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Inside Texas Football
Monday nITe LIVE (10/21): Vanderbilt Week, Sark Presser, Team News
- Welcome everybody to our Monday Live. I'm here with Drew, Eric, and Ian. University of Texas is in the great game now and the great game is terrifying. We just got a, well, we just got our proper first SEC game, which I think is great. We got an opportunity to learn a lot. The lessons will be discussed today in great detail. And we'll also talk a lot about it. Obviously your thoughts on this bringing in, whatever you may have in the comments. We want to start with our boy Brett. Currently Brett has a hat now. So I've noticed that his super chats have kind of dropped in value a little bit, but I understand what's going on there, Brett. I see you. So let's talk, let's talk tiebreakers. This is a very fair question, given the fact that we're going to be not going into this season completely undefeated. So these are, let me see if I can actually make this a little bit bigger for you, Brett, and see if I, yeah, there we go. So, and for those of you that are looking at this, please, and if you are not a member of IT, join us at insidetexas.com. Paul actually wrote a really good breakdown of all of this, and I think it's worth looking at. So first and foremost here, we've got, it's obviously head to head, then record versus common opponents, and then highest, best placed common conference opponent in the conference standings, not in the national standings, proceeding through the conference standings among the other type teams. This is where it gets nuts y'all. Cumulative conference winning percentage of all opponents. So the truth is, without going through all of these, it's very, very likely we're going to have what? How many teams are gonna be at least one loss? I mean, if you go through the crossover here, A&M is currently still undefeated. Who else here Ian? - A&M and LSU play each other, right? - Right, so that's gonna be at least one loss in there. - Yep, Georgia has a loss, Alabama has two loss, Tennessee has one loss. - It's a fair point, Homer. - Tennessee and Georgia play each other. - Yep, yeah, it is a bit complex. I will say that the general emotion, we'll talk about your guys' emotional states, but amongst the board and certainly the internet sphere has not been positive, but there are actually some positives to take away from this game. And the one thing I just wanna remind folks is, I want you to think about your favorite NFL team and one's the last NFL team that won a championship completely undefeated. This is the new game we're in, right? We are playing for a buy. That's the objective here. But you three, we're at the game. I'd love to hear about your experience. - Tell us about the tailgate, Eric. That must have been pretty awesome. We finally brought back the IT tailgate. - Yeah, the tailgate was a lot of fun. Yeah, Ian made it. So Ian made it, Ian made it. Yeah, Drew didn't make it. We had a great time. It was a really good turnout. Sold some hats, met a lot of people, met a lot of old friends, made some new friends, ate some good food, drank some cold beer, drank some bourbon, didn't have the wine, but there was plenty of wine. It was a very good festive atmosphere. You know, that was before. I was hoping to have a party afterwards, but nobody was in the mood, you know? - Dad, Drew, just out of curiosity, what section were you in? - Section 30, section 38, row 11. - Oh man, I was 31, row seven. - And you guys-- - Do we have P? - Very close. - You're a VIP. - Ian, you were on the press box, is that right? - No, I was with Rod of Disaster of Inside Texas over in section three. So, not in the bottle throwing section. - Okay. - No, not my fault. Drew may have to answer it along with security, but I am in the clear. - That first bottle came from the section to the right of me, 'cause it was right behind George's bench. And it was the first one was like, okay, this one, the ref goes over and just kinda tosses it back to the sideline or moves it out of the way, and it was just kinda looking around. Next thing you know, good in section turns up. So, what's funny about it is in that moment, I mean, they kept showing the replay, and there's like the culmination of all that. It's like, there's no way. There's no way. So, I just remember in the moment, when the first bottle went out, I was like, hi, hi, hi, okay, whatever. But then when all the bottles started going from the student section, I was like, I don't even care. Like, I'll say I'll regret feeling this way later, but throw it, I don't care. I'm pissed too. So, in the moment, you didn't carry the digit. - I don't know. - Yeah, in the moment, I didn't care. Like in the stadium, I didn't hear it not care, which is funny, 'cause all the takes I was hearing when I was kinda got out and started looking at, you know, texting and everything else was like, oh, wow. Was it really that distasteful? 'Cause in the stadium, I didn't care. I was pissed too. Now I didn't throw a bottle. And I wouldn't condone throwing bottles. But I certainly-- - Did you just check over your shoulder before you said that? 