Expectations

HTownBevo

HTownBevo

500+ Posts
For tomorrow

Card more than 180 passing yards
Bijan more than 150 total yards
Dicker 2/3 Field goals 53 long
Defense gives up less than 250 yards
+2 turnovers

Equates to a W
 
I was looking for an opportunity to pontificate.

What we know:

Sark is Herman’s alter ego. He’s patient, humble and understated.

Sark is considered one of the best offensive minds in the country, but one has to remember that he also had the best athletes in the game at his disposal at Alabama.

Texas now has one of the best if not the best coaching staffs in the country.

Sark’s track record as a head coach is mixed, partially because of the personal issues he had at USC.

This team has talent but one gets the sense that it may not have a level of talent that Sark had been expecting. That’s pure speculation, reading between the lines from his comments.

We have some very good players including perhaps the best running back in the country. We probably have talent equal to or superior to virtually anyone we will play this year with a possible exception of Oklahoma. That doesn’t mean that the talent is outstanding. It just means that when compared to the competition, we should have a chance of winning every game.

Very few “experts” believe that we will win more than eight or nine regular season games.

Unlike Strong with Watson and Herman with Beck, Sark seems unburdened with poor initial staff selections. Additionally, Sark doesn’t seem like a person in need of proving anything.

What we don’t know:

Is Sark an outstanding head coach? Most of us had high hopes for Strong but plenty of questions. More of us had very high expectations for Herman but I think it’s fair to say that we overlooked some obvious red flags.

Will either of these quarterbacks be good enough to allow Texas to compete against our toughest opponents? Frankly, we just don’t know.

Will this be the beginning of an exciting new era for Texas football or just an extension of the Decade of Disappointment?

I picked Texas to go 11-1 so obviously I am on the optimistic side of the equation. I’m a huge believer in the impact of coaching, and the fact that history repeats. Like Akres with Earl and Mack with Ricky, Sark has Bijan. I like the parallels.

But clearly, there is so much we just don’t know. Perhaps, after tomorrow afternoon, we will have a better idea.
 
dukesteer said:
Unlike Strong with Watson and Herman with Beck, Sark seems unburdened with poor initial staff selections. Additionally, Sark doesn’t seem like a person in need of proving anything.
Click to expand...
You hit on two very interesting points here. There are only a couple of assistants on staff that made me think "Really? Who's that guy, and what has he done?" But in each case it was my lack of knowledge more than their lack of quality leading to those thoughts.

Also, in retrospect it seems obvious we picked our last two head coaches from a pool of vastly under-seasoned candidates, leading both to arrive at the 40 acres with the psychological sense that they did have to prove themselves. And this, at least in Herman's case, explains things like the highly publicized display of urine charts, the (again highly publicized) insistence that a TD scoring player must seek out and celebrate with a lineman first, among other minutia. Now don't get me wrong. Hydration is critical for athletes. Including the big uglies when celebrating is a good thing for team chemistry. But making sure those things were covered ad nauseum on LHN profiles of our new coach and team? That tells me Tom was trying to prove to everybody in Longhorn Nation that he knew what he was doing, so don't question me!!! This helps explain Tom's combative and dismissive attitude towards the media as well.

Good food for thought, dukesteer.
 
Expectations? Growing pains with our inexperienced QBs. Hopes? A team that looks prepared for our opposition and puts them on their heels with our schemes and play calling. I've seen OU put us in bad spots pre snap so many times I almost laugh. I'd like to see us outsmart the opposition occasionally.
 
Here's a good take that I believe plausible for today regarding Card:

"Hudson Card is an Austin native starting his first career game, which happens to be at home against a ranked opponent. I think it is fair to say that nerves, and simply lack of experience, will play a factor at first. To assume that he will come out and dominate is unfair to Card, he could likely take a couple drives to really get his feet under him. I think Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud was a perfect example, as he got off to a very slow start in the Buckeye’s win over Minnesota that saw him go 6-of-14 for 53 yards in the first half, but turned it up in the second half throwing for 236 yards and four touchdowns.

Card has consistently been protecting the ball in practices and scrimmages, the knock on him was taking sacks. The experienced Ragin’ Cajuns defense might rattle him a tad at first, but I think by the third drive Hudson will settle in and start shredding the defense."

(I'll add when and how Sark works CT in could affect Cards ability and opportunity to flow into the game as described above)
 
I really only have one concern in this game, but it's a pretty big one. La's strength against our weakness, which is receivers that are inexperienced and haven't shown consistent ability to separate in coverage.

If I'm the Cajuns I'm going to stack the line and stop the run - and I'd bet that 80 percent of the teams in 1-A can stop the run if they want to badly enough. La will want to badly enough because it's the only way they win. They are most likely to send the house against the run, leave their cover guys on islands and make HC and the receivers beat them. I've watched enough games where that played out to know it will likely be a very ugly game for a while, and maybe the whole way on offense.

The good news is as long as we don't pull an Iowa State and give up two returns for a TD (please no!), I just don't see them scoring a bunch. They seem wildly overrated looking at last year - they got outplayed by ISU and basically had three big plays that won them the game, and did little else on offense. People are excusing their mediocre outcomes against their league by saying "they played down to their competition," but that's a cop-out. Because they didn't have a single game where they outclassed anyone, which tells me they didn't outclass anyone. They were the best team in a sub-standard league, and that's all.

If the receivers play to their talent level and not their experience level, Texas will probably start to open up a lead in the third quarter and never look back. 34-13 or so seems about right.

Oh... and one of our TE's is going to have a big game. Bijan catches at least 5 passes. Dicker hits two FG and (prove me wrong, dude!) misses a very makeable midrange kick.

Do I sound jaded? I'm pretty sure I have PTSD in regard to Texas football in general and specifically season openers.
 
So, this business of “Card taking sacks in practice” means a D player TOUCHED him, right? They weren’t tackling, isn’t that right? I don’t think he will be going down for a loss every time a DE swipes him on the shoulder going by.
I think those plays will be scrambles for first downs. I think on offense, we light them up. I think our DBs miss tackles and leave a couple of guys uncovered along the way and we give up 24 or so. Maybe we fumble, too, and give up 27. But, we will be in the 40s.
 
VYFan said:
So, this business of “Card taking sacks in practice” means a D player TOUCHED him, right? They weren’t tackling, isn’t that right? I don’t think he will be going down for a loss every time a DE swipes him on the shoulder going by.
Click to expand...
Exactly
 
Well some good teams have gotten off to slow starts in their first game so i need to temper my expectations a little.

But we are Texas, right?
 
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