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Inside Texas Football
IT Live (11/20): Maximizing Quinn Ewers, Why the Texas Longhorn Defense is Elite
And more than everybody, we are starting early at 9.15, it's normally 9.30, but Ian's got a family event to hit, so we've started a little bit ahead of time. Glad you guys are here. So on today's show, we are going to talk about how to maximize Quinn Ewers in the final stretch, why the Texas defense is elite, or how the Texas defense is elite, and then your questions. And if we're able to get it in an uptime, we'll also talk a little bit of the CFP rankings. It's all about making sure we can get in and out of here by about 10.15, guys. Hoster, good morning, good morning, guys. Good to see you. All right, Ian, let's just get right into it, man. Oh, no. Of course, of course, a car alarm needs to go off right next to me. Can you hear that? No, accidentally had this stream going on Twitter, so I was getting a terrible delay. I'm glad you all weren't picking that up. No, we can. We're all good. All right, so the first article you wrote was how do we maximize Quinn kind of in the final stretch, and we'll at first talk about the screen game, then we'll, uh, we'll give your theory on Cassidy and the Sundance kid. All right, let's pull it up. Let's look at play one. So this is, and we'll kind of walk through your article, or you can mentally walk through it as I'm showing the stuff. So your first kind of point was this might be the best screen game you've seen. Yeah, it reminds me of, um, I don't know how many of our viewers will remember this, but the 2008 little bit of the 2009 Oklahoma Sooners were one of the most terrifying screen teams because they had all these like slip screens that every Texas fans would always insist where illegal, but we're not where they would throw to like DeMarco Murray, right, or Ryan Broils or Jermaine Gresham, and they'd throw it behind the line of scrimmage. And then their big offensive lineman would get out ahead. So like your defensive line is like rushing. You think you're about to kill Bradford and then all of a sudden the ball is in the hands of an NFL athlete behind this massive ball of giant Oklahoma lineman. Do you remember this? No, I don't. You don't have that memory in your mind. Oh my gosh. They, they just like obliterated teams with that. This Texas team, I think is comparable, maybe better in the screen game than that team. Everybody can move. Like you watch Cam Williams, he's gone, guys. He's gone. He's just too good of an athlete to not go in the draft really high. Hayden Conner and Jake Majors are not first round draft picks, but amongst their positive qualities are mobility, right? And then Kelvin Banks is like a top five pick or whatever. So when they throw these screen, big, when they throw screens, especially those like slip screens behind the line of scrimmage, or they are able to get down the field. It's just, it's just a symphony of, you know, dancing bears out in space. It's like a asteroid field. Is that a good role to clip? Roll the clip. So we have Hayden pulling around here. It's like a fake. It looks like they're setting up play action because Sark loves to pull the guard on play action. Like we're going to run power. We're going to run gap. And then, and then they drop a bomb. So if you see this and you do recognize it's play, you do recognize the play action movement, then you're like, Oh, I got to bail deep. They're about to try to throw it over my head. No, this is all credible so far. See, like you see the linebacker on the hash, she's trying to drop back to the ref. But when you do that, you just create space for the lineman to get out on you. No. And there they go. See, banks, banks reach blocked. Is that number 30? I think he's like a 220 pounds safety linebacker hybrid. Yep, number 30 right here. I'm green, y'all, if y'all watch Kelvin banks bank starts outside. Comes off this block and gets out and then reaches him and turns him inside so that the ball can go outside. And then if you're Arkansas, you're just, it's over here cooked. Helms the acability has been really oppressive this year too. Yeah. You know, he's the leading receiver on this team. Yeah. He's picking up yards as a tight end, you know, that's six, seven or whatever long legs is helping out, but it's really, it's just really like him was talking earlier. It's just really smart design because there's kind of layers to it, right? They're pulling the backside guard, which could be power as a run. And then the second iteration of that is teams have started pulling that guard into pass protection or a center, whatever, they've started pulling that into on pass place too to trick you. So Sart knows that. So now you're on the second layer of this concept over the years. And then he ties that to play action and then he threw you there into a screen. So you're getting like four concepts deep with this play, kind of like that a reverse that they ran the other day. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's a, oh, it's a sweep. No. It's a counter. Oh, no, it's a reverse back to the sweep side. The funniest part with that, though, I was like, can you confuse them so much that you don't get the benefit of the confusion? Like if you go, you get what I'm saying? Like if you go left, right, left, right, and they freeze in the middle and they've made no progress either way, it's like, can you get a, can you be too smart? Also like, cause some of these play designs, like Sark is kind of relying on the posing defense being smart enough to identify these things to trick them. You know, if they bust, it's like, it's pretty interesting, like Sark is like giving you credit for like, hey, you're, you should play the run like this. And then you should play action like this. And therefore I can screen. I think it, if you give them to freeze at all, I think you're good. Cause the on the reverse play, a lot of these plays, cause Texas usually wants to get the ball outside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On play where we came around, that's all good cause you're going outside. Having spent much of this, uh, fall watching the local slot T teams Liberty Hill. They have Liberty Hill has 175 pound kids at guard. And they want to get the ball outside behind lead blocks. They want to create hesitation and then get the ball outside behind lead blocks. And so they have fake handoff actions like that reverse play that we're talking about. And if you are a flat footed, they're going to just run you over on the edge and they're going to hit the edge too fast for you to adjust. That's pretty much the same principle as, uh, some of these Sark plays, even though it's his mode of getting there is much more sophisticated since Sark is dead set on sticking with Quinn. What can be done to help us hit more deep balls? Swicksburg like Tennessee. It's crazy. We can't handle our fast guys like bond on deep routes unreal. We'll talk about that. Yeah, we'll just just put a pin in it. We'll get to it. I promise. Yeah, we're starting with the screens and then we're going, we're progressing down the