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Inside Texas Football
IT Live (10/09): Sark's Offense vs. Venables' Defense, Texas Beating OU with Defense in Red River
Looking for an ideal place to start or scale your business? Come to Dubai, the new global powerhouse for innovation and business growth. With the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 accelerating success, entrepreneurs have easy access to flexible regulations, cutting-edge infrastructure, tax benefits, and 100% for an ownership. Be a part of the future, join the leaders of tomorrow in Dubai, where your innovation meets opportunity. Visit www.d DubaiBeyondPossible.com to know more. Good morning, everybody. Texas Hummer here with Ian Boyd. And we're right in the thick of it. In the hate week, we are going to be discussing, of course, Texas versus OU. But before we do that, y'all, we got a great promo going on. 50% off annual memberships right now. All you got to do is use promo code Hookum running that this week. So get it while it's hot. So we're going to discuss the matchup that the media likes, right? Sarkeesian's offense versus Venerable's defense. But I'm glad that Ian brought this up. Texas has a really good defense that's not really being discussed in this matchup weirdly. So how the Texas defense actually can win this game? And then we all know this game is famous and notorious for the amount of adjustments that occur and the subterfuge going into it. So what do you have to do to be able to adjust on the fly in this game? It's going to be crucial. And then Oklahoma's defensive and traced forward. He made a comment that Texas has not seen a defense like this so far. I'll give you the full quote. It wasn't like a crazy hot take he was giving. We'll kind of give him benefit of the doubt. But it's just an avenue for us to actually explore. Has Texas seen a defense like this so far? All right, fans Hookum. All right, Ian. First things first, the Sarkeesian offense versus Venerable's defense. So let's we'll kind of go through the structure. Let me pull up your article that will probably help us stay on course a little better, right? We're going, we're going off course today. Oh, we always do. They're going to take us off course where we're going. We don't need better articles. Yeah, that's true. All right, let's pull it up. OK, cool. Hopefully the ads won't start running loud. So first is kind of the stakes you were talking about. What are you, what's the big deal here? Is it the typical, you know, Sark can't go down to one to Venables? What, like those are the probably the more realistic media narratives. But yeah, the whole just like Venables versus Sark deal is interesting. Because they're like maybe two of the top, at least top five guys. And their respective side of the ball. Sark is an offensive play caller in Venables as a defensive coordinator. I supposedly Zach Ali calls plays. I don't know. Seems like Brent Venables has a lot of stuff in his hands on Saturdays. No, when he fired, who's that guy? He fired. Really? Roof, Ted Roof. I heard this great tweet. Just shout out to myself, where I said Brent Venables fired, Brent Venables fired, defensive coordinator, Brent Venables, expected replacement expected to be Brent Venables. Yeah. Yeah. And he was already, he was already starting to jettison that first layer of fires that you need to maintain, you know, like you fire in waves. So like year four, you're like, they finally figure out it's you. You know, they Scooby Doo mask it. But he got rid of the Ted Roof layer. I'm like, save that to year, year three or something to get rid of roof. Yeah. I guess he saw, he was like, Zach Ali's ready to get in here and he's going to be more helpful to cultivate this young guy, whatever. Brent Venables is an awesome defensive coach. So this matchup is really interesting. And then there's the head coach on head coach deal, right? Sark the head coach versus Venables, the head coach, that one kind of matters more. And I feel like that one's not really fair this year. Well, I mean, it's fair. It's fair. All right. It's less interesting, actually, is what I should say. It's totally fair. Like if Venables can't hack it as a head coach in Oklahoma, that's going to be very meaningful for their program, but and I don't think he will. But to me, the most interesting matchup is just like how is Sark the offensive play call are going to handle Venables, the defensive coach, because they both have really good units on their own respective sides of the ball. Both have like veterans and a lot of key positions. Venables has got his like star linebacker and star pass rusher that he loves. Sark has got his like veteran O line and quarterback and burner wide outs, like it's just a total strength on strength. So yeah, except for those corners, right? Oh, you blast satisfying me by R Kelly and P did in the locker room pregame. Thank you for that sugar daddy. Yeah, we're looking forward to the free cops, whoever wins at the end. All right. So I think that's interesting. So when you ever you're saying who wins the head coaching matchup, do you mean the logistics of like building the team or the overall management of the game? Cause I think I think Venable has been really good in field position fourth in the country in field position. Well, it will create turnovers, that kind of stuff. So I think Brendan will besides having not an offense, which his head coach should also make sure you have an offense. But he's done pretty good at managing all aspects of the game. He's very, he's a defensive coach, so it makes sense that he's super obsessed with field position. Yeah, no, they've had some issues with time management and sloppiness and big moments in his tenure there, in my opinion. So I don't quite know about that. We'll see. Actually, I don't think we will see. So I don't think this game is going to be that close, but I think mostly like the head coaches are just judged by did you win or did you lose? Right. Your record in the Red River shootout means a whole lot more than the context. Like, it's not like, like, Brendan Venables was totally cooked in the 49 to zero game. But he gets judged still for one, having to hang the L, giving up the golden hat, and for putting up zero points, right? No. So. Well, let's give the people what they want here. And kind of stated it, how are you all feeling about this game? Be honest. I'm usually a lot more nervous this week. Yeah, you share the same sentiment. I'm usually nervous as hell going into this game, not this year. I have faith our guys will get the job done. So we've said this before in a couple of lives, right? But you know, whoever else is ranked isn't Kansas State ranked 18th to something like that, right? If you were to say Texas right now is going up against Kansas State, I would say you're going to blow them out. I mean, Vegas has them 14 point favorites. The stat, the only advantage OU has is the run defense versus our rushing offense. And that's like a ninth rushing defense versus a 30th rushing offense. So that's not even a huge mismatch. Yes, we're adding in the rivalry magic