← On Texas Football
On Texas Football
Texas Offense is BROKEN Without Explosive Plays | Sarkisian's Challenge
00:24:22
Rod Babers and Jeff Howe break down the biggest key to Steve Sarkisian getting the Texas offense back to championship level in 2026: explosive plays. The guys dive into the dramatic drop-off from Texas leading the country in 20-plus-yard plays in 2024...
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:00]
Rod
Mum, why do they call it Scottish cheese?
- [00:03]
Aviva Advertiser
It's cottage cheese, honey. And I'm not sure.
- [00:06]
Rod
Do dogs in other countries speak different languages?
- [00:09]
Aviva Advertiser
Yeah, I think so.
- [00:11]
Rod
When will we get there?
- [00:12]
Aviva Advertiser
Well, we've got to fix the car first. But there's someone coming to help us.
- [00:15]
Rod
Is it the man from Geneva?
- [00:17]
Aviva Advertiser
Not Geneva. He's from Aviva. Oh, there's the van. Now for car insurance with breakdown rescue, it takes Aviva visit Aviva ie to save 15%.
- [00:27]
Commercial Announcer
Acceptance criteria terms and conditions apply. Minimum premium of 310 Euro. 15% applies to new policies bought online. See Aviva Ie for details. Car insurance is underwritten by Aviva Insurance Ireland dac. Aviva Direct Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central bank of Ireland. Best menswear summer sale now on everything reduced in store and online. Boss Hilfiger, Marco Cappelli Bugatti now open on level two in the square. Tella.
- [00:52]
Aviva Advertiser
Make the most of summer with Simprove, the daily water based supplement proven to deliver good friendly bacteria alive to your gut. Right where it's needed. Now save 33% on a flexible subscription with code SUB33 at checkout. Usually 64.99. Now just 43.55 for the first three months. That's only €1 45 a day. Subscribe today at Simprove ie Simprove Feel good from the inside. Supplements should not be used as a substitute for a varied diet.
- [01:23]
Rod
Hey, what's up folks? Welcome back to Owen Texas Football and welcome to another edition of Football Theory. I'm lifetime Longhorn Rodbapers. Pleased to be joined by my good friend, esteemed colleague and fellow football theorist Jeff Howe. Today we're going look at what should be the secret sauce for Steve Sarkeesian this year on offense. Explosive plays. All right, now how he's going to come about getting those supposed plays and generating them. Different discussion. But that's what Starks got to get back to being explosive office. That's what we'll discuss here on this edition of Football Theory, brought to you by accomplished Austin realtor Laura Baker. We'll tell you more about her coming up a little bit later on. But Jeff, some of the numbers with Texas and explosive plays last season were, I mean stupefying if you will, super finally bad I should say. Coming up 2024 season Texas led the country in my definition of explosive plays. Everybody's kind of got their own definition. Kind of. I'm looking at just 20 plus yard blanket plays. Just 20 plus yard plays in Texas in 2024 led the country in 20 plus short plays we had 108 of them total. Last season you were right in, I think around 50 something ranking in 20 plus short plays. You only had 5920 plus yard plays the entire season. Only 12 came on the ground. Jeff. So this season I think there is a focus circus. Talked about it multiple times this off season. Getting back to our style of play, our running game, and I think what he's saying is they just want to get more explosive on offense. They do have the weapons, but last season a lot went wrong to really, I should say kind of limit that offense and its explosivity.
- [02:58]
Jeff Howe
You got little to no explosiveness out of not just the run game but your running back position. And I, I know Trey Wisner was hurt for part of the year and we know the off line was, it was a mess until you really got it figured out. And one of the saving graces that happened last year that I don't know if we talk enough about, but like Cole Hudson's injury, it allowed you to move Connor Robertson to center and then when Cole Hudson came back, you know, they had that revolving door at left guard. You just stuck him in at left guard when he came back from the injury for the Vanderbilt game and then it's like, oh, you've got an offensive line combination that's actually competent and they were, you know, pretty decent by the end of the year. But you got little to nothing out of your run game.