field here shortly. So this is just a replay of what what's going on there. We've already broken that down. Okay. This is the yeah, the third and 13 with Jaden blue here. Anything you want to set up or you want to run it? Yes, run it. I don't even remember what all. So they have actually switched the receivers and they do it for blocks, but it looks like they're running some kind of let's get open at the chains kind of deal, right? Go ahead. You do it. I want to say they do it to get wingo in a better situation there. Well, yeah, but it also looks like they're trying to rub off main coverage because it's third and 13 you said. Yeah. Although if you're facing Texas and it's third and long and you're on the your own side of the 50, Sark is going to run a screen or he's going to run the ball, and then he's going to go for it on fourth down teams just it's it's not that complicated, not that I'm trying to help opponents here, but that is kind of a funny part with Sark. He has this level of genius and play design, but there's also predictable elements of the offense that I don't think opposing coordinators always pick up on. Yeah. But then again, they're so good at running these screens. So here's the here's the symphony of bears. The synchronized parades on parade on parade. Watch how many of these guys make contact with a defender. And look how far down the field it is. It's crazy before blue even as to start thinking majors is majors and Connor are ceiling guys inside and outside at the chains, 13 yards down the field. Yeah. And mobility isn't incredibly impressive. I caught a lot of flak because in my five quick thoughts, I said the offensive line dominated on the stretch and people were like, the run game wasn't that good. What are you talking about? The offensive line didn't dominate anything. Well, you tell me what to call this. Yeah, well, and there's also that too, like the time of possession we held that run out the game, I think in totality, you can argue the run game wasn't great, but towards like you said, it's the end of the game. The offensive line was doing a great job. What are you talking about? Yeah. Also, when I looked back, the run blocking was I don't feel like the I feel like the run blocking has been I think it was better than people have said. I almost feel like there's a little there are moments where the run blocking is very unimpressive and you would hope for better because this talent, this line is so talented. But sometimes it's like, you know, when Britain vanibals would go up there after his offense had like a negative five yards of offense and they'd lose and he'd be like, well, there's little things we got to get better at on defense because he's trying to deflect blame from the offense. Yeah. It's kind of what it feels like. Well, also we were talking about the other day. We've heard a lot like, man, you know, this Quinn would be able to do XYZ if the run game wasn't so bad, but the run game's 49th in the nation, which is above average by like 20 spots. So we also kind of have this, like Jonathan Brooks, Bijon kind of bias for what we think the run game should look like. And, you know, we don't have a great run game, but we we have an above average run game. But the athleticism here, man, is what's really nice. If we had a top 25 run game, I think we would be overwhelming favorites doing the national championship. Yeah, for sure. And we don't, that's frustrating because that would make it really easy. But you would hear like some of the cons, like you would, you would think we had the 80th rank run game. You would think we had 100th rank run game. Well, how we hear it talked about still above average, it's not a lead by any means. That's for sure. And I would always take an improvement there. I also think it's the run game is only like, if you added one of two pieces, you would be there. One would be if Gunnar Helm was a really good physical blocker at the point of attack, then I think you would be it would be gravy and the blue and Weisner would be fine, right? And then the other one would be is if instead of blue or Weisner, you had, I don't even want to say be John, because it's like this one of the greatest running backs you've ever seen. Dude. Give me, give me Roshan, give me Jonathan Brooks, yeah, give me, I could pick off. I don't know, maybe Baxter was healthy, maybe if Clark was healthy, they would have been okay. I don't know much of that at the time because I was like, well, this team's gonna be winning the ball, winning the game by throwing the ball anyway. Right. The average at running the ball, instead of great, like whatever, but they're not awesome at throwing the ball. So you wish they had the above average running back after all. A secular reminds me of Kyle Shanahan off the 49ers when the offense is within structure, it looks unstoppable, but no in game adjustments when it's not working. It feels harsh for both Shanahan and Sark, Sark figured out, Sark on the last two drives of this game was like, okay, we're not throwing the ball very well. And then he schemed the crap out of Arkansas in the run game. And then they had a touchdown drive to create some margin. And then they ran out the clock and could have scored a mother touchdown on the last drive. So there were quite a few adjustments in there. I don't agree with that. And I think Shanahan is pretty good at it. I don't think that's what I would label as Shanahan's weakness. All right, next phase guys, we're going to talk about the passing game, how to really improve Quinn before we do that. 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 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. All right, thank you, I'll see. So Ian's theory, going forward talking about the passing game with Quinn, is let's set up this clip before we show it to him so they have a little context. But just a quick little blurb about what point you're trying to make here. Move. All right, so it's Butch Cassidy in the Sundance Kid, a highly relevant clip for today's youth. But Ian's point is this, Quinn seems to be whatever he's in the adrenaline of moving and kind of being able to get his legs going. He's actually, he's actually more accurate than when he's sitting in the pocket, being forced to rely purely on like a three step drop hitch throw. And and we have a nice clip to show you guys to kind of show you what we're talking about here. Could I see the fairly nice looking piece? Can you hit anything sometime get that and I'm not son, I just want to know, can you shoot, shoot, shoot, actually pretty close, can I move? Move. What the hell you mean move? Where you watching that recently, or you just got that in your mind? I got that in my mind. So I was actually maybe a year ago, I was talking with this older gentleman from Northern Michigan, who was like a hunting enthusiast and sort of shooting enthusiast, he was from like a rural part of this part of the state, and he was telling me about that clip, and he was explaining that there are a lot of guys that are really good at gunplay and gun tricks, but their balance shooting requires that they be moving. So like, I