here. We're even adding a little bit of sooner magic in, but I'm not super nervous. I'll admit last year, I went for a hike during the game. I was so nervous. I couldn't. I knew we were going to lose it somehow. I don't know why and I did not watch it live. And I literally went for a hike out in the woods. And I did not check. I refused to check my phone until the game was over and of course we lost it. Then I watched and broke it down, but I don't have that nervousness this year. In the fourth quarter of the game last year, I was like sitting there like taking notes. That's how I watch games or like chart every play. I don't know if it's helpful or not, but it just gives me something productive to do to keep focused on the game when I'm watching it so I can do all the post game stuff. And my wife came up and she's like, oh, wow, it's pretty close here. And I was like, and I said, I think I'm going to have a heart attack. Yeah, it's like really because I was sitting there, but inside was just a cauldron of like all kinds of stuff stewing in there. And I was already getting like, like my inside Texas, the sooner scoop guys were like sending me all these DMs and they like tagged me like 500,000 times in the thread that they have devoted to my honor. Yeah. That's what it was just kind of like, I was like, okay, they're going to talk to trash. That's fine. Yeah. And then I had some, I wanted to get to a place of Zen, I was just like, it is what it is. But the game kept being like so close at the end. And so like, you couldn't, you couldn't just like relax and just accept what it was going to be because he was, that was a man, he's the last like, what five years of this game, probably than the 49 to zero, there's been a nightmare, it's been just unbelievable. It's like back in the like, I went three years in a row as a student in 0708, no nine. And all three years being in the stadium was just a four hour heart attack. Yeah. Those games were so competitive and so intense, and we're back there in Texas, during Texas though, you all literally have to ask something like, do I enjoy football? What am I doing to myself here? You know, it's like, this is not a, this is not fun for me right now. But last year, I don't know what it was. I just had this weird feeling, I was like, we're going to lose this game. And I went for a hike and like my phone would ring and buzz and I would just have to like keep walking on the trail. But this year, I'm in it. But I also got to watch the 49 live. And like I said, that was like being on a beach. That was a beautiful, beautiful occasion. I just don't have like, like, I learned there was a year, what was it, 2013, I was writing for Barking Carnival. And I was like, Texas is going to get whooped, of course, they've been whooped the last two years. And then I forced myself to be like, okay, if Texas was going to win this game, how would they do it? And so then I like wrote an article that was like, they're going to Texas is not going to win this game. And if they did, this is how they were to do it. And then I like perfectly nailed the game plan that ended up producing the winning result. And so since then I've tried to come at this game that way, as best I can, it's been easier this year. It's got two weeks to think about it. And so this year that the angle I've come at it from mostly is how does Oklahoma win this game? Because that seems like that's the question asked, right? And they have the narrow path, right? They have the narrow path. And so you like anticipate what that path has to look like. And then you know, Texas is doing that too, ideally, we'll see a lot of it like it's odds of success. And I just don't, this is, this will get this clip could be this shot right now can be clipped afterwards. If Texas finds where to lose this game, I just don't, I don't see it. You know? Yeah. So I understand what it looks like for Oklahoma to win the game this year that here, here's why. So it would have to be Hawkins goes sicko mode, right? He's going to have to have like two 40 yard runs. And then they're going to have to hit a couple deep shots, but that's still like say that they hit two deep shots and he busts two runs. That's still, I mean, what gets him to 28, I think Texas scores in the 30s. So it's like, that's where it's like tricky, right? Like, even if they do land those, those explosives, they're going to have to land a lot because the Texas offense they're going up against is going to be, is going to be tricky. I, I don't have a few issues with that. One is that like Sam Ellinger and Casey Thompson both gave both through some like big right hooks at Oklahoma in like 2017 and 2021. You know, Oklahoma still won out in the end because they're just better. No, but also because they could score, right? Yeah. Texas and Texas can score that I feel like it's hard to win this game that way. Also, here's another thing. We keep talking up my cockens because he's like their formula for victory now since he came in for Jackson Arnold. It's all about this guy's got some magic in his legs. He can throw some deep shots. This is how they win games is they get just, and he creates enough offense through sheer force of will and athleticism that it pairs with their defense and then they win the game. So that's like the angle that everyone is coming at this from. Here's a question that no one's actually really asking. Is my cockens good? My cockens is actually not that good yet. He's so like, I've done him on the breakdown. He's basically, oh, his quarterback has gone like metrics have gone from awful to average. And so that's going to make a difference in a couple of wins for them. So that's good. But no, there's no, there's no elite stuff going on with Hawkins yet and it's his second start in Red River. I think he'll be good in the future though. I think he has decent poise now once again, we've only seen it versus Auburn, but that is playing in a way game versus Auburn. He holds the ball too long, leads the SEC in time to throw. Oh my gosh. So he holds the ball too long, that's going to be tricky. So originally I thought he was a one read and run quarterback. Looking for an ideal place to start or scale your business? Come to Dubai, the new global powerhouse for innovation and business growth. With the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 accelerating success, entrepreneurs have easy access to flexible regulations, cutting edge infrastructure, tax benefits, and 100% foreign ownership. Be a part of the future, join the leaders of tomorrow in Dubai, where your innovation meets opportunity, visit www.dubybeyondpossible.com to know more. And then the more I was rewatching it, really trying to look for that, honestly to support my theory that I already had that he did that, but yeah. So I was working backwards, disingenuously, but then I saw that I was like, he's really not one reading, he's reading a single side of the field, but that's most quarterbacks, right? And it's just that his receivers can't get open. So he's sitting there with the ball. So he's a little slow to process, don't get me wrong, he's a true freshman. But