Texas Football 2008: Fiesta Bowl and Season Recap

First of all, I'd just like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because without him, none of this is possible.

Second of all, did I nail this motherfucking season, or what?  If you recall my preseason prediction post back in August, I said 12-2 with a final #4 ranking.  I also said we'd lose to Tech and Missouri in the regular season.  Well, we ended up 12-1 with what will probably be a #2 or #3 final ranking.  We did lose to Tech, though not by the score I predicted, but we beat Mizzou.  We didn't go to the Big XII Championship Game because of the three way ties.  I even had us going to the Fiesta Bowl and winning, which we did.  I was even pretty close on a lot of the scores:

Mine                                                              Actual

Texas 48, Florida Atlantic 10                            TX 52, FAU 10

Texas 52, UTEP 18                                        TX 42, UTEP 13

Texas 33, Arkansas 20                                    TX 52, Ark. 10

Texas 60, Rice 13                                            TX 52, 10

Texas 24, Colorado 21                                      TX 38, CO 14

Texas 18, Oklahoma 14                                    TX 45, OU 35

Missouri 36, Texas 20                                        TX 56, Mizzou 31

Texas 52, Oklahoma State 35                            TX 28, OSU 24

Texas Tech 45, Texas 21                                    TX 33, TT 39

Texas 51, Baylor 17                                            TX 45, BU 21

Texas 42, Kansas 13                                           TX 35, KU 7

Texas 28, Texas A&M 12                                    TX 49, TAMU 9

Big XII Championship:  Texas 35, Missouri 27         ------------------

Fiesta Bowl:  Texas 28, Wisconsin 20                    TX 24, OSU 21

On the Fiesta Bowl

It was a great college football game.  Lead changes, excitement, all of that.  It was not a great game for Texas.  Being favored, it was a lose-lose in the perception battle that is the college football championship crowning system.  By all rights, we should have beaten them by 20 and the game should have been in hand in the 3rd quarter.  Still though, Texas overcame the adversity of playing a game that the team felt they were above, which is a significant psychological hurdle.  My hat is off to Mack Brown for having the team as up and ready to play as they were.  I place my hat back on my head and then take it right back off to Colt McCoy.  The guy took a terrific pounding (Did you see all of those replays where he is just getting absolutely crushed?) and managed to lead the team from behind and clinched the win with a super drive and perfect touchdown pass on a perfectly called and executed play.  The guy is really, really tough.  He's a winner.  More on him in the recap section of this post.

It was troubling that the Ohio State offense was able to run the ball so effectively against our #2 ranked run defense.  The commentators astutely pointed out that they earned that ranking against offenses that primarily threw the ball, making the high ranking much less impressive.  Wells is an NFL-caliber back and Pryor bears a scary resemblance skill-wise to The Messiah VY, but still, Muschamp.  I thought our young defensive backs did well enough - they've overachieved all year - but they still gave up a lot of big plays.  (That touchdown pass to Pryor I'm still wondering what Gideon was doing.  Turn around!!  What, did you notice that Pryor had a booger or something and that distracted your attention from the fucking play?  Stop looking at his face!  Look for the goddamned ball!  Bat it away!  You are right fucking there!)

Still, all of the negatives aside (Oh, and can we please get a fucking unsportsmanlike penalty in the last seconds of the game and give them a realistic chance of scoring?  Can we, please?  Fuck!) it was a great win that should propel the program to a preseason top five and another prime position to compete for the Nat'l Title next season.

Season Recap

Here's the synopsis of the season:  Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy.  Seriously, without him we're like 7-4 at best.  I remember looking at who was on the roster and in the recruiting hopper when VY announced for the NFL and thinking, "We're fucked."  Colt was only a 3-star recruit and I think Jevan Snead was the same - maybe he was a four-star guy, I can't remember.  Anyway, they were skinny white dudes who looked weak as hell (McCoy) and punkish (Snead), respectively.  I thought that we could endure 2 seasons of quarterback mediocrity while we relied on the running game and defense.  Who knew?  McCoy better than VY?  I would have slapped you if you had suggested it back then.  What is even more impressive about the season he had is that he did it without a strong supporting cast on offense.  The offensive line is very good, but I don't think there's a first rounder in there.  We had no, I repeat, no tight end.  You know that stone hand that Hell Boy has?  Well, Peter Ullman has two of those.  We'll have Irby back next year, hopefully, so that will add a completely new dimension to the offense that we simply haven't had this year.  In addition to no tight end, Colt had no dependable running game or game breaking running back to take the pressure off.  I really expected one of the backs to emerge as the No. 1 guy at some point in the season.  That never happened, although the coaches basically went with the senior in Ogbannaya after he had one good game because they just had to make a decision.  That worked okay, but much of the success running the ball was probably because teams were scheming against the pass so much.  Lastly, he had no prototype NFL caliber receiver.  Quan and Shipley are extremely sure-handed, were durable, ran good routes and, best of all, had an almost extrasensory sync with Colt, but Roy Williams they are not.  Either the traditional recipes for offensive success and the traditional molds for the best players are not the only way, or Colt just did it all on his own.

One thing is for sure, we are in the Golden Age of UT Football.  We've only won one Nat'l Championship and one Big XII title in 11 years under Mack Brown, but over that same span we have won more games than any other Div. 1 program.  BCS bowl games and top 10 rankings are almost a given.  It's easy to focus on what hasn't happened (more titles), but almost any other school in the nation would happily trade places.  A few other programs have had similar successes, Oklahoma being one of them, but it doesn't get much better than where it's at right now.