actually, I think you've heard this about the Comanche as well, the Comanche like shooting like standing with their bow and arrow, whatever, but they could be back and when they had the movement of the horse and they understood the angles and the timing of the rhythm, they could be like hanging off their horse and like firing. They would hang on to a dime, no go ahead, go ahead. They would hang underneath the neck of the horse. Yeah, yeah. Horse as a shield while shooting. There's stories that they could like, they could hit a dime on a stick from 20 yards with an arrow, or just crazy, crazy stuff, but it's all about the balance. And like, when he is on the move, his balance and his arm are all, it works. And when he's in a set position and he needs to like, time up his footwork, like, okay, now it's open, now my feet need to be set. Yeah, that's good. Spencer Hogan, Quinn can shoot off the dribble, but can't shoot, catch and shoot basically. You do see that with some guys in the NBA, he 100%. Cool. Let's watch this example here then. All right, job back. This is the boldness gate. Yeah. Three deep. Oh, this is one of the good ones. Yeah. Look at this. Look at that window he hit. I don't know if he even should have thrown that ball, honestly. No, we're not. We're not make question in it. You throw the ball, Quinn. No, we are. I'm not questioning any of his throws. He can be too. He can be too guarded. Throw it. That, uh, look at that placement. Yeah. Right between those two guys on the move. And then there was, there was a throw against Michigan that I think everybody remembers. Well, I had a couple like this against Michigan, but one of them where he stepped up in the pocket and flicked it on the run and hit golden running behind the defender. Yeah. And I'll tell you a hush went over the press box when he hit that throw and all the Michigan people were like, oh, we're going to get run today, there's, there's nothing we can do. Right. So Anthony. You're good. These moments are like they are Patrick Mahomes, ash, ish, that's, I know he, they both trained with Bobby Strouper. Yeah. Quinn did at one point, at least this stuff is, it's stuff is crazy. Like, I don't know, is there any other Texas quarterback that we've ever seen that could make that throw? I don't think so. I don't know. Surviving the pocket there is rare. If he can survive the pocket, which rarely happens, that's what he can deliver. That is, I think we'll get into that. That's a very unfortunate aspect of Quinn's play is that when he escapes the pocket, he's so natural throwing, but he's not very good at escaping the pocket. Right. And he's, he's a little, he's a little thin and he's a little easy to knock off course and get to the ground. What happens with banks here? He's like completely devastated. I don't even notice it. Well, oh yeah, yeah, they got my boy, they got my boy banks. But yeah, excellent throw by Quinn. I think majors that clean that up. Yeah. That's pretty nice. My bed is a Todd, I never watched Todd Dodge play, so I'll take your word for it, James. Cold maybe, but I don't think cold, I don't know if cold would do that either. Cold could do the dodging, but throwing part is where the part where he's running, moving forward and just all arm and whips it like that. I don't know. Cold was usually like on the move left or right when he would hit his stuff. Yeah. But awesome throw. Here's how it looks from is this the ultimate to because I think go ahead on my mind, they cut this off before you actually, I don't know if he actually completes it. I'm more just looking at his pocket movement. Yeah, I think they'll cut it off right here, I think before he throws it. Yeah. All right, and then this is the golden throw that he's completed a couple of times, Michigan, he completed it and I'm glad we have this in our bag, right, because this is basically an answer to Washington, like if Quinn could have done that with AD at the end of the season last year, there would have been more hope at the end. So they have Ryan lingo out wide, they're going to motion him in to get a man key, but most importantly, they're taking 17, I think it's the Hudson kid, out of the play that way they can isolate at the bottom of the screen, Matthew Golden, and they can also keep people from being able to go chase down Quinn as easily. So Quinn's on the move here dot, yep, I mean, beautiful fall placement. What I like too, the SARC does here is gives Quinn a lead blocker in case that linebacker does fire. And firing a safety or nickel either side and you either speed up his throw or you're able to tackle him. They didn't do that this time, but also kind of with this design here, if they did fire a nickel that doesn't exist in this situation, but if they did fire it, he would at least have a lead blocker, which is good. This one he also his ability to throw to the corners of the end zone on RPOs from the pocket this year has been really, really good. They didn't really have that in the arsenal last year and it's made a big difference in the red zone. Yeah, I mean, that's just an absolute dot and then also we can't downplay Golden's red zone ability. I mean, Golden just has really solid hands for us, minus touch golden. Yeah, he's doing a great job. So two ways to maximize Quinn so far is keep utilizing him in the screen game kind of swing passes. I know fans don't like it and that can't be it. We're not saying like, just keep running screens. That's not enough. But if we can get Larry, like we're good on the screens and stuffs, keep doing that. The second part is get him moving like this. He's really deadly in that situation, not scramble moving, not play broke down and he needs to escape like we're designed to movement is where Quinn's really strong there to the when he rolls out at least. Man, that's a nice catch man. Just totally frames it right in front of the ref, just puts his hand down, keeps the ball from bobbling just an excellent catch by Golden there. All right, let's go to the next talking point. What is this? This is the safety. Yep. Okay. So here's our examples of what we're talking about. Quinn's dead eye on the move. He's not dead eye when just having to have repeatable mechanics. Quinn does not have repeatable mechanics. Therefore you need to let him get in game flow a little bit better. They pump fake the screen, which has worked for us earlier in the game, Golden got wide open, touched down on this on this pump screen and then we've done it on a couple in a couple games prior. It's been working for us. It looks like Arkansas adjusted to that so far though. Now, this is what I pointed out to Ian for the show. Watch Quinn and his drop here. He's going to drop back, fake the screen, step. Okay, right there. As soon as he puts his feet back and then he sets his base, right there, this is what you need to be throwing. But for whatever reason, not for whatever reason, Quinn's not sure of what he's seeing yet. But also you'll just see he does these like little pitterpats. Can you go back to the beginning of his drop? Because somebody was complaining that his drops are not synced to the receiver routes