also his receivers can't get open to save his life. So it looks like he's a one read and run quarterback, but really it's like three guys are completely clamped up. And then he decides to run, what else are you supposed to do there if you're Hawkins? To throw it out of bounds or run? Let me rephrase a little bit. I think his explosiveness makes him average unless you take away the explosives, but it is unfair to judge him when he is throwing to the worst receiving core like in the SEC. Yeah. So maybe he's actually a lot better than he's shown. I have to grant that to be fair. And I think in future seasons, he might end up being really good if he survives this season without being mentally or physically broken. Yeah. And I wouldn't watch this huddle and stuff too. I mean, I like the kid. I think he's a good quarterback. I think he's going to be a good quarterback for him. It's just there's no way to do a proper eval. But if you saw, I mean, we would say the same thing about Jackson Arnold, but he looks markedly has more command than Jackson Arnold does. And he faced harder opponents than Jackson Arnold did. Arnold was always the guy that was going to need real time to learn a system because he was one of those, you'll see guys like this in high school all the time that they throw it when they see it, right. And then they get a four star, five star rating because they have like an awesome release. They can throw the ball to like almost any quadrant of the field. Maybe they have some athleticism too. That's all Jackson Arnold, right? Yeah. But then you watch like a full game and you realize like they throw it when they see it. They have like no anticipation. They're almost always throwing to their primary guy and you're like, in college, people are going to take this away and they're going to have to learn how to actually read the field and then 50 50 or worse on when these guys, these guys actually make it have an article about it actually right now on America's wargame.substack.com. You should go check out about how young quarterbacks like don't work and college football anymore because defenses have caught up too much. And they don't let you play simple games and make simple reads. Hawkins is like, I think he's over. I think he's over protective of the ball. I think he's hyper aware not to turn it over. I think sometimes he's not letting it rip. Arnold or Hawkins? Hawkins. Hawkins, I think is like, it's hard to know in the passing game because he's working in such awful circumstances, but he's awesome at like the two things that make college quarterbacking a lot easier, which are running with the ball and hitting shots accurately down the field. He's a good intermediate quarterback, too. He's hit seven of eight. Now keep in mind when he hits them, I mean, the safeties are like miles apart in the fields wide open. He can also hit you at the end of a crosser. I think, I mean, if you gave them their starting line and like a functional offensive line, I think you would like the kid a lot more. It's just, it's just, can he do it in game two? I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to hate on Hawkins. I think he has a good future, but I just think, I mean, like, what do you do coming into that situation? Like you said, four or five of their guys on offensive line haven't been in Red River. And so it's just, what do you, what do you do? There's not a lot of options here. So I'll play the other day where their tight end was lead blocking on a perimeter screen. And one of the Auburn safeties, like put him in the dirt. Power sharp. Yeah. Yeah, block. Dude, I, I knew he couldn't block, but when I watched him block on the perimeter, I was like, okay, dude, you're, you're supposed to be able to block on the perimeter, though. Like those guys are a lot smaller than you. Yeah. Can you pull up the last one from the father of sugar? Yes, I shall. The Gerard heard one. Yeah. This one, you should speak to this too, since you saw this up close. The thing about Gerard heard was that Hawkins is like a way better passer than heard. Heard was an awful passer, right, which really limited the offense, especially as teams figured it out and he got a little beat up, but heard was used to, uh, heard was used to carrying a big volume of carries in the run game high school through college. And I don't know if Hawkins has that same, uh, run game ability or awareness. Compared to heard, probably not, but I mean, if you watch his huddle, the first, like the, you can always tell what quarterbacks think of themselves or anything. The first, like it's like athletic runs opens up his huddle opposed to like passing. So whenever they create that, so he's definitely run focused, um, when they're putting those highlights in there, I don't think he's going to have the natural ability of, of heard in the run game. I just don't, but he, I mean, when he's a didn't guy or that was crazy what he was doing. Um, but I, I don't know, I'd have to see real design runs with him in, in the college game to know what's up. Um, I just, I mean, I, I just did the breakdown on him, so I'm editing and so I have workout clips of him that I was watching and he has incredible feet, but not like incredible feet for an athlete. He has an incredible feet for a quarterback. The drills he's able to do and stuff like that. He has really hard work. The kids working on it, um, he's going to, he's going to be good. Um, you know, whenever the home or breakdown comes out on Thursday morning, I'll check it out. Y'all see the footage of him working out. Um, he's really, he's really drilling this kind of stuff, but some of his workouts too, right? Is, is they're practicing draws and there's no defense or anything, but he's catching, he's looking and then he's running forward. So they're even working that like just in a park, you know, um, so it's obviously part of his game. Can we get the hawking? Oh, did I do that? No. You did it with your mind. I just happened to click it at the exact time. I clicked it and it came up and I was like, wait, if I had this power all along. No, I clicked it at the exact time. At this juncture, I like Van Buren better because I feel like he's got a little more, uh, game manager skills. I like the quarterbacks. Like I will trade athleticism for know how any day of the week unless, unless I'm Oklahoma and I have no receivers and I can't block anybody, in which case, yeah. You need to run. You have to have the elite athleticism, but right now I like Van Buren better, um, and Van Buren, he scored on a draw against Texas, right? Correct. He still has some wiggle too. So I love that the dude like the, the four eight quarterback for 40, 40 time with some quickness who actually can see the field and throw the ball is more dangerous and has a higher ceiling than the four, four quarterback that doesn't see things as well. Yeah, because the ability to attack the field, you can attack so much more of the field when you can throw, um, and again, it's all maybe unfair to Hawkins, like we'll see what happens when this kid has like any kind of actual infrastructure around