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The Spring Game
The North team beat the South team, 14-10, Saturday before a nice crowd
of about 25,000 to 30,000 fans who braved chilly temperatures and a few
rain drops in Royal Memorial Stadium.
Texas officials estimated the crowd at more than 43,000, but let's hope
they were more realistic in assessing the 15 spring drills, most of
which were closed to the press and public.
The North team consisted primarily of the second team offense and
defense, and the South consisted of the starters on both sides of the
ball.
Since the starting offenses and defenses went head to head, and the
second-tema offenses went head to head, the obvious conclusion is that
the starting defense has a chance to be really good.
Starting QB Colt McCoy led his team to one TD and one FG, but the
first-team defense pretty much dominated the rest of the scrimmage.
McCoy completed 4 of 9 passes for 20 yards, and came within a whisker
of
hitting WR Jordan Shipley on a long TD pass. Shipley was wide open on
that play, but the secondary, which includes three new starters, held up
well the rest of the day.
Third-team QB Sherrod Harris, who looked much better than backup QB John
Chiles on this day, got the winning TD on a 17-yard scramble late in the
fourth quarter.
Chiles is the best runner among the QBs, but his passing, which has
improved since last year, is still woefully short of what is needed to
pose a legitimate passing threat.
Starting tailback Vondrell McGee scored the only TD for the South on a
1-yard run, and he wound up with 26 net yards on 8 carries against the
first-team defense.
The most encouraging development in the scrimmage was the ability of thy
front four to harass McCoy.
The coaches don't allow their QBs to be tackled, but McCoy would have
been sacked at least four times if the defense had been turned lose.
Both head coach Mack Brown and new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp
said they ran a plain vanilla defense and did not use any of the blitz
packages Muschamp is putting in to use during the season.
But tackles Lamarr Houston and Roy Miller and ends Brian Orakpo and
Henry Melton were in McCoy's face on a lot of plays.
Melton was starting because Houston has been moved from end to tackle
and because Aaron Lewis missed the spring recovering from a broken
collarbone.
Texas had only 29 sacks in 13 games last season, but this defense looks
very capable of surpassing that total by a good margin.
Brown said the Longhorns had "a great spring," and Muschamp, who is more
cautius, said the defense made progress, but has a lot of work to do
before the season starts.
* * * *
The bottom line is that if the spring game was a good indication of
where the Longhorns finished the spring, the defense is going to have to
much better than it was last year for the Longhorns to be competitive in
the upper reaches of the Big 12.
If the tackles stay healthy, the defense has a chance to be really good.
The offense is solid, but doesn't have any apparent gamebreakers, and
you have to have people the other team respects as gamebreakers or they
will walk their defensive backs up and dare you to try to beat them
deep.
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