often enough. Okay, but he doesn't really have a drop. He just has like a one-step drop because he's throwing the screen. Go ahead. Let it go again. But if it's a deep route, I agree. I mean, it's not a great drop for deep, but you'll see right here his base is set and he just starts like kind of like he's on an exercise bike, kind of like pedaling. And then by the time you do that, you've kind of destroyed the whole value of your base, which is meant to be solid and sturdy. When you start pitter-patterning, now you're not solid and sturdy. Then he just right here, his base started off pretty wide and pretty good. And then it goes to really thin like he's basically standing. And then now it's all arm across the body opposed to a lot of torque coming from the ground. See how easy, I mean, his arm is like a whip, dude, like that's incredible. Oh, he's able to generate that force. That's nuts. But it would be so much more accurate if he could have that arm fully synced with the rest of his body. Yeah. And then you'll see here the safety is going to read that play, which is good because we've been doing a lot of this post-wheel stuff. So I'm sure the safeties are ready for the sideline shot. Go ahead and roll a comment, but safety makes a nice play. They have film study, too. But that's an example of when having a standstill and deliver. Can you go back just a little bit, just a couple of frames? Yeah, right here. And let it go from here. So even if that ball had been completed, it's behind him. But it's not in the stride. It's going to be having to stop and turn around to try to catch it. Yeah. So like AR asks, do you think if he had more zip on the ball, Golden would have made the catch? Yes. But also if he could have put more zip on the ball, he might have just been able to lead him down the field further where the safety can't get to it anyway. Yeah. If he puts more zip on it, it's going to get there faster. So yeah. But also like, let me see where it's at Metcalf. I think that's the safety plan for. I can't see. It doesn't look like he has a lot of depth and he's coming from depth. It seems like you could just try to go for the end zone there. Yes. So. Yeah. Yeah. But anytime your receiver has to stop his route, completely turn around and try to catch it. It's not good ball placement. Oh, here's, is this the L22 of it? Yeah. Let's see how deep that safety is. And if he could have, if Golden can beat him because they occupy the safety for a second with the wingo, but it looks like he, yeah, he's reading the quarterback. He knows the second he throws it. This is actually not a good read either. Like, I think that throw was there, but you have a deep hash safety. So you're. He's not even hash. I mean, like they're totally cheated over. It's, yeah. It's like a Tampa two safety. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's not good, even. So that's not really like you're forcing that to throw that ball. I'm down. Force it. Force it deep, dude. Well, I mean, if he had, if he had actually forced it instead of trying to place it or like, if he'd, you know, like we said, when it's complete, but yeah, that's an example of him just having to sit in the pocket metal, defeat, everything has to be precise. He struggles with that. Right. One more example. Let me see what play this is. Okay. Motion in golden. It's feeder there. Post. Okay. Yeah. It's a, it's a mills, right? A dig post over post almost my sounds rough today. Does it? Yeah. I'm going to go in the chat. Yeah. A few minutes ago, it like went out and then it came back and it's kind of muffled. Let me, let me check my settings y'all says we're good. I'll change it. It seems good now. I don't know. Okay. Have a sound now. Yeah. Let me know. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. It just seems like the gain is just kind of jacked. Hmm. Yeah. It sounded like it got turned way up. No. Is it still doing that or it was doing that? It's, it's doing that. It's, it's just, it's just a little hot. All right. Let me turn it. I can turn the game down a little bit. Is this better? Give me a little more. Is this better? Is this better? Hello. Hello. It's still just a little bit hot, but you're also right next to it. Yeah. I will keep talking and let me know if it's doing it. That sounds pretty good. Okay. Okay. So fly over again, three deep safeties and yet that is open. That is a classic post route and has the defender beat on the inside. If you just lead him, you're going to hit him on the run for a sure thing of a touchdown as you get in this game. And if not that, then a very sizable gain. So can you touch on the end that the three high is not the principal issue here with our deep passing? Yeah. The last one is theoretically covered by the three high boat as we saw. If you've been able to zip the ball in, it's open. Then there were two post routes in this game that were open that Quinge has missed. And the last one was really good just for the mechanical issues that demonstrated. But this one and then the other post route that he missed, they got the guy open across the middle of the deep field and they missed him both. Yeah. So you can deep pass against three high and Sark is not destroyed by it. The plays are there. We're not hitting them. Yeah. Even, even back in 2021 when they got whipped in Iowa State, they missed, they got open post routes open against Iowa State in 2021 and missed them. Okay. So here, once again, here's our drop, right? Plaction fake, he drops back. There we go, hitch ball. So he's still not clear at what he's seeing and I can't see downfield. So maybe it's not open, but you'll see here, the base is getting a little bit skinny and then he starts pitter-pattering again, up and up and up, moving the feet up and up and up and up. And then look how long, see how skinny his base has gotten. He's basically standing, which means you're going to have to go all arm because that's like torquing your hips from a standing position. When you're wide, you have a lot more power. So now he's gotten skinny and then he separates the arms there and when he separates, he rewitens the base. I've learned so much about mechanics in the last few years trying to understand how come Quinn Ewers isn't hitting open receivers than I ever knew before. Man, mechanics is everything, like if you want to understand quarterbacks, it's mechanics. I've always thought, and I still think this, that if the quarterback knows what he's looking at, then the mechanics will follow because if you know where you want to throw the ball and win, then you can develop the mechanics to allow you to do it. And on a lot of these, what you see is that when Quinn gets to the top of his drop, if he doesn't know what to do, then the moment when he's like, what do I do? What do I do? In those moments, there are no mechanics. And then when he goes back to throw, he has no base every time. It doesn't matter when he's on the move because he's on the move. Right. Yeah, the mechanics. And you can be much more all arm, throw across your body style. Yes. All right, here's some examples too of what he can do. We got to move a little bit quicker so he can hit defense, but here's what he can do if he's looking off safeties. This also has some value. So Quinn looks to the screen right here. It's going to bring down that nickel. The nickel naturally has to come down anyways because we got a defender to the flats, but he's incredibly selling that looking like he can throw it. And we throw so many screens, you have to respect it. Okay, then he's going to look right there. Pretty good mechanics. It's right at the top of his drop again, which is the tell. So like on the live broadcast and some of Quinn's defenders, not that I don't really want to bag on Quinn, I understand why he's the starter. He does a lot of awesome things and wins games. But people are like, look, he's going one, two, three, he's going through progression. I call BS. I think he's throwing this backside in all the way, and he's looking them off. And then when he gets to it, it's at the top of his drop because it's where he planned to go all along. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then he lands, it's there like I thought, throws, beautiful ball, perfect, perfect game. So they're saying he's just scanning here, going through all his drops. I don't think he's really scanning. I think he's also the fluidity of his head is not showing that he's scanning because quarterbacks are kind of, it's more like doof, doof, do you know what I'm saying? It's like team, tune, tune. That's how they scan. If you just see like this solid motion, just imagine looking at a full football field and doing this, you're not going to be able to see as well. So I think I agree he's going to that backside thing. But that's great. They, my point in the articles, they should do this. It works. It's often as possible. And it's also a way to kind of like force his timing. Yep. You get it where it's like fake the screen, work back to it. Pretty good mechanics. A little bit of that weird legs, right? You just do think like a little bit of that, but still pretty good. So that's good. We want to see that ability to scan from Quinn and we think it helps getting the safeties eyes off. You see, like they act like his vision is over there, but his head is already turned. Yeah, they're saying he's focused left. If you look, he's looking right up here right now in the next, in the next frame is there. It's like it's, there's a lag behind the quarterback vision. Remember the gear where Madden added quarterback vision? Yeah. The frickin sucked. They did it. I hated it. I was like, I don't want to have to this. I don't want this to be more realistic being an NFL quarterback is really hard. I don't want. Yeah. Exactly. Well, yeah. So looking people off with the safeties is good stuff. Okay. And then same exact thing. Remember, we were talking earlier with the screens, you know, they'll pull that backside guard. Here's an example of the play action where it's, it's, it's not a screen, but we do pull the guard. So that's why it starts tricky. Because you don't know what you're doing. Okay. So let's see your drop here. Roll out hitch right here. He's looking at something else right now. So he's looking off. He's looking this direction. He's looking off safeties, pulling them away. Good stuff. Quick head turn ball. This one you could maybe make the case that he actually looked to the field. Like he might, like he might have actually thrown it if he liked what he saw. Yeah. But I'm not sure because the timing and the hitch was so good to get to the backside. I'm suspicious, but maybe this was an actual scan. Yeah, it's looking, I mean, it's looking like he's looking to a field concept and then he's going backside. At any rate, that's what his post throws need to look like, where it's not there. When you first look, you don't like what you see yet. And you hitch up so that you're still, you still got your Sundance draw balance when you actually throw. Looks better mechanically there too. Yeah, he does. Yeah. That's great. That's a great rep. Like that 90% of the time, Texas would be undefeated and there'd be like, and it would be pissing their pants for the next two weeks. So for Quinn and summation, keep going with the screen game, good stuff. Get him on the move, get him, get the adrenaline going, get it to where it's not a hyper mechanics base because Quinn's not strong mechanically. So get him on the move on those design rollouts, that kind of stuff. I would say, get him moving in the pocket, but nine times out of 10, he gets sacked on that bold in play. That was just kind of a very special example. But also get him look in different directions with the safeties. Those will be valid. And if we can kind of manufacture a lot more stuff like that, that'll be solid. Think having West Coast principles in this offense would help Quinn. No, that's like the, it's the same problem. Yeah, it's quicker. It's actually the West Coast is literally all footwork. It's all timing. Yeah, and Quinn's really bad at it. So like maybe three years ago, and he had time to practice it, but the Quinn's weakness is his feet and marrying and all the timing up. So to go to like a hyper timing based offense would be tricky. That's why like the end breakers we throw are like generally RPOs, right? So they're not quick, right? Like you'll see teams take quick slants. We don't really do that. Just snap throw. We don't really do that. Quinn has to do the read, match, then he'll throw it. And that's because those quick slants, man, you have to have perfect feet. You have to know exactly what you're doing and Quinn can kind of hesitate any time he gets muddy. The glance also has better spacing too. Correct. It's more downfield and straight in. Yeah. Yeah. I get asked all the time, like what would be the ideal offense for Quinn? I think for the NFL, he needs to be in a Shanahan offense where he can roll out off wide zone as much as possible. But for college, I guess that if you wanted to go under center or pistol on college, that would be good. But that system doesn't work the same way like teams just nickel blitz you forever. I think like a really loosey goosey air raid would be good for Quinn, I think. Because it would be easier like, I think maybe when he's most deadly is when he's escaping the pocket and just finding somebody on the move. And that's hard to do in Sark's offense because a lot of the time you don't have that many guys out in a route patterns. So he's gotten really good at checking down to the running back. I know that kills the ADOT and it makes everyone all the more frustrated. But a lot of times you watch Quinn on these checkdowns and his timing and his placement is awesome and they work really well until you play Georgia. Yeah, well, they did a Georgia played man coverage and then that was that I have no problem with the checkdowns if they're picking up Yak, but whenever you face those superior laterally athletic teams, those those go those don't scale. But apparently for like nine out of ten wins, it does a good job. Yeah, they're already about the top of our competition because it's it's about like whether the linebackers can get out there or not. Yeah. One question