him. Yeah, that's, yeah, it's really hard to grade him right now. All right. Before we hit some more stuff, guys, let's hear a word from our sponsor. I'm just going to 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 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. Good stuff. Athleticsism can go after a while, still got to play the position. Yeah. And then, but this what we're saying with Hawkins, like we don't, we're not, we're, I don't know, I think it's too early just to label him an athlete, you know, and, and as a pure runner, because like I said, his, his wide receivers getting clamped. I thought he was a single ready guy too, but the more I watch, there's nowhere for him to throw it. And he's trying to be patient in the pocket. He's holding the ball too long, but he's at least trying to be patient. And then he takes off, but we'll have to see. All right. You ready to talk the real side of the ball that can win this game? Yeah. Cool. All right. A good, a good segue, Auburn did a lot of three or four man rush and spied Hawkins. And that pretty much shut down Oklahoma, except for the, the late bomb that he hit. I want to one coverage. Yeah. And let him hit. He's going to hit one. Let him hit one. He's going to change the outcome of games unless you're playing Auburn. Yeah, even then they still needed the pick six. Exactly. So it's like, dude, if he hits a fade ball, which they didn't score on, by the way, he went, Hester went down right before. So they did finish with the touchdown. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they got down to like the two and they've actually been a good red zone offense. That's what people don't realize. They're actually like a, I think like a top 20 red zone offense. Yeah, like once they get there, they'll score, but getting there is the, is the uphill climb for them. They're running for back makes all the difference down there. Yeah. And so it'll make a difference. And they do the quick outs and the tight end leaks and all this stuff they'll be able to do. And especially they're going to have wrinkles for us. Okay. So let's look at your plan of attack. So this is what I think is interesting. And I say this in my breakdown, Texas is, I don't know if you have it on here. Let's tech in DFEI, Texas is like, what, seventh or something in the country. I'll just pull it up. I don't remember. Pull it up right now. You get it first, you get it first because mine's like being slow for some reason, Texas is fifth in offense and fourth on defense now. Okay. So Texas, the fourth ranked defense in the country and Oklahoma right now is the 10th ranked defense. So I'm tired of that. And this is a opponent adjusted, right? This is FEI, meaning it's taking into account who you've played. So I'm tired of hearing the OU defense elite narrative and not the inverse. Texas is a better performing defense than Oklahoma's defense. The national media just here, SARC and think offense, Venables and think defense, but this is opponent adjusted. So they've been really good at getting turnovers, but right now, Texas is performing better. And then also, we'll see here who has the eighth ranked defense in the country, Michigan. So Texas has played a defense technically better than OU's, both in practice and at Michigan. But I'll get off my high horse there. I'm just tired of everyone talking to fire. I know. I'm just tired of it, man. Everyone's like the elite OU defense. It's like Texas is a better defense in every category. Do you know why they're better? I have a very simple explanation for why they're better. I'm curious if you have the same. Now, what's your simple answer? They have NFL cornerbacks in Oklahoma has not NFL cornerbacks. Yeah, I mean, I would go, we're number one in the country in defensive yards per pass. You know that or first in the country for that. Now, we haven't played a lot of light them up, quarterbacks. I'll give you that, but we're doing really, really well on stopping the pass. All right. So first, let's talk to your plan of attack. Step one, control Hawkins. So like you said, we want to look at a potential spy, but let's pull up your break down here. So why did you make this? What's the value of this diagram in playing like this? So I think Texas should play this game in single high coverage. They played Mississippi State too high. Remember, this was a big talking point that we had on this show. You play these veer and shoot teams that want to spread you really wide. A lot of times they want to do that so they can run the ball. That's what Mississippi State did against Texas. And Texas was like, they can try to run the ball, that's fine. They won't be able to beat us doing that. And that was basically true, but they ran the ball a lot more effectively than Texas fans wanted to see, right? I would not give Oklahoma the option to run the ball with Hawkins and their two-week fresh offensive line against a two-high defense. I would just not, just don't test, don't let them do it. Maybe on the first couple of drives, let them empty their clip of scripted plays on two high and then switch and then see when they want to make all their adjustments. It's like, oh wait, they're playing just main coverage now. But also you can just play main coverage from the get-go and just like, you know, what's the deal where you just put a dog on its back with your hand on its throat and just like submit it immediately and just let it know who's bossed. That's what Connor does. That's what Connor does. Yeah, that's one of my passions is submitting dogs. Yeah. So why not, though? All right, so here's the question. So why not too high if you can stop it because they are a fresh offensive line, but they're also fresh and playing with each other. They finally got their guys back from injury. So we have Gervante Barnes second to last worst yards per carry in the SEC. Gavin Saltchak has 1.8 yards per carry, the worst in the SEC by over a yard. And then they do have Taylor Tatum, who's averaging like six freshmen, I think he should start. He got binged up, you know, he's got binged up there. I think he's 50-50, but I would you would start him, right? But if you think two out of three running backs can't do anything, the offensive line hasn't been able to gel and the running quarterback, that's where it's a little bit risky. But why, you know, why could you not play? If you can stop it, why not play too high? Just because you give them space and initiative and I feel like this game is about the emotions in this game, in the wild swings that happen, like just don't give them any momentum, any chance to start to build something. Like if you just shut Oklahoma down with three and outs from the get-go and like they're like, oh, we can't create space, Hawkins can't find any room to get going on the ground and we're just punting, punting, punting. And then maybe Texas scores on their opening script, maybe they score again. One side of the stadium is going crazy. The other side of the stadium is like looking at the exits. In this game, I just think that looking for an ideal place to start or scale your business come to Dubai, the new