'Cause it looked like you were just checking your back before you said you don't throw in throwing bottles. Look, I don't condone throwing bottles. - Yeah. - But you gotta do it. - If there was ever a time for it, it was just a terrible, terrible call. Oh man, and there was just so much frustration built up in that building just for the way that the game had played out to that point. - So yeah, it was a boiling cauldron of emotion. - So Ian, you're obviously known for your emotional outburst. What, you mentioned something in the group chat today about the FEI and what that meant for, what this game actually did in Texas' FEI rankings on defense. Can you outline that for us? - Well, I wish I could remember exactly what they were before the game, but I believe it was third or fourth and they are now number one in defensive FEI this season. - And explain to the fine people what that means in terms of FEI. - It's just an adjusted stats ranking that tries to take into account opponent context and I can't remember if Brian does game context or not, not that it was super matter in this game, but basically the adjusted stats saw what Texas did on defense against Georgia and said, this team is, this is the best defense in the country based on the full body work. Which is funny because going into the game, everybody was saying, we don't really know about this Texas defense. Sure, the offense are great, whatever. We don't really believe the Texas' defense is that good. And anyone that just looks at the box score probably had that confirmed, but they played outstanding football defense. - I was proud of it. I mean, that was probably one of the biggest things that I wanted to see in this game. I mentioned it last week. I wanted our defense to show up. I think that's where people have the biggest doubts, but I knew this game wouldn't even have a chance if it wasn't for our defense. And these guys have shown me on film that they rallied to the ball. They play cohesive, but they also battled through adversity. They battled through when people do get yards and know this week against Georgia was different than some of the other weeks, but these guys bounce back. They cause turnovers. You had two Heisman hopeful first round draft quarterbacks that were out there struggling. And that was a fun game when you actually look at, I mean, for a defensive guy, but it also makes it frustrating when the defense is balling and the offense can't make stuff happen. So I was proud of that part. The other part I was proud of it really was really proud, not just probably just kind of reflecting back on the game. 60 minutes of football, the 60 minutes of football. And with the way that Texas team played, you can say whether it's 60 minutes, even when they were struggling, even when they were turnovers, even when they were, seems like Georgia knew the plays, the guys kept playing. It sounds weird to say it that way. That game could've been worse if they laid it down and just gave in. As much as everyone's saying, "Hey, welcome to the SEC." If Georgia, Georgia's not the SEC. We played Georgia. - Right. - We played the University of Georgia. Now, if everybody wants to take credit for what Georgia showed up and did, I wanna see everyone also go hard, like Georgia did for 60 minutes against Texas and win, just like that. And so that's really where I stand on it. It's who else can go that hard against Texas for 60 minutes on both sides of the ball and come away with a victory. Georgia did that. I just think in a 60-minute game, who else thinks they can bring it like that? All the people who have teams or have the roster or have an SEC team who thinks that they can do what Georgia just did, we can't wait to see it. 'Cause Georgia's Georgia, you haven't done it against Georgia. So it is what it is. It was a great litmus test for our defense. I think our offense has some work to do. I think our offense knows what a standard looks like now. And sometimes that standard has to get revealed against really incredibly talented defense. So it is what it is. It's one loss. All right, let's get back to it. Let's go. - I will say the worst part of the game was towards the end after, I think it was after they stopped Texas on a fourth and sixth and there was like no more time to have enough possessions to win and the Georgia section of the stadium started an SEC chant. - Oh man. - That was the worst. That was the, I think for me, that was the rock bottom of the evening. Even though it was, you know, whatever. - We're getting a lot of great questions coming in from the chat and I want to get to those, but first I want to hear from one of our sponsors. - This video is brought to you by Luxe Kitchen and Bath. Luxe has been offering high-end kitchen and bathroom remodels for three generations throughout the greater Austin area. With five-star review after five-star review on Google and Facebook and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, you can put your faith in Luxe Kitchen and Bath's award-winning designers and skilled craft people to bring to life that dream vision of your special home. But that's not all. Luxe's All-Star team provides full remodels, large additions and even commercial build-outs as well. So call Luxe Kitchen and Bath at 833-358-luxe today. Or visit luxekitchenbath.com to discover