before we hit the defense, do you think Quinn's weaknesses are a result of just him or a result of the system? Has he been taught to just trust the system instead of trust his instincts? Uh, Quinn, like I don't know how you don't just develop your timing and your footwork better, like it's three years, I don't want to be like really harsh, but it's like what how are you not better at this? Well, it's also what are you doing off the practice field because like your mechanics are only done with your guy, like your quarterback coach, you know, and so on the weekends and stuff, that's that's really when you do a ton of the mechanic stuff, like your college coach will do that, but it's mostly your concepts and stuff. So it's just also like, you know, what are you doing? You know, are you still training with Pat Mahomes guy? If you are, you're not Pat Mahomes, so maybe another trainer if he's just teaching you to not have good feet. So it's just like that's a tricky part. I also you can see arch and we're not calling for arch, but watch arches feet in stark system. There's no problem with arches feet in stark system. Yeah, I feel like a tough example because he's a pro style in his jeans, but I'll say this, if you had SMU Shane Buchal in this offense, Shane Buchal would be cooking on these post routes. I Sam Ellinger would as well, Sam Ellinger had really good footwork in the pocket. It's not, it's good to have a really strong armed quarterback and that's what Sark looks for, but just anyone with good pocket presence, Casey Thompson hit shots in this offense and Casey Thompson didn't have an arm. The most explosive we've been downfield was actually with Casey Thompson, which is pretty wild. It's devastating to say, but it's true. Yes. I'll tell a quick story. I'll tell a quick story. Go for it. Casey Thompson owned me on Twitter one time because after the 2022 season, I tweeted if Texas had had a veteran quarterback this season, they probably won and won the big 12 championship and they lost games because Quinn wasn't really ready yet. And some how Casey Thompson saw this post and he gave it the little, the little like. Yeah. And I saw that and I was just like, Casey, you got me. Yeah. Georgia had two weeks to prep for Texas when that play a factor, sure schematically, but also just the reality is, is Georgia has athletes that can get out to perimeter. Is that it? I don't know if that's actually true also that they had a buy. Yeah, I don't think they did. I have no idea, but they're full attention. They did not have a buy. They played Mississippi State the week before fun. They had a functional by the Mississippi State almost caught him. So they that's true, but I think that's why is Mississippi State almost caught him because they were not right playing them. Yeah. The checkdowns are good unless nobody is open, but he checks down when guys are open and you can see it. And that's what makes people mad. Yeah, there's definitely some place where he can throw it down field and he does not push it always. I don't I don't mind that. I don't mind that. Like circle even teach that because it's like if the checkdown is open and you're throwing it to Jade and blue in space, that's that's great. That's awesome. That's why Tom Brady was in the NFL so long is because he would make that throw on time and give his team a chance. What makes me mad is not that he's not throwing the ball to open guys. That happened against Georgia, but what bothers me more is that when he throws to the open guys down the field, it isn't it isn't accurate. Yeah, all right, let's talk defense so we can get you out of here in 15 minutes. Got to be quick. All right, why is the Texas defense elite in what is this first clip? We forget. Okay. Match three, yeah. So this is a bin, but don't break defense. And this is us playing cover three. Yep. Two quick notes all off season or like a million articles that were like it would be helpful if Texas could finally play single high and run PKs, blizzes. And Jadai Baron moving the corner back could make this secondary elite. Both of those nailed it. So credit to me. Because mechanics are so much better. Y'all shut up. The kid can't even read a defense yet. What does that have to do with mechanics being sound? I guess I think he's saying it doesn't matter if arches mechanics are better because he can't read a defense. Right. But we're not calling for arch to play. That's why I press and say, are you calling, are you calling for him? I'm not calling for arch to play. My argument is the question was, was the, is the issue the system or Quinn? And my thing is, arch is still playing within Sarkeesian system and his feet are still sound. So there's not an issue with the system and footwork. I think, I think Texas would have been better this year if they'd had arch all year long. Is the starter? Sure. If you, if you took that play it, yeah, if you gave them nine, 10 weeks. But the people that are like saying like throwing it now are insane. If I were, I would probably try to make it work with Quinn too. Especially especially with just Quinn protects the ball well, and he executes a lot of the shot plays well, except for, you know, the ones that are literally shots down the field. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not calling for arch, but I will say if it happened, I would be, I'd be intrigued to see what happened. All right, so now we got match three here, boys. This is Jada Baron's sick interception. Just the reaction time on that. I don't even know. Like, he just kind of fell into his arms perfectly, but look however, we're able to keep the lid on everything here easily. Yeah. Underneath. If you look underneath, the corner bales, which is supposed to be, I've been reliably told on the internet that bailing your corners deep means you have crappy past defense. No. No. Look how well they matched that underneath. There's no good windows. Yeah, but just Jada immediately coming off his guy, totally looking at the quarterback. Safety perfect. I mean, just three guys, Gilbo and trail technique. I mean, it's just really solid coverage, man. I'm not entirely, I feel like they're playing zone to the field and Gilbo would be the guy that covers that flat route, but instead he turns and chases it and I, I'm not totally sure why. I think it maybe it was because he got beat outside and so he's like, oh, I need to carry this a little bit. I don't know. Yeah. Or it might have been a bust. Maybe he thought it was man when it was actually zoned, but his contest is awesome and then Baron is in perfect place. Baron being able to play over the top on these has been huge, really good. He's very, very good at that. He can also do it with the post, like when the process come from the opposite side of the field, what was it? UTSA or whatever, where he breaks off his guy right here and he's like, Baron's in the matrix right now. Like he's just seeing the field at a, at a different level and his, his film studies crazy. All right. So we got match three again, top safety is going to roll down here and he's going to move to single high. This is the one we're McDonald. So once again, watch on bottom, the corner is bailing to a deep third. He's got eyes so he can close, but he's, he's playing to keep everything in front of him. The linebackers match everything up really well, except for this, so the tight end looks like the tight end slips by and the field hook player is chasing the shallow when he really needed to, to trade that off and stay deep, but McDonald. The turn of direction here too. Like right there. Yeah. But I think he thinks it's going deep, or I think he thinks it's going potentially to like 11 over the top for a second and then he stops and gets back. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just that when I saw that play, I was like, that was a, that was a nice, I didn't know, I didn't know McDonald had that kind of awareness and zone yet. Yeah, let's just plain match. Match coverage means that it is, it's zone, but you don't just drop to a spot. You look for the routes in that zone, you look for specific routes and then you match those and you guard, you guard them also. Yeah. So the thing with the match is like it, it turns into man based on the route distribution. So that's kind of not the PK version though. Well, I mean, it's going to, if they're going, what was that? The fire alarm, that sounds fun. I think we're good, I think we're good, making sure we're not on fire. I hope, I want the best for you. But if we had a, this is fine, literal meme, somebody screenshot that if that happens. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Well, I know the firemen are here. They sent an email talking about, they're coming by to test stuff. So I think it's, I think it's, it's the good old boys. Um, so sorry, match, PKs is a little different because it'll be like, they could play zone to one side and, and, and match like you're describing to the other where like starts in zone, but it turns into man. But they'll also mix in zone where it's like, it's like pattern reading zone. They're like, they drop back and then they, they guard this guy until he goes over here and then they look to pick somebody else up, you know, and so like on the bottom, what they're doing right now does not convert to man. They're like trading guys off and, and staying in their relative zones. Yeah, cause you've got Anthony Hill looking to wall off whoever's coming inside right here and they keep getting depth is the longer the quarterback holds the ball without throwing the more depth you get. Yeah. But matches means that you're going to match certain route distributions. It's not as concrete as man and it's not as concrete as zone. Yeah. It's more of a defense designed to stop concepts versus purely players try to get lucky there a man in front of Thorpe to we okay. So this is the final match here. We saw this he gets it to the tight end McDonald lays the hit another one on this one is that on the bottom, Ethan Burke is dropping into the curl flat zone. Yep. He does a pretty good job. So this is the thing that like because he's huge. Well, he's yeah. Look at his feet, man, he's a sneaky guy. Look how big he is, man, he's pretty, he's pretty good at that. Yeah. This is the thing that drives people nuts when Texas is like, okay, we're going to recruit, you know, call in Simmons and then we're going to teach him a curl flat drop or a hook drop. And you're like, no, no, no, just let him get the quarterback. But if you have multiple passrushers on the field, if you can teach them to drop, then you can get crazy. So like you can drop call in Simmons and bring Anthony Hill. And if Simmons knows what he's doing, then you're playing a safe seven man coverage and you're blitzing in an unexpected way with just four guys. So that's what PK was so good at Washington. And they're starting to get really good at it at Texas now that they're really nailing down match three coverage. All right, your next point was the run game is, of course, not the run game of yester year, you know, number one in the country where we're more like, I don't know, like 15th or something. And our third down D isn't top one as well, but we're still not bad. But what was your point here? You have a Baron Cerrell able to chase down a quarterback. I think your point was the interior guys are not getting moved. Yeah. And Cerrell does a good job. Cerrell's placement is right. It kind of looks like Cerrell may be made a mistake because the quarterback goes around him. No, that's his job. Yeah, there's no one inside. So Cerrell has to step down and take away the run. Yeah. And then it was on Binda for not getting outside quickly enough. Yeah, coming in and replacing and meeting the block. Yeah. Yeah. But if you look, the interior guys, they're able to hold their ground. Yes. No movement. So they pull and then Baron's able to actually make the play and use backside pursuit. We don't have any 88 is great. Unfortunately, comments here, but shout out Baron 88 is great. He is great that they'll probably be able to replace him with Burke next year and be fine. But but Cerrell is so good at all the little things. Yeah, he is. All right. Another run game. Cerrell, where is Baron? I'm not even seeing him. Oh, there he is. Okay. He's on the front side. Playside right here, taking on a tight end as they pull out to sweep stays in his gap. Hey, backside pursuit. Shout out Baron Cerrell. He's so good at all the little things. I don't know what his numbers are like in the pass rush. He's a pretty good pass rusher too. Yeah. Not a not a great one, obviously, he's he's probably just going to get drafted anyway, just because he's so good at everything else. Yeah. He said Texas is 60 something in defensive rushing. Let me see where we're at right now. Cerrell has seven tackles for loss and three and a half sacks this year, which is pretty good. Where are you getting 65th in Russia, man? There were an opponent yards per rush. We're averaging 3.3 yards. That's 14th in the country. Opponent rush yards per game. We're at 112th, which is 19th in the country. So I don't know where you're 60 that is coming from. Maybe he thought you were talking to offense. Oh, yeah. No, we're talking. We're talking Russian defense. Yeah. Yeah. That was it. Okay. Cool. All right. Let's look. Let's see what this is. I do think Cerrell will be drafted. If Cerrell is not drafted, I still think he's going to land on a team. I mean, as an undrafted free agent, and he'll stick in the NFL for a while because he's just the mental eval, the strength, the ability to hold up against the run assignment down this. Yeah. He's like, teams may not draft him because teams like when they draft an edge, they want to draft a Bosa, a serious pass rusher. But everybody wants and needs guys like Cerrell in the rotation that just do everything else right. So I think he will -- I think he gets drafted late, and either way, I bet he has a solid NFL career. Get some good -- get some good money. Why not? All right. And then some of the issues we are having is the young linebackers can freestyle a little bit and run defense. Yeah. Well, so this one we are here. So we have -- he comes down -- let's see. So he comes down -- so we have a new