global powerhouse for innovation and business growth. With the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 accelerating success, entrepreneurs have easy access to flexible regulations, cutting edge infrastructure, tax benefits, and 100% for an ownership. Be a part of the future, join the leaders of tomorrow in Dubai, where your innovation meets opportunity. Visit www.dubybeyondpossible.com to know more. So it's also about sending a message, right? Yeah, and I just think you can start to build up so much pressure on them in their offense and you can just get them into like awful situations. Whereas if they have a chance to like get a little bit going on the ground, I just think you give them more of an opportunity to find their feet in a raucous atmosphere and more opportunity to settle down. And I don't want to do that. I just want, I want to do it the way Bob Stoops used to do it to Texas, which is where you come out and you punch them in the mouth and you punch them in the mouth again. And if they get it back up and hit you back, then maybe you'll have a tough time in the later rounds. But if they don't, then you just get to, you know, stop on them for a while. And that's, I think that's the way to play this game. I think you want to just like apply all that heat, a couple other details on this diagram. If you play man coverage, you get a linebacker for each player, quarterback and the running back. And so you can just have whichever, whichever side the running back goes out to that linebacker takes him. And then the other quarterback, the other linebacker versus focuses on the quarterback. You're less vulnerable to the draw. And then on top of that, I would play the safety kind of shallow behind them. And like just say like, Hey guys, you may not have help on anything deep from the safety. We're going to ask you to live with that. We want the safety to be there for the slants that Hawkins is shown he can hit the crossers and just the quarterback scramble and the run game. We just want to make sure if our linebackers misfit something or whatever, we have a guy who's there immediately, when everybody else is spread out wide. This is all a contingent, of course, on Oklahoma doing what I think they'll do and playing for wide as much as they can. If they don't do that, then you can play too high. This game is going to, in my opinion, get kind of easy. I do. If they go 12 personnel, that'd be hilarious. Would they're tied? Yeah, a lot against Auburn. Dude, that's funny. I think they were like, well, personnel to pass, or were they, was it like a real 12 personnel? A real, real 12 personnel, they're like, they're like, let's bring out the tight ends and run duo. Okay. Because they were, I think part of it may have been they're like, we don't even have enough receivers to stay in 10 or 11 personnel all game. Like we need to give them a break or we need to be a little, so we need some other personnel packages that give us some breathing room personnel wise. They did at least avoid negative plays in 12 personnel. Okay. So that was nice, but I don't think, if they line up in 12 personnel, to me, I'm going to take that is Brad Vinnables is trying to get the game over with as soon as possible so they can go home. Yeah. Or just like they're going to try to hit the one deep shot to hester out of it. That's how they're going to just, they're just going to run, run, run and then toss it out. Sure. Yeah. Hester has got to be frustrating for, oh, he's kind of like apps for us. This big athletic guy that you're like, but still kind of has this timid nature that doesn't fully unlock. So what do you do here? Right? So is this why you have the high safety? Right? Because right now they have us outnumbered. We got six in the box. They got six blockers. So automatically Hawkins can run on this, but that's why you have that, that high safety he'd sit in there in case he does, I think he's going to beat that high safety though in this look. If you fit the run right, then he shouldn't be able to get too good of an angle. I mean, that's the reason the reason you would play too high in this game is for the balance against the quarterback run game. That may be the only reason you would do it. So you have two safeties on the hash marks that could maybe get there. But if they play four wide, they're going to be so spread out that it's not that helpful. I think as long as the linebackers don't totally botch it, the safety can totally clean it up. Yeah. They're going to have to route them correctly because if that running back, like ISO blocks, and he comes out the beat gap or something, that's a little tricky. That's why they, that's probably why they play Barnes over Tatum also. Yeah, there's got to be some blocking advantage there. Yeah. And protection. I don't think their O line can play for a wide without backside help Simmons will kill them alone. Well, they'd be running from this. They'd be running counter read a million different ways lead draw screens. You bring the tight end in, I guess, if you want to take a shot or you just have Hawkins back pedal 20 yards like Kyler Murray. So you think they have to go 12 when it's time for when they want to actually get downfield because that way they'd have bow or sharp sharp in there. He can't block, but he can, he's, it's basically 11. If you have bow or sharp sharp in there anyways, because he can catch on my play 11 the whole game and have that Y be a tight end, but just flex him the whole game. Okay. Because I don't want, I don't want if you, as I explained last week, if you bring that tight end into the box, then not only if tech, so if Texas is in too high coverage, and against this formation, the Mike linebacker would have to split out wide with the tight end. And then the F safety would have to play behind him because you can't ask Anthony Hill to carry a vertical from the Y okay. If you bring the Y back into the box, not only does Anthony Hill get to join the box, but the free safety also gets to come into the box or one of them does. So you get, if you bring, if you flex the tight end out, you can take the defense has to send two guys with him in too high coverage. If you bring him back in, they get two guys in the box. So what do you do? So how are you going to block anybody? So it's a total, if they, if they play with their tight end in the core for much of the game, they're just going to get what it's just a, they don't have that guy. It's a really bad idea. So what do you have to do then, right? So say you do keep everybody out wide and you do want to drop back pass. How are you going to face the Texas pass rush at that point? Hope Hawkins can maneuver. Yeah. Hope the running back can get a chip or something because you know, it's like, how do you drop pack pass in this look versus our pass rush is the tricky part. I mean, get it out. They got to beat Texas somewhere. That's what I'm saying. It's like, where are they going to beat us? Yeah. Yeah. That's also another reason why you just play man coverage and bring the safety down with impunity. Yeah. All right, let's look at step two, let me get this