Comments

[desertboy]

Agreed.

Utah mightily beating Alabama hurts your previous comments regarding the non-BCS conferences rights to play for the MNC.

[Snake Diggity]

Great post.

Those are some pretty $ predictions. Mine were pretty close to. I think I had us with 2 losses and in a BCS game.

I thought the first 3 quarters of the Fiesta Bowl were pretty boring. There weren't very many exciting plays. The 4th quarter was another classic. Blake Gideon sure got on my naughty list. That dude had a HORRIBLE game. Colt is nails. Also, that was quite possibly the WORST sports broadcast I've ever seen. They missed like 40% of the fucking snaps due to overdoing the ads. The bands got as much camera time as the teams, and WAY more than the cheerleaders and chaps girls. Horrible.

Totally agree about the Colt points and this being the good ol' days. I've heard Irby's injury was career-threatening, so the TE is probably out of the offense for awhile.

One final point is that I think UT teaches its receivers to block better than any school in the country and its been that way since Mack got here. A very underrated thing.

[llogg]

Impressive predictions, indeed.

Colt was definitely the key this season and particularly in the big games.

The fiesta bowl sucked. It was like watching the Tech game in slow motion. Plus, the production value was the absolute worst of any game I've seen this year. Fucking VS. does a better job than that. The old Raycom SWC broadcasts were better than that travesty. They didn't have enough cameras to provide quality replay angles because one of them was always focused on band geeks or water coolers. Fox should be ashamed of itself.

Can't hate on Gideon. He had two bad plays. But Beasley had more. Melton and Norton each lost contain on Pryor at least once for big gains instead of sacks. So he didn't play perfect, he's still going to be a stud back there for the next three years. I'll take him over Marcus Griffin 7 days a week and twice on Saturdays.

Mal was Colt's protoypical NFL receiver. He will blow up next year. Rewatch his Tech highlights. It's ridiculous how fast he is.

Barrett Matthews might be able to step in athletically for Irby, we'll see if he can pick up the mental side enough to contribute next year at TE. Otherwise, look for DJ Grant to be the new Finley next year.

Hopefully the running game will experience a rebirth next year.

Definitely the best of times for the Horns since Mack got there.

http://videos.utexasclan.com/view.php?id=7076

the catch I was referring to.

[Ojo Rojo]

DB: Yeah, fucking Utah. Now we have to listen to those Deseret News-reading motherfuckers boast that they are the true No. 1 because they are the only undefeated team. Fucking please. 9 times out of 10 a blueblood program blows them out. Bama was without their best offensive lineman, Andre Davis or some shit, because he was suspended for talking to an agent. John Parker Wilson was running for his life the whole game. They had to move the right tackle to left tackle and play a true freshman at right tackle.

That Fox telecast was horrible. It was like an NFL game with all of the commercials. One play, commercial. Repeat. It sucked. I was so fixated on the game that I didn't pay much attention to the band shots, but thinking back y'all are right - what was up with that?

Couple of other points I thought of:

Major is the running backs coach and I'm pretty sure it was his call on personnel decisions and substitutions. Not sure he did that great of a job. It might have simply been the lack of talent, I don't know, but I think it was a mistake not to make a decision on a guy earlier in the year. Ogbannaya did well enough, but he shouldn't have been anything other than a 3rd down back/possession receiver. I think Major let his personal feelings about the guys trump other, more important, considerations.

On Gideon: I think he'll be good; hell, he's good now. But he did lose the Tech game (hence the Big XII Championship and a shot at the Nat'l Championship) and he almost lost the Fiesta Bowl. And don't gimme that team game crap - a team is only as strong as its weakest link.

I like our returning receiving corps. Kirkendoll, Collins, Buckner, Mal and Shipley. Thrown in a DeSean Hales and you've got yourself some strong depth. Maybe you bulk Hales up and move him to tailback.

Looking to next year, we lose one offensive lineman (Dockery), Quan and Ogbannaya on offense and we lose Orakpo, Miller, Melton, Bobino and Palmer on defense. D-line takes the most significant hits. But, Eddie Jones and Sam Acho should be able to step in without much drop off. I wonder if you don't move a Kindle or Keenan Robinson to end, though.

[llogg]

Don't forget losing Aaron Lewis from the D-line as well. Early in his career I really thought he'd be special, but he sort of trailed off. Don't know if it was injuries or what. At any rate, he was quality depth at DT.

I think Kindle will continue his hybrid role from this year, but I doubt they spin Robinson down to DE.

Hales may be the closest thing to Ramonce Taylor since, well, Ramonce. Could be an interesting player. Texas will definitely have the best WR corps (top to bottom) in the country next year (maybe some comp from USC)--Shipley, Kirkendoll and Collins own the slot; Mal and Buckner (with Montre Webber a possibility as well) bringing speed and size on the outside.

I still don't think you can blame the Tech loss on Gideon. Sure, he makes that play and the Horns win, but ditto Earl Thomas, ditto Colt not invoking the Chris Simms special, ditto Shipley not dropping a wide open deep pass that was a likely TD. Nobody came correct and the most blame probably goes to the refs for never calling a holding penalty against the pirates and to the coaches for being way too conservative on offense early.

[allbilly]

This whole bowl fiasco this year really, really highlights the need for a playoff and for a television company that usually shows college games to televise it.