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    2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football
    2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football
    2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football

    By Paul Wadlington

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This book is a Texas football preview, a Big 12 season companion and reference guide, and a resource for the entire football season. This publication fills an underserved niche in the market. Like many passionate football fans reading regional or national publications, we realized that we knew much more about the Longhorns and the Big 12 conference than the “experts.” And most of their previews might better be termed “historicals” - as they are written in mid-April for June publication. We write and edit up to a July release to balance the inclusion of recent developments like transfers, injuries, and offseason intelligence with the desire to provide football sustenance during the long, hot summer.
    Thinking Texas Football, in deference to its name, is written for an intelligent football layperson. We won’t insult you by writing down to the lowest common denominator nor will we try to overawe you with technical babble. The internet has several good resources - public and pay - but they serve a reactive news cycle and rarely have the chance to develop deeper themes. Our best ambition is to provide you with different tools - while plainly communicating an awareness of our own biases and blind spots - so that we can drive a conversation that mutually enriches our shared passion.

    If you like it, tell a friend. If you really like it, buy several and send it to all of your friends. We hope they’ll appreciate it as much as we do.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPaul Wadlington
    Release dateJul 11, 2018
    ISBN9781370424986
    2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football
    Author

    Paul Wadlington

    Texas graduate and long-time corporate monkey turned media entrepreneur and writer. Currently living in San Francisco, CA.

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      Book preview

      2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus - Paul Wadlington

      2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football

      written by

      Paul Wadlington

      design by

      Scott Gerlach

      Smashwords Edition

      ©2018 by Paul Wadlington

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the authors, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Eight Years In The Desert

      Offensive Overview

      Quarterback

      Running Back

      Wide Receiver

      Tight End

      Offensive Line

      Defensive Overview

      Defensive Line

      Linebacker

      Defensive Back

      Special Teams

      Maryland

      Tulsa

      Southern California

      TCU

      Kansas State

      Oklahoma

      Baylor

      Oklahoma State

      West Virginia

      Texas Tech

      Iowa State

      Kansas

      Big12 Predictions

      Conference Trends

      Recruiting Class Overview

      A Guest Recruiting Overview

      About the Authors

      Introduction

      Welcome to the sixth annual 2018 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football.

      This book is a Texas football preview, a Big 12 season companion and reference guide, and a resource for the entire football season.

      This publication fills an underserved niche in the market. Like many passionate football fans reading regional or national publications, we realized that we knew much more about the Longhorns and the Big 12 conference than the experts. And most of their previews might better be termed historicals - as they are written in mid-April for June publication. We write and edit up to a July release to balance the inclusion of recent developments like transfers, injuries, and offseason intelligence with the desire to provide football sustenance during the long, hot summer.

      Thinking Texas Football, in deference to its name, is written for an intelligent football layperson. We won’t insult you by writing down to the lowest common denominator nor will we try to overawe you with technical babble. The internet has several good resources - public and pay - but they serve a reactive news cycle and rarely have the chance to develop deeper themes.

      Our best ambition is to provide you with different tools - while plainly communicating an awareness of our own biases and blind spots - so that we can drive a conversation that mutually enriches our shared passion.

      If you like it, tell a friend. If you really like it, buy several and send it to all of your friends. We hope they’ll appreciate it as much as we do.

      Hook ‘em!

      * * * * *

      Eight Years In The Desert

      It hasn’t been easy for Texas football fans for most of the last decade. Since 2010, Texas boasts a 53-48 record and a 52.5% winning percentage. That means Longhorn gridiron fortunes have effectively been a coin toss every time the team takes the field; with the occasional desire to toss that coin into the Gulf of Mexico, and take up dressage and scrapbooking to fill up our fall weekends. One must go back over three decades to the dark patch between 1986-1993 to find a similar run of non-performance (47-42-1,.527 winning percentage) and that grim era, like the 2010-2017 stretch, also encompassed three head coaches - Fred Akers, David McWilliams, John Mackovic. Prior to that, it’s back eight decades to the Great Depression and a 1932-1939 stretch (33-39-5 record) which, unsurprisingly, also saw three coaches in eight years. Over the last eight years, the Longhorns have posted four losing records, only one AP Top 25 finish, and a three year best run between 2011-2013 when Texas went 25-14. Since 2013, Texas is an execrable 23-27.