up here. Oh, cool. I'm as bad. They had better players on offense in the 49 to zero game. They like much better players on offense. Well, yeah, because they had their receivers. They had who was the tight end, Willis, Bray Willis, they had, they had, they had, they had to have had an NFL tackle around there somewhere, right? Two. Yeah, they had two. Sounds crazy, but they actually did have the better offensive personnel on that 49L loss. They may be better on offense just because they have a quarterback now and they didn't have one. I mean, that was like a total, totally prohibitive, but, but NFL players starting. Yeah. Every year they get further away from Lincoln, Riley, their defense gets better and their offense craters. Yeah. Which makes sense. All right, maximize match ups. This is where Ian's out for blood. Like he says, play man, do not let them breathe. But let's look at this chart right here. Oklahoma's 2024 passing offense, they're averaging 6.0 yards per attempt. On the flip side, the Texas defense is allowing 4.5 yards per attempt advantage, Texas. Oklahoma's passing offense, it has a 26 and a half third down conversion rate, not good that's the off the general. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously a reflection on your passing game. Yeah. And then our third down conversion rate, we're only allowing teams to convert 27.8%. Yeah, that's, that's a huge difference. They're getting sacked 9% of the time. Texas is sacking teams 8.8% of the time. Call it equal there. And then the one advantage Oklahoma's had three interceptions to our seven interceptions and Hawkins is actually taking care of the ball. So good job for OU not giving away interceptions with Hawkins is in. But like you can see here, Texas has the advantage in almost every metric. Cheesh. Yeah. We're going to talk about the stopable force versus the immovable object. Exactly. Yeah. The stopable force meeting the immovable object. All right. Here is what I like this look, I'll tell you why that I don't think you know because you don't look at this stuff, but let me show you this. So this is Ian's hyper aggressive scare Hawkins look and I love it. And why I love it to is a Branson Hickman, the center for Oklahoma as an SMU transfer. He's also undersized. He's the worst run blocking center in the SEC. So if you play bear on him, he can't double team up to linebackers and get help in the run game. So if you keep even so you can do a nose on him or you can walk hill up like you're doing whatever. But anytime you can isolate that center and make him try to run block one on one, that's going to be advantageous to Texas as well. So he and explain this look, this is this is the we're better than you. This is like the 46 nickel is what you call it. And it's like you said, it's not even just the center. There's a defensive lineman or linebacker across from all five offensive lineman. So it's very difficult to set your protections. It's very difficult to get any combo blocks in the run game. I love this on maybe probably on, on standard downs, but definitely on passing downs. And then you can, you don't have to, Texas has shown this a couple of times this season in a few different ways, but you don't have to just like blitz all five. Auburn did this to like almost exactly this to Oklahoma last week, and they'd actually have the Mike linebacker like engage with the center for just a minute to make sure he didn't combo anybody, but then drop back and spy Hawkins. Yeah. But now it's too late. Now you got one on ones for all four of your passrushers because the center can't get there. You can start, you can drop the buck out into coverage underneath the Z. You could drop the Jack out underneath the Y and like try to bait an interception. You can bring him here. Here's the value of this for the fans that don't care about offensive line protection. So if you put five guys on the line, you're basically converting their protection into man. So every man across from them, they're going to have to protect the advantage of that. Once you get them in five oh protection, big on big protection, man protection, whatever you want to call it, now you can do twists and suns like Ian saying, and it's really hard. It's like a basketball pick. They're going to switch and knock each other off. And also another added value to that is Hawkins. That takes his eyes. There's been a several times whenever people start twisting, he sees jerseys flash in front of them. He does like a basketball step back and his eyes drop. So that'll also be really valuable. And then Ian saying too that of course you could send all five of these guys, you wouldn't. You can have guys drop back, but it doesn't matter. The offensive line still has to call that protection as if everyone's going to come. And you saw Venables do this to Peyton Thorne as well. So they lined up everyone out there and then they dropped to the hot route and then they got the interception. Venables also likes this look, Venables will mugred linebackers, both linebackers and stuff like that and then drop out. So it's stressful for the quarterback because the reality is they could send all five and that's going to be tricky. But also there's a lot of, it creates a lot of confusion for the opposing quarterback. So it's just a fun look. It's one more way to test like we're going to make you beat us by throwing to your terrible wide receivers. We're going to dare you to do that. We're going to pressure your offensive line and make them think and react on their feet in ways that they've not had a chance to do together. We're going to make your young quarterback think, we're going to do everything we can to have him looking to run and looking down and like you're saying, like just the game plan should be all out assault on the Oklahoma offense. Have you seen PK implement all out assaults that Texas, yeah, maybe against Kansas state last year before they pivoted away from the run game. Okay. PK was kind of all over their run game because I feel like PK is going to go look the only way that they're going to win this game is with explosives period. They're not going to be able to run an offense up and down the field. They're not going for 12 play drives. So I'm going to put two safeties back, I'm going to do the PK special and Hawkins going to have to show me that you can march up and down the field, which I think Hawkins actually might be able to do and that's why we could get in trouble, but this level of aggression, I pray, I pray every night before I go to bed. We see this level of aggression out of PK, but it's just like to me is going to go explosive plays, keep the lid on, what do you think? I think he's capable of more than that. The two high thing has been mostly a Texas thing and not like a Washington thing and also Nancy is there now and Nancy attacked Oklahoma much more like this and in the bowl game last year with Arizona. So and the fact that they've only dabbled with the main coverage stuff a little bit this year, I feel like they're setting a trap. I feel like they set a trap with the two high coverage against Mississippi State and