where quality meets luxury and begin the process of transforming your home. Get a free quote today by calling 833-358-luxe. That's L-U-X-E. Or by visiting luxekitchenbath.com. Link in the description. - Got a question here from Ryan Ian. What were your thoughts on the game plan and also game management? - I did not love the game plan. I would have liked to have seen more outside zone and with greater diversity. Sometimes they ran outside zone in ways that were kind of telegraphed plays that looked like outside zone that they'd run previously in the season. It looked to me like Sark wanted to go in and be able to bully Georgia a little bit upfront if they needed to. And that doesn't strike me as a great way to do it. I would have thought that Georgia would be more vulnerable to it. To me, Georgia was much better than I, the game they played against Texas was way better than any game they played this year. So like Georgia's backs were to the wall and Texas got the, we got to get this right or we're not going to make the playoffs Georgia, which is something that I think everybody's overlooking a little bit. But I didn't love the game plan. Also to that note, for a year, for a full year, I have said and others have said, it's tough. Texas got Georgia the week after they played Oklahoma. And all of us have said, you got to prioritize beating Oklahoma. You cannot sneak in the Georgia prep in that bi-week. Even if Oklahoma looks bad, which didn't surprise me, didn't surprise anyone that trusts me about Oklahoma, which is maybe, I'm not sure how many people that is. You had to give your A game against Oklahoma. And if that meant not your A game against Georgia, that was the right choice for SARC to make. And then he made it. And now everybody's punishing him for it because what happened is we went undefeated. And so everybody got their hopes up. They got the number one ranking. We got the big atmosphere, which was awesome. And they were not ready for it. And I'm not making excuses 'cause they should have played better. But also it's like, hey, if you just rewind like two weeks, none of this would have been that shocking or like destructive to your soul. - You know what's funny? What stands out to me about not just the game plan, but when you talk about SARC's offensive game plan, there are going to be other FCC teams. That's what remains on our schedule. Who are going to watch this film? And they're just going to say, ooh, Texas looks vulnerable. Texas looks vulnerable. Like look at what they looked like on film against Georgia. And I'm hoping that they just think for whatever reason that whatever Georgia did that they can mirror, you don't have the personnel, you don't have the depth, you just don't have it. But I hope that that's what they think 'cause that can tend to creep in people's minds. They see all the other film that Texas played against everyone else. And they say, oh, those weren't great competition. They obsess over watching the Georgia game because Georgia had the formula and they quickly learned that Georgia was just capable of executing something in a way that really no other team left on Texas's schedule should be able to execute. So there's a lot to learn from this, but there's a lot I think we can gain from this in that there are going to be some assumptions about where Texas is vulnerable that I think won't come to light maybe in some, maybe in these games in the future. - Gotta do you Eric, what after the game, I know that obviously things needed to calm a little bit, but I'm sure you get an opportunity to chat with your sources. What's the basic team morale coming after that game? - They're good, they understand the landscape. They've seen a rotation at the top of the number one polls. They see a lot of good teams losing to other good teams. You know, Ohio State lost a tough one to Oregon. Oregon's probably gonna lose a tough one to Ohio State in the Big Ten championship. Yeah, if you wanna be a champion, sometimes you gotta get your face bloodied is what One Source told me. And I think they're at least thankful that they've got a chance to fix some mistakes. Like I said this morning on the live, when you win and you're making mistakes, you don't tend to focus on them as much as after you lose and you pay the price for it. Because sometimes the results will paper over the process that was flawed. But when you lose, you have to focus on the process again. I said a lot of the players will be more coachable now that the flaws kind of came to light. A lot of coachable tape for sure, but morale's good. And they know they've got a tough game coming up. Vandy, they're looking forward to that. I think they're gonna come out and play well, particularly on defense. But that game is, I love the makeup of that game for Texas on the heels of this one. I know it's a challenge. I know some fans are worried about it. Vandy's a tough team. They're tough out. They don't shoot themselves in the foot. But I like the challenge for this team right now. I think it's a good chance to bounce back and then go into a bi-week and then sort of regroup. Well, Drew, the first thing you gotta do is you can't let Georgia beat you twice. - Good job, Mac. - I see. Obviously, there's based on the