. Smart, wheels, accurate arm. He threw a few back shoulder fades to the pylons for TDs last year as a freshman, really rare to see that. He is on the top 30 college qbs lists. He will be one of the better young quarterbacks you see this year.

Herron and Jalen Claiborne are going to catch some passes. Claiborne played against some of your players in the texas state championship game. Check out his youtube. Good acceleration, makes plays.

the strength of our line is right up the middle. Tyler strong, zack rushing, and nick carlson should be all conference this year. our tackles are new but gigantic. walker madden, magnunsen, and connor rains.

and this offense looks nothing like what texas saw two years ago. different coach. we execute faster, with a wider varity of motions. we will bubble screen, read option, and roll the pocket, and work from shotgun.

also interesting to see if jj quinlan hits the field. Kid with a troubled past but worked his ass off to get a scholarship. After spring we had to find a way to get him on the field. He loves contact more than probably anybody on the roster, but we are so deep at linebacker... they moved him to H-back. Look for him in short yardage situations. he will be the lead blocker that looks like a diesel truck. I remember in the spring hearing people say that he plays wide open, without fear, just happy to be on the field.

[Asmodeanreborn]

Wyoming's defensive line play will set the tone for this game. It's an area where we desperately need to get better, or the defense will be worn down quickly and the outcome is inevitable. Our secondary's strong and talented, but if the line can't exact any pressure, it won't matter at all.

[Dutchnation]

Wyoming's defensive line play will set the tone for this game. It's an area where we desperately need to get better, or the defense will be worn down quickly and the outcome is inevitable. Our secondary's strong and talented, but if the line can't exact any pressure, it won't matter at all.

I agree along with the offensive line. If we can't stop the run, this game is over. We will keep it close for the first half as always, but they will wear us down with 7 and 8 yard runs each time. They will be depending on the run! CC has to know this!! They don't even know who their qb is! our coverage needs to step up in this game so we can put full efforts in stopping the run. If that happens, we will have a chance. I truly believe our offense will score a good number of points. But we have to stop them.

[Bobby_Batronic]

Umm...we've known who our QB officially is for over a week, and anyone who follows the team somewhat closely has known who the starter is since the Holiday Bowl.

The Cowboys might very well score some points as it's the first game of the season and everyone will be rusty and prone to busts, but don't take it as a given. This is a legit top 5 defense that you'll be facing with 7-8 future NFLer's on the field at any one time. That's not bragging, that's just reality. If you do score quite a bit you'll know that you have a really good offense.

Agree about stopping the run. If you shut that down UT will have some problems as the passing game isn't far enough along to just win through the air.

[Dutchnation]

I know they named a starter. But they were very vague in what that meant. They said McCoy could go in at any moment. The point is, it you have two qbs, then you really have no qb. Now, this is Texas football so we all know this will be a huge challenge. I certainly wasn't saying we are going to shut them out because they have 2 qbs. And I also wasn't saying we will hang 50 on them. Just pointing out some things that are different from when we've previously played. I have loved our 3 game agreement with Texas and believe it has been really good for the fans of Wyoming football. I can't wait for Saturday.

[Wyo2dal]

Watching the LHN and press conference with players about the Wyoming game really shows their players know very little or nothing at all about us I really hope they maintain that mentality of not needing to know anything about the opposing team.

[Dutchnation]

Watching the LHN and press conference with players about the Wyoming game really shows their players know very little or nothing at all about us I really hope they maintain that mentality of not needing to know anything about the opposing team.

Ha, I was thinking the same thing. I love that David Ash is talking about what it means to be a qb in the NFL. I know that these guys are trying to be PC by saying they respect us, but it is clear that they are not concerned. I am not sure that from the previous games we have played they SHOULD be concerned, but I have to believe that this is our best team of this three game series. I am so pumped. Wyo2dal, you are keeping me from my work and I am loving it.

[ItSucksToBeACSURam]

Man I have been kinda nervous about this matchup but reading this post has gotten me all jacked up. I think Brett Smith has potential to have a monster day. All the information I have read coming out of Texas indicates that they are looking past UW and think they'll sail right on past us. I am in no way saying we'll blow up Texas but really think this is a game that exposes Texas. I really like our chances in this one. GO POKES!!!!

[whyoh]

i have a dream that someday when wyoming beats another school it doesn't expose them as much as it exposes us