the more paths of game plan on first and second down. I'm down. Let's discuss that a little bit more, but first a word from Lux. This video is brought to you by Lux kitchen and bath. Lux has been offering high end kitchen and bathroom remodels for three generations through out the greater Austin area with five star review after five star review on Google and Facebook and an A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. You can put your faith in Lux kitchen and baths award winning designers and skilled craft people to bring to life that dream vision of your special home. But that's not all Lux's all star team provides full remodels, large additions and even commercial build outs as well so call Lux kitchen and bath at 833-358 Lux today or visit luxkitchenbath.com to discover where quality meets luxury and begin the process of transforming your home. Get a free quote today by calling 833-358 Lux that's L-U-X-E or by visiting luxkitchenbath.com link in the description, link in the description also go to their website you can see all the photos of all the renovations they've done they do beautiful work okay so now we see the hyperagression which I hope we see man this is I would absolutely love this and I think you're right to I think why not press every advantage that we have input pressure on a young quarterback that already likes to run so and then three of winning go ahead this reminds me of I wrote an article for a barking carnival before the 2011 game I think Paul didn't even want to write a preview because he just knew that oklahoma was gonna take him to the woodshed but I wrote one and I was like hey look they just need to run the ball like a hundred different ways against oklahoma run the ball with David ash run into a Malcolm Brown Jonathan Gray blah blah blah and just like shorten the game and give themselves a chance to win with defense and then oklahoma came out and just attacked them from the get go with their defensive game plan and we're like throwing all this stuff at Texas they hadn't seen on tape that year and you're like completely bushwacked him created a bazillion turnovers early and then the final score was like 65 21 or something and Texas is like just year under their offensive coordinator line lots of young guys freshman David ash like sophomore case McCoy and they all just completely withered under the pressure in the lights of that stadium not really the lights because it's a day game but you get the idea no that's absolutely what Texas should be trying to do in this game whether I just having the advantage I don't see PK sending everybody yeah and the advantage with this look this look looks very aggressive but you drop guys you could you could dress three from this look yeah you can rush three so it's like you're up on the line because you're trying to make the offensive line get into a protection that's going to be this as has been pages to them but really you're going to drop out the mic and you can also drop out our buck to be a weak side flat defender so you have a lot of options here so yeah it looks that's what's cool about this is you have the look of hyper aggression but you can also back track into safety really quick yeah I would show this and drop into drop eight and doubles by the quarterback no yeah you can do a pun from it yeah and you're going to just put a lot of psychological pressure on the offensive line and on Hawkins doing that and the intervals is really good at doing that to offenses okay and then your final step for how to win it with the defense is encourage a high possession game so what we're saying here is I think you say it the more bites the apple is advantageous to Texas it is we have a better offense right we get more opportunities they're not as efficient as we are so they can have more opportunities because they're not going to be able to convert on them statistically right now and more important more possessions keeps the OU defense on the field getting tired yep yep I think even with like a high number of possession games in the game I just don't think Oklahoma is going to score that many points I think their chances of hitting a couple points on explosive plays doesn't go up that much if they get 12 positions rather than eight I think those are likely to come from like a busted play or a early script play or just something before Texas is like kind of figured out and adjusted and so yeah the more plays make them block Texas and you make my cockens make decisions I think you actually just increase the chances of them doing something catastrophically bad whereas on the other side obviously the more snaps you get on the Oklahoma defense the more chance for Texas's offensive line imposed their will the more chances to wear out their defensive line rotation the more chances for Quinn to see the game plan like last year and start carving them up same for SARC SARC mentioned in the presser that they have been making good use of the iPads on the sidelines now like they might they might have beaten Oklahoma last year if they'd had the iPads and they could have like walked Quinn through things on the sideline a little quicker you know so yeah I would even I would even consider using tempo on offense in this game they like to huddle because of because of Venables reputation for Clairvoyance but I would consider tempo especially with the helmet calm if you can figure that out yeah yeah I'm done with it until you get ready and then when you get a lead you just line up in 12 and run duo a hundred times all right let's talk in game adjustments real quick okay sorry these ads are everywhere okay so we know that this game is always sketchy people are bringing in in place we haven't seen the famous Mike leads dropping plays the get guys tricked on the Texas coaching looking for an ideal place to start or scale your business come to Dubai the new global powerhouse for innovation and business growth with the Dubai economic agenda D 33 accelerating success entrepreneurs have easy access to flexible regulations cutting edge infrastructure tax benefits and 100% for an ownership be a part of the future join the leaders of tomorrow in Dubai where your innovation meets opportunity visit www dot Dubai beyond possible dot com to know more staff first kind of what's your quick you have your kind of list of your favorite adjustments you've seen said that's real quick my favorite so the Jordan Shipley at tight end in 2008 was awesome the one I didn't mention was that in 2013 Texas played dime against Oklahoma when if Oklahoma didn't use a full backer tight end which is pretty common so like Blake Bell and Trevor Knight had been just feasting throwing to Sterling Shepherd and this other guy Saunders I can't remember his name they had these like two water bug slots and they would line up in 10 personnel and get them both in the slot and they were just like ripping teams apart with easy completions so Texas played dime and they put like Duke Thomas or somebody and like Adrian Phillips on those two guys and then Oklahoma had just nothing they're offensive like totally dry because they didn't have that