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Longhorns Working Hard in Off-Season,
Need Young Players to Come Through
The Longhorns are working hard this off-season, but they are going to need
some breaks to live up to their pre-season top 10 ranking.
The Texas offense should be in better shape than the defense because it has
seven starters back, while the defense returns only four regulars.
But the offense lacks the home-run threat that TB Jamaal Charles provided
last year, and the only thing that kept Texas in the game with Oklahoma last year
was a great peformance by TE Jermichael Finley, who like Charles, left school
early to play in the NFL.
The Horns are going to have to lean on young players to try to find a guy who
can stretch an opposing defense.
The coaches norm ally don't play freshmen very much, but Finley was a
sophomore when he decided to turn pro, and the coaches say they are going to play
more true freshmen and play some of them a lot.
A prime candidate is WR Dan Buckner, a 6-4, 215-pounder who graduated a
semester early at Allen so he could start school at Texas in January and go through
spring practice.
He was a hit in the spring. He is a big-bodied guy who has soft hands and
very good speed.
If he continues his rapid developpment when the team returns to practice in
early August, he could play a significant role for the 2008 Longhorns, much
like Limas Sweed did in 2005.
Buckner is as big as Sweed was and he catches the ball more consistently and
has better speed.
The Longhorns need a big receiver to outmatch some of the small cornerbacks
the team will face.
Buckner was one of eight freshmen who finished high school a semester early
and enrolled at Texas in January.
The only other one who made a big splash offensively in the spring was OL
David Snow, who split time between guard and center and showed great talent and
drive for such a young player.
Veteran WRs Quan Cosby and Jordan Shipley have good speed and so does new RB
Vondrell McGee, but the coaches need sophomores Brandon Collins and James
Kirkendoll to be consistent threats at WR.
As a group, they have good speed, but there is no absolute burner in that
group.
Incoming freshman DeSean Hales is an absolute burner, but he did not come in
early and will get his first snaps as a Longhorn in the August practices.
Let's hope he's a quick study because he would give the offense a badly
needed dose of explosiveness.
I keep hoping the coaches will look D. J. Monroe, another incoming freshman,
at WR, but he seems to be headed to CB.
He's just 5-9, but he is a state champion sprinter and he's really good with
the football in his hands.
He is not likely to play on defense this season, and he might be able to
really help the offense, so I'm going to deep my fingers crossed until the coaches
make a decision.
Last year, Texas averaged 37.23 points a game while the porous UT defense
gave up 25.31 points a game.
Unless the offense develops a gamebreaker or two, the team is not likely to
score as much as it did last year.
But new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, despite having only four
starters back, almost certainly will have a better defense than the one Texas fielded
last year.
Muschamp ran a 4-2-5 as the base defense in the spring, using five defensive
backs and only two linebackers.
Since Texas was No. 6 in the nation in rushing defense, and No. 109 in pass
defense in 2007, he obviously is very concerned about the team's ability to
play pass defense.
The Longhorns have only one starter back in the secondary, CB Ryan Palmer,
but most of the other new DBs are big and physical and should be able to lend
some run-stopping ability if the line and linebackers let someone get through.
The Longhorns face a much more challenging schedule this season than the one
they played last year, including Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Missouri and Kansas,
the other four members of the probable 2008 Big Five.
Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Missouri and Kansas had combined records of
54-13 last year, and that combined record would look even better if six of the
losses didn't come from head-to-head matches between two of the Big Five.
To be successful this year, if the team can't average 37+ points a game, it
is going to have to chop several points off that 25+ points the 2007 team gave
up.
A big plus for the defense is that the front four should be outstanding if
all the main players stay healthy, and the linebackers will be much better than
the ones who played last year.
Muschamp believes in pressuring QBs, and a lack of pressure last year was a
big reason Texas had such a difficult time defending against pass-oriented
teams.
The Longhorns also stayed in their base 4-3 defense nearly all the time last
year, even when Texas A&M faced a third-and-20 in the Aggies' game-opening
drive.
The Aggies hit a 22-yard pass and went on to score and take an early lead
they never relinquished in upsetting the Longhorns for the second straight year.
Muschamp looks like he plans to play a nickel defense (five defensive backs)
as his base defense and he also won't hesitate to bring in a sixth defensive
back in long-yardage situations.
One thing that troubled me heading into last season was the scarcity of
Longhorns who looked like they would be strong contenders for All-Big 12 honors.
But I think DE Brian Orakpo, DTs Lamarr Houston and Roy Miller, LB Roddrick
Muckelroy, and CB Ryan Palmer might all contend for spots on the All-Big 12
defensive team if Muschamp's defense plays as strongly as I think it will.
Miller plays nose tackle most of the time, which means he draws double teams
a lot, and that will make it hard for him to be selected to the honor team,
but he probably will play at an All-Big 12 level.
Getting back to offense for a moment, QB Colt McCoy will be entering his
third season as the starter and the offense will be better than most of us expect
if he gets some help from the running game and avoids turnovers like he did
when he was a reshirt freshman in 2006.
But he needs a dependable running game to take some of the pressure off his
passing.
I think the Longhorns can win 10 games if they can average 31 points and hold
opposing teams to less than 20 and avoid excessive turnovers.
A 10-win season would be a good one for 2008 and would set the stage for much
better seasons in 2009 and 2010 because of the players returning.
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