performance versus Georgia. There's a lot of chat about Quinn. And I wanna bring this up because this is, this is the sentiment that has been going around. And we're gonna go to our friend Brett Nelson here. Is his their release, obviously. I mean, what are our thoughts on this, Drew? How short or long is Quinn's leash for Vandy? Does he have a leash? What do you, what's your read on that? - What did Tark say today? I mean, that's really what it comes down to. - Right. - The day when Tark makes a decision, both in-game, both like listen to Tark. Tark is telling you what he wants to do. There would have to be something drastic or dramatic to change that now. I think Eric and his team, I mean, everyone at IT has been saying the same thing as they write on these things. Tark has a plan. Tark plans to continue to develop Quinn and make sure that he's ready and prepared to play this next week. It's not a Quinn thing. It's not just a leash thing. There's some things Quinn needs to address. But all of the moving parts around him have to be addressed too. And a quarterback doesn't change that. Until we see that a quarterback exclusively in Quinn, particularly, is the problem, then there's something to address. But there's things around Quinn in this game that just kept everything out of sync. And so anyone pretending that there's one thing or the other, it's, I mean, it's just not the case. So, as Sark has been forthright since day one, about where he stands and where he feels, that's where I'm just gonna follow suit and just say, "Hey, listen to Sark." Sark's telling you how he's handled it. - Moving over to the fan base, Eric. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. Do you think Quinn has done enough? The basic question here is, do each of you believe that Quinn has done enough in his Texas career to warrant more loyalty than he is getting from the fan base? Well, first of all, the premise in there is that he is not getting loyalty from the fan base. So let's just assume, for the basis of this question, that that is a true statement. What are your thoughts on that, Eric? - I think Sark has done enough for people to trust his judgment on the handle the quarterback situation. I think he's handled it right. As far as Quinn, I mean, that's a tough call just because fans are gonna, they want the best player no matter what, who gives them help outside of the ones that just wanna see Jay and Blue and John take cooking no matter what. But I think Quinn has worked his butt off enough and I think he's developed enough and changed enough. He's matured enough to where he should have a little bit more rope from the fans. But you know, to your original point, not the questions, but yours, LC, I'm not really seeing a whole lot of, I've seen a few aggravated fans for sure, but if you go on IT when that room, or that bad graphic came out 24/7 got hacked earlier today, there was a lot of people that were freaking out about it. They don't want them leaving, you know, they don't want them to be, of course. - Well, yeah, I mean, so the harder. - Right, I mean, yeah, so there, I mean, I saw a lot of loyalty when that graphic came out to him, assuming, you know, everybody's, well, some people like were taking it at face value, which, man, just you gotta think people. But yeah, there's, you know, everybody who's rallying behind Quinn, behind the scenes as far as I know, I think most fans are rallying behind him as well, but you know, he does have to play better, that's the bottom line. And, you know, I don't know how long of a leash he'll have, he can't go out and throw a, you know, a couple of picks or anything, but he does have to improve, but he's got it within him. And I think this is a good game for him to get back to himself. But, you know, we're still gonna have questions about him anytime he goes up against a fearsome pass rush, like we'll see versus, you know, Texas A&M's got some players up front. - And I wanna talk about this tech, this pass rush in the schedule that we've got coming forward, and I'll put that to Ian and Drew. But before we do, let's listen to our final sponsor for the night. - I'm just gonna say it, guys. You probably need a fiduciary financial advisor. And I've got the guy for you. His name is David McClellan with Forum Financial. He works broadly and deeply with his clients as a financial life coach. And he should know something about coaches and because he won several national championships as a swimmer for the University of Texas. He specializes in financial planning and has contributed numerous articles to Kipling on the topic of retirement tax bombs. So contact David today to be your fiduciary financial planner and schedule a one hour consultation to assess your financial situations. The free consultation is available, so just give him a call. The number is 312-933-8823. That's 312-933-8823. His email is also in the description below. - So we want to thank Quentin for putting in this super chat here. And we'll go to this really quickly. The film guy does a great job. If you guys check him out, it's a wonderful job. The film guy broke down the tape and it's like UGA knew our place. I'm just gonna throw this out there, guys. There are other coaches and those coaches sometimes won national championships. Kirby Smart is a very good coach. He had SARC's number. Let's put it out there. I don't want to say he had it whole all the way through, but that was a, yeah, coach's game plan and they got the better of us this time. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, Drew. - Yeah, it felt like that. Sometimes it feels like that. And at the end of the day, they were all over it. They were aggressive at the line of scrimmage and that's where it starts. Both in the pass rush and in the run game, hands down. And I haven't watched the film guy yet. He does a great job. He did a great breakdown of us last week. But it starts at the line of scrimmage. Run game, pass game. They knew if they started at the line of scrimmage they were aggressive, if they attack. They had the time of this on the shifting even the few times they did throughout the game was incredible 'cause getting us behind the chains in this game was more impactful than it's been in any other game we played in. And this is even, in fact, it's the best being at home. So that part of it, yeah, it did feel like that, but I really just think it started at the line of scrimmage. And they knew that regardless who were in the pass play go and get after it and take care of the line of scrimmage and everything else followed. But every time I know we should have run more outside zone I need to go back and just watch that again because it felt like anytime we tried to get to an edge it wasn't even close. There was no displacement whatsoever throughout the entire game. It just, it didn't feel as though we had control at the line of scrimmage. And that's really where it starts. Everything beyond that, I think we can manage. But it really starts at the line of scrimmage and we have to figure out why it felt like they knew our plays 'cause it felt like they were playing on our side of the line of scrimmage regardless of if it was pass or run. And you can't get anything started doing it. - Well, I can tell you why it felt like they knew our plays is because they did. It's because a lot of the actions and motions were consistent with what Texas has already run this year. Like if me watching Texas every week, you know, can tell what they're doing, the Georgia fans, the Georgia players who season is on the line and it's basically their job to grind Texas offense and look for tendencies, they can figure it out too. Especially with Kirby Smart and their highly paid coaches telling them exactly what to look for. So no, Texas did not have a particularly novel game plan or series of plays to run against Georgia. And it looked, it actually at times, it reminded me a lot of the Oklahoma game last year. I had strolled earlier today that Georgia almost did the favor to us that Oklahoma normally does of making it their mission to try and expose us. Oklahoma tried and they just weren't up to the task, I guess. And Georgia, Georgia did it. And so there you go. I don't think there is more than you this. - Staying on this topic of the offensive line Ian. And again, I'm asking you to forecast here a little bit, but as best as you can, do you think this is to drew to as much as you, I don't know how much scouted up to this point 'cause those are a couple of games ahead. But do you think Kentucky, A&M or Arkansas can stress the O line protections anywhere near what we saw on Saturday? - I would like to point out something that Drew said earlier, Georgia's a very good team. And not every team is Georgia. So with that in mind, what are your thoughts on this? - No, let me go ahead. I mean, no, personnel, no. And I mean for four quarters, when I say for 60 minutes of what we saw from Georgia, that's where I just, I'll be impressed if any other team can execute in that way. But also it's who do you have behind the line of scrimmage that's flying to the ball and doing everything else that's necessary. They were on a string. They were on a string from the front to the back of the defense and we didn't have the time we need. So can they attempt to? Sure, but I have not, I mean, even last year, when have we seen a defensive line do what Georgia just did to this Texas team? So we can go back to the drawing board and everything else, but at the end of the day, it starts at the line of scrimmage at least for me, where what do we need? How can we execute and what can we execute to where we can control that part of the ball? And Georgia both have the talent and the knowledge, the schematic game plan to just be where we were going before we got there is in a lot of different ways. - Yeah, Georgia is a little bit unique in how they attack protections. Like Jalen Walker had three sacks that guy's an inside linebacker. - Right. - They move them around to different places, can attack, those other schools all have, you know, some creative blitz packages, but Kirby Smart is, it's not just the recruits create players. They're very good about manufacturing pressure from different angles with their blitz package and marrying it to their coverages. Like you can go watch the bumble by Quinn and they have a corner blitz to one side of the field. And then after showing pressure to the other, they're bailing in the cover too. And Quinn