easy offense for their quarterbacks and they didn't have Landry Jones anymore that one was really great last year Oklahoma ran the three high yeah four down basically Texas is third down package this year Oklahoma ran it against them last year and saved it for that game and gave Texas some fits early on the Wildcat in 2022 didn't work but definitely landed they landed a couple Jabs with it right there and then that's a good lead in when you say Jabs because this part's about landing the overhand right so this is Ian's theme that he's been talking about all episode is pressing your advantage and where you have it and so their advantage was in the quarterback run game last year of course Sam this is advantage in the run game whenever he was running all over OU so the big goal is just find our leverage what do you think our leverage is you think it's just the passing game our passing game and then just spam it is that right Texas is wide receivers against Oklahoma's corners and nickel is the biggest on that side and then on defense actually the same thing the cornerbacks against the receivers is I think again the next big the biggest one and then they have some other ones too like defensive line against the offensive line is a good advantage the safeties and play caller versus Hawkins is a big advantage they have so many so many advantages on that side that they could try to lean into to win but on offense I think the Texas's receivers against those Oklahoma coverage guys is that's where you that's where they could like blow this game open and just blow them out that's how we got to see if the young Eli Bowen ends up getting a corner start can I walker can I walker can't cover downfield it's too bulky Desmalone also can't cover downfield so you bring an Eli Bowen a freshman that has good speed I mean he has good coverage ability but can probably be tricked easily by SARC's scheme so that's kind of the trick how do how do they try to cover up for those corners because what he Washington they can bring him in he's the worst graded corner in all of the SEC so that's the tricky part Texas has a bunch of advantages here that's going to be interesting now let's talk finally because we have to shoot deep dive will Paul here in a few let's talk about trace forward so trace forward here is his exact quote so we can give him context defensive lineman OU good player they haven't played a defense like this defensive lineman trace forward said I'm excited to play against them and see what we do against a higher powered offense like they are so let's let's steelman his argument and not just take it as like they haven't seen how good we are do you think he could if we are given him the advantage you think he can mean schematically we haven't seen anything like this what what's the best in the painting this in the best light what do you think I think painting this in the best light is that he doesn't know about Michigan okay but he doesn't know Texas played Michigan or that Michigan returned a bunch of NFL guys from the national championship winning team last year they have a better defensive interior at Michigan the highest graded pass rusher right now in power five is Michigan's a treasure so I know our amazing Thomas and trace forward have done really good their number one and number two in the SEC right now for true pass set pass rushing so they're really good pass rushers but they don't realize that Michigan also has two NFL pass rushers and then their interior is better and they have will Johnson they have will Johnson at corner which they don't have and then linebackers will give them the edge and linebacker and then we'll give them the edge of safety sure fair but also they're literally the most important positions on the field Oklahoma is better yeah yeah and so so that's the and so that's when trace forces and we also schematically I mean weak does the same thing he would mug backers drop them he would do they would play the zone coverages that bring vidibles likes to run so I don't know what he means maybe in generating turnovers if I'm trying to be nice and trying to to make him make sense here maybe that he means their ability to turn teams over but as far as talent Michigan has talent as far as false aggression dropping into zone to trick quarterbacks that's Michigan scheme so yeah so it's just wrong I guess in the in the in the best way we can do it is we have played a team like that and like we said DFEI Texas is a higher ranked defense is the opponent adjusted to so I get it Texas doesn't play the offenses I know that's why we're using opponent adjusted and then Michigan also is a higher ranked defense to know you so that I think they just don't not having good cornerbacks is a really big deal and I think that that's going to become apparent in this game for Oklahoma and maybe maybe some other games they played this season like it's just just that's a very difficult thing to overcome and they've played who they played they played Auburn who's solid and also put up like a gazillion yards of offense they played Tennessee was their claim to fame but then Arkansas went and shut down the Tennessee offense so that kind of weakened that claim that they held Tennessee's offense you know you can at least say that Vinnables showed Arkansas what to do he gave them a free high right yeah yeah and then who else if they played like Temple like one of the worst offenses in college football Temple Houston Tulane Houston awful awful offense binged their quarterback since then Tulane better and Tulane give him a little bit of trouble yeah so I they're good they're very good I there's got to be I feel like there's got to be some kind of rivalry back and forth and like Oklahoma's got to hang their hats on something you know you can't just go into this game like totally just like quiet as a church mouse with nothing no bravado at all right yeah and so they're this is the thing that they're building up and so naturally we want to tear it down Oklahoma you have a great defense it's not as good as you think it is right it's a really good defense yeah it's it's not elite cuz to leaky me is like you're getting into top three top five territory that's when you become elite to me it's it's arbitrary I know also constantly not mentioning that Texas has a better defense currently it's what's frustrating me is is hopefully the national media can start picking that up and then Texas defense has been better than its offense almost every year of Sarkeesian so it's it's also that thing too is like people don't get that it I don't know why our defense doesn't give I know why is cuz Sarkeesian so known offensively but I just wish PK would get a little bit more respect in that regard all right ready to shoot some deep diving yep we'll hop off fans thank you guys so much for watching and then tomorrow morning check back in 9 30 a.m. you'll be able to watch another wonderful episode of it live later y'all and hook 'em. 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The biggest matchup is Sark vs Venables, but why is no one discussing Texas' top defense ability to change the game?