gap here. They lost contained. So I think Anthony Hill is expecting him to go outside and contain this gap, and then Anthony Hill can stay inside, and you see the quarterback immediately notices that we've lost force here and that the outside's weak. So then Hill jumps outside to try to correct that, and then Taylor Greene's athletic enough to jump back inside. They didn't lose outside contained though, because Burke is a contained player. And I think it actually the quarterback thought he was going to get around Burke. He thought he caught Burke too far inside, and he didn't because Burke is deceptively fast and super long. I was going to say you need to touch space. So he turns him inside, but then the linebackers are still scraping outside. Yeah. The linebackers, I think maybe Lefau and definitely Hill should have been inside when Burke turns ball in. I do not. Because I think 91 steps down the line here because you have down blocking, so he's naturally gonna have to move in to crash that space, meaning he would lose contained contains lost here, even though he's long and fast. He pulls. There's no one there. The linebacker right here needs to pull outside of the pulling guard, Anthony Hill's correct. And then so that's good. Taylor Greene then Anthony Hill realizes he's going outside and to correct this linebacker goes outside, Taylor Greene's athletic enough, Ethan Burke's long enough to force it back inside there. You're forgetting my rules, which is that Burke has a big gap defensive lineman inside of him. So he does step inside some, but I think he's the contained player and he behaves like he's the contained player and he contains and he contains the ball. Yeah, he's not diving on the run on the dive. So the linebacker needs to be inside to make that tackle and he's not. He got trapped too far outside. You're talking about this linebacker? Yes. But Hill too, he'll also overruns it obviously. Yeah, I get it on the zone, but I, you still have to have true force. So I think, I think Hill's right. And I think linebackers wrong here for not going, I think it should actually be outside and then fill gap because only because there is a pulling tight end, which means you need the gap replaced now. It's not a pure zone read. If you can, and I'll, but look, look how this tight ends blocking. He's blocking for him to go outside. I know. But if you contain the ball, then it goes inside and the quarterback doesn't have a choice. Yeah. But the design, they want them to go out. I don't, we can see whoever played linebacker all right me, but it is his own option play. The ball goes inside if he thought, I think the quarterback misread Burke and it should have been a tackle for loss, but the linebackers had overplayed the scrape. And so it was a gain of like two, which is still good, but it should have been, should have been because it's the bad read by a quarterback, the quarterback. This one, the end is at Trey Moore, I can't tell. The end is going to step inside because he has no defensive lineman in the big gap and the linebacker has to scrape outside for the tight end and force the ball back inside. Okay. Yeah. The defensive end steps crashes inside and forces the keep. The quarterback makes the keep read, which is right. But you see the linebacker is like four yards off the ball and like slow footing it and just does not get a good force on this. Leungar Hill Hill. So it's not like, does that, it's not terrible, but it's not, this is a positive game because look, he turns up field and he has all this space and then tap has to make the tackle, which is obviously not the design of the defense. Well, we need the backside linebacker here to, because if it, if you contain it better, then there's less space for the backside linebacker to have to cover to get there. Yeah. Hill's going outside to keep him from running outside. Yeah. Which is right. He just needs to be doing it faster and more forcefully. Yeah. And then if we could get backside linebacker two to trigger quicker, I mean, you see how fast half is recognizing what's going on versus the linebackers. You're right. Yeah. Correct. Both of them are just a factor of these guys are young. Oh, yeah, we've got a national championship linebacker. Which one is he talking about this one or the next one? The next one. Well, Drew, what do you think goes wrong with the linebackers here? It's, I don't, again, I think he was talking about the other one because Burke is in. I'm trying to see from a line, a national championship linebacker. It's like, oh, yeah, we have quite a resource there. I don't know if he can in live do it respond as quickly, but we'll see. Yeah. So Texas defense, finding a ton of success through the match coverage. They're keeping things in front of them. We also have really intelligent DBs, athletic DBs, NFL guys. That's correct. Okay. He assumes Anthony Hill is assigned to the quarterback here on this one. Yes. No, I can't be right. I mean, he does play that way, but that's, there's no way, there's no way that's right. I think he just misread it and he thought, oh, it's a quarterback keeper. I got to get outside and he didn't realize, he didn't realize that Burke was going to turn the ball back in. Yeah. He flows hard as if he was. Yes. But I, on both of these plays, I think my explanation makes sense and they're both, both my explanation in both plays. And the other one that I showed were Sorrell made a good play. If you assume that the young sophomore or second year linebackers are not playing the scrape exchange properly on zone option, then everything makes sense. Connor still wheels are spinning. I think who is at 18, I think 18's wrong. I think he tries to correct for him right here. I think 18 needs to go outside. Hill is right in his gap. Hill realizes he's not outside. Taylor brings trying to break outside, time to be an athlete, then he goes outside, then he recognizes the hill cut back inside. So I think Hill's doing too much. I think 18's wrong here. I think we'll have to see. I'll send it to somebody after we'll find out. Nice. I'm right, Connor, just believe me, I'm right. It's all right. It's all right. We'll let it go. There's no true force here. You can't step down and be force. I mean, if you're, if you're Ethan Burke and you're six, 17, yeah, you can. Well, there you go. But there's also is a corner off screen. I don't know if the corners force, but yeah, all right, we're going to get you out of here. Only 10 minutes late, dude. Not too bad. Not too bad. You can go spend time with your family. All right, fans. Thank you guys. This is fun. We did not get to talk to CFP rankings, unfortunately, but next week we will, because we know it's going to be a lot of fun, especially with the number 12 team in the nation getting a buy with the current structure. It's a blast. Gotta be, gotta be to A&M, just simple. Gotta be A&M. Yeah, exactly. Went out and we don't have to have any of these conversations fans. Thank you so much. Ian, thank you so much. Y'all have a great day and hook 'em. [Music]
Let's figure out how to get the most out of Ewers and why the Texas defense is so darn good.