      2010 5-7

      2011 8-5

      2012 9-4

      2013 8-5

      2014 6-7

      2015 5-7

      2016 5-7

      2017 7-6

      Before Longhorn fans resign themselves to perpetual mediocrity, remember this: when Texas starts winning, things fall into place. Quickly. Negative baggage dissipates into vapor and the awesome momentum of Texas Football shakes free of its inertia, starts rolling, and tramples the obstacles that seemed insurmountable. A boulder poised on a precipice about to start rolling looks exactly like one that’s moored; it’s movement or stasis is determined by the invisible forces at play around it. The 2017 Longhorn’s 7-6 record doesn’t indicate much motion on the surface (though it did arrest a streak of three consecutive losing seasons), but look closely at the tension points. Four losses by a total of 17 points to three nationally ranked teams (#3, #12, #14), two of those in overtime; a staff in their first year leading a team racked with roster holes, injuries and suspensions, coached by a preceding staff with the organizational acumen of a Bangladeshi traffic cop; multiple true freshmen starting at every position in the offense where football wisdom says to never start any. This is not pollyanna chatter. How Texas played - a couple of sad performances excepted - suggests some underlying tectonic shifts in culture, accountability, and offseason development that the win/loss record cannot neatly convey. Until it does.

      Offensive Overview

      Since 2010, Texas has been largely miserable on offense, ranking an average of 66th nationally by advanced analytics S&P rankings. Surprisingly, the Longhorns have fielded only two really disappointing defenses (2015 and 2016 were ranked 62nd and 60th respectively, but the Horns have an overall eight year average S&P ranking of 33rd) during that time period. Put plainly: our very worst defenses were still better than our average offense over this duration.

      The on-field barrier to winning has been offense. Full stop. It's not surprising that the best team of the last eight years - the 2012 Longhorns - had the best offense (24th in S&P), the best offensive coordinator (Bryan Harsin), the best record (9-4), the best quarterback (David Ash), won their bowl, and finished in the Top 20 despite a defense that was exactly average compared to the other units of this time period.

      Note the S&P unit rankings since 2010:

      Year/Offense/Defense

      2010 88/31

      2011 84/9

      2012 24/32

      2013 49/44

      2014 90/8

      2015 64/62

      2016 30/60

      2017 99/21

      The horrendous performance level of the offense during this time period can't be overstated. The failure of Texas football has largely been a failure of offense. Four offensive units have been as bad as any in school history (2010, 2011, 2014, 2017) during a time period when offensive rules, innovation, pace, and the recruiting base greatly favor offense. One illustration of rank incompetence is that the 2015 offense - which finished 64th in the nation - featured musical chair quarterbacks between current practice squad NFL tight end Tyrone Swoopes and current wide receiver Jerrod Heard, had an early season offensive coordinator switch from Shawn Watson to Jay Norvell, and still ranks in the upper half of Texas offenses during this time period.

      From the data, we can draw a conclusion about what constitutes the three legged stool of competent offense:

      1. Offensive coordinator. Substandard coaching paired with incomplete talent is death to any offense. Former offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin was the best offensive coordinator during our eight year desert meander and he grew a unit ranked 84th in 2011 to 24th in 2012 in his second year on the job. He developed the quarterback position (sophomore David Ash), imbued toughness, schemed flexibly around his talent, and creatively deployed assets to lull defenses to sleep and hit them with single play kill shots. Harsin didn’t throw his hands up in the air at talent deficiencies and tout a four year plan. He rolled up his sleeves, put his players in positions to succeed, and coached up his charges to a 60 place jump in national offensive efficiency.

      2. Quarterback. Sophomore David Ash was the best Longhorn signal caller since Colt McCoy’s departure. By a wide margin. After a rough true freshman campaign, his sophomore season saw a 153 passing efficiency rating, a 19-8 TD/INT ratio and he averaged 8.6 yards per attempt. Passing efficiency is the bellwether of offense, and yards per attempt is just code for explosive plays. Want to know how 2018 goes for the Texas offense? Just answer this question: will our QB(s) play as well as a sophomore David Ash?

      3. Offensive Line. The big beautifuls are the largest proportional representation on a football team and represent 45% of offensive personnel. They create the ecosystem for the larger offense; and quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs are fragile, dependent creatures. Before Connor Williams had his name called to the Dallas Cowboys in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Longhorns endured a nine year drought of offensive line draftees. That fact is not correlated to bad offense. It is exactly causal.

      With respect to offensive coordination, quarterbacking, and offensive line play, mere competence in all three raises an offense significantly. The three form a virtuous circle as each reinforces, elevates, and enables the other. How does Texas get out of its eight year offensive wander in the desert? Hold serve on defense under the excellent coaching of Todd Orlando and move a historically bad 99th in the country S&P offense into the

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