- [03:34]
Rod
Right.
- [03:34]
Jeff Howe
I, I crunched some numbers and this is kind of where I was going with explosive plays this week. It's been on my mind because I, I, I've been fascinated by the Mississippi State game being the line of dem for the offense last year because that was the game where AJ Miley went back to the press box and Arch got his season turned around. The second half of the Mississippi State game, he talked about the Kentucky game. Coming out of that game, which is maybe the worst offensive performance in Sark's tenure was that Kentucky game. Like you can argue considering personnel and where you were, it was really bad. You had season lows for total yards, 179 yards per play, 3.3 first. I did eight first downs in an overtime game. I guess just not gonna cut it anyway. Shape or form, you were pretty lucky, pretty fortunate to win that ball game. But I started looking at the Mississippi State game and the first seven games, Rod, your explosive play rate was about 12 and a half percent. So I looked at the set those last six games in the offense, pretty much all your numbers Were up your total yards per game, yards per play, passing yards, third down conversion rate. We'll get to something here though. That's kind of the telltale side of that. But your explosive play rate was still 12 and a half percent. Like so your offense was better but your explosive play rate was about the same. And we know last year the offense wasn't explosive. It's because of the run game or lack thereof. You had no explosiveness out of the run game. 57 rushing attempts last year for Texas went for 10 or more yards. 10 of those were in the bowl game against Michigan. So like 17 of your 10 plus yards runs last year came in one game. So that tells you how much you lacked explosives. And we're talking about this before we started. Right. And I, you know people are going to think we're lying but like we, we checked and like did it. It was, it's one of those mind blowing stats of the season. Texas had 12 carries last year that went for 20 or more yards. Non running backs accounted for eight of the 12. Arch had six, Matthew Caldwell had one.
- [05:28]
Rod
Yep.
- [05:29]
Jeff Howe
Ryan Wingo had one. And then you go to the running back position. Trey Wiser had three and Christian Clark had one in the bowl game. Like that is. And you wonder why now it's like okay, why, why did start go overkill and get Hollywood Smothers and Relik Brown out of the portal? Because he's not leaving anything to chance this year. Like when Trey Wiser went down, your run game pretty much cease to exist. Your productivity from the running back position fell off a cliff if you didn't have a healthy Trey Wisner. So start double down. But yeah, you've gotta rod you. They've gotta figure out a way to get more explosive plays out of the run game.
- [06:03]
Rod
Yeah. And it is, it's the running game that kind of drags the rest of the, the explosivity of the offense down last season. But I wouldn't look that points per drive. So I know by the way, I only looked at power four teams. I didn't want to look at the three teams they played. There were non power four teams because that does skew and distort the sample a little bit. So I went and look at points per drive on drives against power four teams and I took out the trash time drives. I took out the drives with neo downs. We took that out. All right. So I just looked at the really the meaningful drives that Texas had. Not the kneel downs and not when they were closing out a game. And Trying to just run out the clock. So in those drives, which is power four teams, all right, and I looked at drives with 20 plus short explosive plays, drives without an explosive play, the points per drive. This is fascinating. Points per drive for Texas when they had an explosive play, all right, versus power four teams, they were over four points per drive. To put that into context for you, North Texas led the country last year in points per drive, 3.79. Texas, when they have an explosive play on a drive, all right, they are basically the most explosive offense in the country statistically. They they're in that category when they didn't that number points per Drive dropped to 1.07 points per drive versus power forward teams when they didn't have an explosive play on a drive which would have put them fourth worst in the country ahead of Charlotte at 0.93, UMass at 0.97 and Oregon State at 1.01 points per drive. So they basically they become the, they want the worst offices in the country when they don't have an explosive play on a drive. 20 plus yard play. But when they do, you're talking about one of the best offense in the country. Touchdown rate. How about this touchdown rate on drives with 20 plus yard play versus power four teams, your touchdown rate was 50 over 50. Touchdown rate. All right. Damn. 59 actually. Touchdown rate without an explosive play, your touchdown rate drops to 10%. Your score rate with an exposed to play over 75%. Your score rate without an explosive play drops to 20%. By the way, just to give you context, Texas points per drive on the season you are at 2.61. You were 34th in the country. You're a touchdown rate, you're around 29. Your score rate is around 43%. So you are exponentially a better offense. When you get at least just one explosive play on a drive, it changes the whole entire complexion of your offensive identity. And that's why Sark knows he's got to get back to that being his bread and butter. By the way, Sark's one of the best in the country and at Bama in 2019 and 2020, he was top five both of those years in generating 20 plus sharp plays. In 23 and 24, Texas were top 10 and first actually in the country in 24 in generating 20 plus short plays. He's got to get back to that. That what he does better or as well as any offensive mind in the country.