doesn't know what he's looking at and he pauses and he holds the ball and then bam, you know, he's in the turf and the ball's rolling towards the end zone. That's going to be harder for other teams. Other teams are not as good at that. It's going to be harder to duplicate. Like Texas is going to be a little more on guard now. And if Quinn is as bad about stepping up in the pocket, as he was against Georgia, he's not going to be playing against all those teams to be blunt. So, no. A&M maybe will have something unique. I don't sleep on A&M obviously. All these teams are good, but I don't think it's going to be like that. - With the, and I know you kind of answered this a little bit, but this was a question that came in a little bit earlier, Drew, and just, it's not as if you can divorce yourself from this because you are perpetually going to be a nice player, but as a nice player, what were your thoughts on what went wrong? - Well, kind of protect the football. And you got to run the ball well, not rush your opponent. If you don't do talk those two things, we lose every time. Protect the football and not rush your opponent. That's really it. It comes down to those two things. You got to protect the ball. - 29 yards. - 29 yards probably isn't going to get it, is it coach? - Nope, nope, that's not going to get, but we just got to get back and got to get better. We got to get better, we're going to get better. Honestly, that's really what it comes down to. I mean, it's one thing to have turnovers. It's another thing to have them in your litter look backed up against the wall. It's pretty obvious. I mean, we had turnovers, but they weren't in the same position. I mean, it really comes, I mean, I sound like Mac 'cause that literally applies to this game. If you cannot run the ball and you have turnovers, it's hard to win football games, man. It is hard. So we got to figure that out. Now, we know that we were struggling and we haven't had a consistent run game this year. We've taken advantage of inferior imponents. We've had other pops and long plays, explosive plays that have kind of balanced out. Sometimes just a mediocre or just kind of a lukewarm run game day, just on the days where we seem like we have run with. So when you stop the run and you get those turnovers in that way, I just don't know. You're not supposed to win games. So yeah, that's what went wrong. We could not get the ball. We could not third down. I just, every time I would look up to the clock I'd turn left. I was like, oh, wow. Zero for six on third down. We're doing the same thing, man. Yeah. Zero for six on third down. I wasn't even, I'm just looking to my left and looking at the stats the whole game. Well, why are we all for whatever on third down? We didn't put ourselves in advantageous positions when we got to third down. It's just that comes down a run game. It really does come down a run game. Then when we got away from the run game, they made really good open field tackles when we tried to get to the edges, when we tried to get the ball out in space. And what can you do? They give up three or four yards in one play, but they weren't giving it up on the next play. Yeah, it's a, and just to, for those of you that are joining us over at Twitter, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. Please come on over to Instagram, Instagram, not Instagram, it's YouTube, like and subscribe. It really, it really helps us on our social platforms. So thank you for that. We want to just, we'll just go to this really quickly, UT parking, to my knowledge, he is not retiring to play shortstop. Playing shortstop, you can throw off platform. In fact, you're probably gonna do that more often. I'm JV and Cole. Does anyone know where JV and Cole is? Are we gonna try to register him? Where are we on this one, Eric? I haven't even seen how many games he's played yet. Joe has an article once a week where he breaks down. Oh, he does that for the freshmen guys. Let me see. Yeah, I don't know how many games he's played. I thought I saw him recently. I swear he made a play recently. She's definitely played, he's, he had one game where he flashed a couple of times, maybe UTSA. Yeah, I don't, you know, he's down the depth chart. They've got great, great corners right now starting. Gavin Holmes is the clear number three. Yeah, I think probably look more towards next year for any impact from JV and Cole, but I'm not sure if he's gonna redshirt or not. More worried about, you know, depth at safety than I am at corner right now. If anyone didn't notice that guy, Jade Barron, who we told you all off season, was the best defensive back on the team, has been a all American caliber corner back this year. So they've been pretty good shape. Yeah, we had a lot of commenters on him. He, you know, 'cause he played nickel last year, banged up and gave up some longer passes, the Oklahoma State game. That's just injury. He was, again, we always talked about how he was moved to, to nickel because he could play corner, not because he couldn't play corner. Yep, this came up and this is something you reported on, on the site, please check us out on insidetexas.com. But Makupa is not gonna play this week against Vandy. We've got the buy after that. So