- [09:06]
Jeff Howe
But it goes back to the run game for me, Rod, because remember I told you about Those numbers the first seven games of the season last year versus the last six, your run game was much worse. Just in terms if you just look at yards per game, yards per rushing attempt, you were a little bit better in the last six. You were 4.1 in the first seven, about 4.33 in the last six. But rush yards per game, 149.4 in the first seven, 124.2 in the last six. And remember, you had games like Georgia where Sark just abandoned the run like he just like we, we. I don't even want to try to run the ball today. And you only got, you only got to the numbers you got to. Because you ran it really well against A M and you ran it, managed to run it really well against Michigan. But like, you didn't run it that great against Vanderbilt. You didn't run it, you know, Mississippi state, you were 32 for 72 run of the football. Now granted sack yards. But even when you break it down, Rod, if you look at sack adjusted rushing yards, I went back and looked at it, sack adjusted rushing yards per game last year. If you take out sacks, Texas, 148.4 rush yards per game. Even if you take out sacks, about 4.77 per carry. That's terrible because you're basically taking out the, the really big negative plays and you're still at best mediocre. Run the football like you just could not bust the grape in the run game last year. And to your point, yes, obviously it makes sense if you have more explosive plays. You and I, you know, we, you know, there's a certain coaches, like there's a few coaches. If you, if you look at like Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells and probably like Don Coriel, like you can follow the coaching trees of those three guys basically get to where we are in modern football, right? So Bill Walsh was huge on explosive plays and explosive play margin. And we know Sark, that's one of his football heroes. He took, took a lot from Bill Walsh. There's a lot of Bill Walsh philosophy, a lot of Bill Walsh offense and what Sark does. So it's no surprise that Sark leans on the explosive play. But what you've got to have, Rod, is when the explosive plays aren't there, when you're playing really good talent, when you're playing a Georgia and Ohio State, when you're playing the elite teams, you got to be able to run the football. You've got to have something that can balance your offense out, that can Buoy you for a little bit to keep you from drowning. Not only was the run game for you last year, it wasn't a life preserver, it was an anchor. It drug you down when you really needed it because you couldn't go to it. So you've got it. And I'm the run game. To me, right at this point with this team, it's kind of like the penalty situation. I don't need you to be top five, number three, whatever. Top three, number one in the country in. In running the football. But you can't be as bad as you were last year. You can't be historically bad as far as the Steve Sarkeesian offense run of the football. You can't have another repeat like that. Even if you're, you know, 50 better than you were last year. That probably makes the difference in two or three ball games. And you got to be more consistent even going back to 24. Rod that off like the number. I know the numbers you gave were for 25, but you go back to 24, the run game was so feast or famine, like you're either running for,
- [12:09]
Commercial Announcer
you know, best Menswear summer sale now on everything reduced in store and online. Boss Hilfiger, Marco Capelli, Bugatti now open on level two in the square.
- [12:19]
Rod
Teller three.