the hope is, fingers crossed, he'll be ready to go for Florida. But again, you're following us on insidetexas.com. You will, you'll get all this information as soon as it comes out. This is something, I wanna bring this up because Ryan is here. Oklahoma State was needing double digit comebacks against BYU, that's this year, and Houston before playing Texas. That team was on fumes, not a hard test for Quinn last year. Why are we talking about how Quinn played last year? First, what is the relevance of that? I don't know. This is a progression, things move forward. It's a different team each year. There are different players each year. It's, this is college football, guys. Oklahoma State wasn't very good last year in the Texas Kick the Crap battle. Let's see. I think it's just, I don't know, this stuff winds me up. Okay. One thing on Quinn though, this is the first double digit loss he's had in Texas over the last few years. It's always been a single score loss. And there's not been that many of them. And then this one was, you know, pretty close to being a single score as well. So he has been getting it a little bit rough, I think, or losing to Georgia. Let's just, let's see what he does this week. Or, you know, Vanderbilt, again, it's a good game. This is a game where I really want to see them establish the run. They should be able to run on Vanderbilt and stop the run, of course. That's the key on the other side. I mean, but if they can run the ball versus Vandy, then, you know, they better open up the passing game and we'll probably see him a whole lot more comfortable. But I'm going to wait until I see how he looks against Vanderbilt before I start, you know, really joining the course line here. And let's get back to this because we was asked a minute ago, and we didn't get to that part of the question, was, Baron is repped there, he repped there in August, a little bit, he repped there in the spring a little bit, not a lot. I don't expect him to play safety. You don't want to move, like Ian just caught him in pretty much an all-American cornerback. You don't want to move him. You know, you've got Taffen and Jelani McDonald, you're only going to, it's only a game. You know, if, you know, if, if heaven forbid, McCuba was going to miss, you know, the rest of the season, you might have to look at doing something drastic, but right now that's not the time to do it. They'll play Jordan Johnson-Rebell as the rotating third safety. I think they'll just have a shorter bench and, you know, try to get to the bye week and get McCuba back and get back on schedule. - And again, just because we're talking roster here, I think this is an important question. We obviously need to bench running backs to get to coal. So I don't really want to get into the weeds here on who we're benching. I think we bench every running back to get to coal. I mean, it's-- - Close the corner. He's talking about the guy said-- - Oh, the corner, oh, yeah, I was saying. - He's saying, why is coal not... The guy's asking, why isn't coal playing more? Is he going to redshirt or whatever? He's saying that, you know, there's really no playing time. You've got Leep, Muhammad's having a fine year. Jay Barron's having a fantastic year. Jalen Gilbo's had nickel lockdown all year. Jelani McDonald's played there a little bit as well. They've got some packages for him there. But yeah, I mean, the last thing that we should be concerned outside of a couple injuries is the secondary. It's the best defensive back group in the country that I, at least that I've seen so far. I don't know the national landscape like some others, but it's the best secondary I've seen in the country. I think they just need to get guys healthy and keep them moving. - So we do have our game this week is with Vandy. Their quarterback is absolutely lighting things up right now. Really unique story with this guy also plays a very hard-nosed game. The thing I'm curious about, and I want to use this as an opportunity to kind of plug everything we've got going on. So tomorrow you guys are going to get a full breakdown with Homer and Paul that morning live. Be sure to check that out. There's going to be a deep dive with Ian and Paul later in the week. And then we'll obviously have our inside the program on Friday and another live on Wednesday. But as we go through this, just what are some initial thoughts from you guys with this Vandy game? And we'll start with you Drew as you put yourself on mute. - Well, Bobby has poised. So if they come prepared, which I expect them to with the game plan that they think they can execute, I expect them to see how it works out. The question is, will we be prepared for whatever game plan they come with? And will they have an adjustment to whatever we do? I don't expect us to show up like Alabama did and have them do really nothing excessive or creative or different for four quarters and find a way to just beat Alabama for four quarters. I do expect that they do come with something. We don't make some adjustments in a four quarter game against us should be enough for us to make any adjustments necessary to win this game. Yes, it's Vandy. But hey, this is the SEC, right? Like everyone says, this is the SEC, every game it means more. So let's not pretend that this Vandy team is, you know, something we should run over, right? 'Cause we're overrated and we haven't played anybody. So, you know, we got to show up this week. Pavia has a lot of poise. I expect them to execute this game plan. But I do think over four quarters, it really just comes down to us executing our game plan and being ready for anything that they bring to the table. I do expect them to protect the football better than we saw last week though. I do expect Vandy to know like for them to have a chance in this game, they have to make good decisions. They can't just throw the ball to us. So I don't expect them to take the risk that Georgia did. So it really may be a time possession game and we're just gonna have to get off the field and make sure our offense executes efficiently when they are on the field. - Eric, what do you're from the hip Monday evening thoughts on this Vanderbilt game? - I just have to play discipline game on defense, the run defense and discipline with their eyes. You know, they're gonna have a highly efficient passing game, but they're very heavily skewed towards the run. And so that, the more effective they run the ball, the more effective they end up passing it off play action. They run the quarterback a hundred different ways. Somebody just mentioned, Taysom Hill, I see some Sam Ellinger, he's a fiery son of a gun. Very tough, I think they should knock him around a little bit. Give him some of his own medicine. It's a physical team that doesn't shoot themselves in the foot. They have great turnover margin, they protect the ball exceptionally well. It's not that they really take the ball away a ton, they just don't give it up. That's a well coached team. It's gonna be Quinn's third defensive minded head coach in a row, and SARC's third defensive minded head coach in a row to deal with. And so that's gonna be, that's gonna present another challenge. Jeff Leiby's not walking through that door. So I think, you know, I'm optimistic, but you know, I wanna see Texas run the ball. I think Vanderbilt is susceptible to Texas's athleticism and size. We should be able to see the run game experience some success. And if we see that, I think it's gonna be, you know, passing game's gonna be a lot easier for Quinn. Talking about that passing game, Ian, one of the questions here from AR is, will the Vandy game be a good chance to establish the deep ball? I haven't really seen it much this year. I mean, you would have thought if we were gonna do the deep ball, probably would have been last weekend, but what are your thoughts on that, Ian? Every week is a good week to establish the deep ball. I guess like the Greg Maddox of, yeah, Chicks dig the deep ball. It's the contingency is whether Texas can execute it or not. They tried some deep ball throws against Georgia. They had some deep throws available against Georgia. Georgia played tight, but there were openings down the field to beat them. And Texas couldn't hit them for a few different reasons. So absolutely they should try to hit them against Vanderbilt. Like that's one of the best ways to kill an option team is hit them with some deep throws over the top, put them in a hole, and then say, how do you feel about trying to make a comeback with long option drives? And then I really think the game mostly just comes down to is Texas sound against the option. I assume yes, me and Paul will break down on Wednesday what option rules are in the defense and what it needs to look like. If you go watch the Alabama game, Vanderbilt beat Alabama because Alabama was not an option sound, which is crazy. We wouldn't have said that for the last, what 20 years or whatever with Nick Saban, but it was true this year and that's why they lost. - We'll put this question over to you, Eric. Does J.J.R. have the leg up in starting over Philcemi? Because of the spring enrollee business. - No, they were both early enrollees. Philcemi is late to the position. He only started playing safety as a junior. J.J.R. has played it a long time. Got a lot of good coaching at IMG. He's just further advanced. Everybody's got a different developmental curve. That's just part of it. Cause every Philcemi has tremendous upside. But you gotta remember, everybody, a lot of fans are like, why aren't they going after Philcemi is highly rated? They had profiled, J.J.R. very early in the process as a guy they wanted. They love his football IQ, football intelligence, instincts, all that stuff. And so that's, you know, that's just true to form. He's more ahead. That's it. He's further ahead, I should say. Now there's gonna probably be a chance where Xavier Philcemi catches up to him at some point. That's gonna require further development. But right now they really like Jordan Johnson-Rebell at safety and they also like him at Nickel. He could be the Nickel once the gibbo's time is up. So, you know, we'll see. He's just further ahead, that's all. - There is obviously new week, new opportunities. We've got a lot of information coming for you this week. Please check us out at insidetexas.com. We really appreciate you being here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
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