- [12:22]
Jeff Howe
I would ma. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would imagine between the A and M game and the Clemson game, those two games, you were probably like right around 300 rushing yards per game at will against those teams. But then you couldn't bust a grape against Arizona State in the bowl game in the Peach bowl or Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. And it was like that all year. It was. They're either running for 200 yards a game or it's 50 or less. Like, that's what it felt like. It felt like a true feast or family case. You got to be more consistent running football.
- [12:50]
Rod
Well, last, and I'm glad you bring it up, the 2024 season. Remember, Texas is a top 10 outside zone running team in the country. And just to give you kind of a basic Football 101 lesson here, most of your explosive runs come in the C and the D gap. All right? They come outside. Now That's. That's an NFL college, that NFL stack. A 70 chance, 70 higher chance of likelihood of you popping the explosive play if you're running through the C or the D gap rather than RA through the A or the B gap. Right now, Texas has become a gap power scheme team. They've actually now for the first time last season they were running more gap schemes than they were wide zone outside zone schemes and I think a lot of those were interior runs. Now you're going to pop fewer of those for a big chunk yardage plays I think. So some of this scheme and is based on scheme and design. Texas went wanted to be more of a bully ball power run team and I think that backfired a little bit too because Sark's O lines are finesse lines, not necessarily physical lines, lines of scrimmage. Right. Old lines that can just move other human beings against their will. So I do wonder if you'll see a shift back to that 2024 team where you were running a ton of outside zone with Wisner and Jaden Blue and you like you said it was feast or famine. But when the team couldn't stop it like Clemson or A M Oklahoma's have Venables had a tough time stopping that outside zone when they can't stop it. Texas will pop two or three of them and then that's all she wrote. You don't need to pop a ton of them. They'll make their adjustments once I pop two or three of them. That puts the offensive identity back on track. As you were saying, it doesn't drag down the offensive identity. So I do wonder if we'll see that change as well. Going back to more of the outside zone team if you're going to hit duo and pop duo. I was looking at a college football stat about duo the other day in Texas loves to run duo. It's one of their favorite power concepts. The CNN D gap are still the highest likelihoods to pop explosive run, even running duo. So we're getting to the C and the D gap are crucial if you're going to pop big long runs. And Texas tried to be more of an interior run team and run scheme last year and I'm not gonna say backfired, but definitely didn't go the way that they anticipated them going to more of a gap count gap power scheme than their zone blocking schemes from the previous years.
- [15:07]
Jeff Howe
What I think and you know we've talked, we CJ Vogel and I've talked, we kind of talked through this on the air. I don't know you and I talked it out here on the channel, but I think there's a couple things that you can pin down. Okay. This has to be different in 26 than it was in 25 or even 24. I think probably the switch to gap power schemes probably for Sark was an over correction because we talked about in 24 they were too wide zone dependent and maybe that was maybe the wrong way of looking at it. The problem was if somebody really defended your wide zone game or made it a point to take away the wise state, they're like they're, you're not gonna run the wide zone on us. You really didn't have that counter punch to go to.
- [15:45]
Rod
Right.
- [15:46]
Jeff Howe
And I think last year it goes back to you were at best, let's call it inconsistent on your interior offensive line. Injuries played a part of that, but sometimes it was just flat out performance issues. Your two guards in your center, you just didn't get consistent play out of your interior offensive line. And you go back to some of the, I think that goes back to some of the short yardage issues, some of the red zone issues. Texas hasn't had a problem acquiring, developing, getting elite tackles like Kelvin Banks, really good, Christian Jones, really good. Offensive tackle Trevor Guz is going to be a first round pick. Well, you look at the tackle pipeline in the program, it's been really good. But your interior, like you go back to some of those Alabama offenses, if you remember like sark in that 2020 season, I believe it was in 2019 they took Evan Neal who ended up being a first round tackle. They moved him inside the guard. So basically I think it's, hey. And that's another reason why I'm high on the move for Brandon Baker, moving him from tackle to garden. Why I'm so optimistic about it is you're taking a guy that's proven and granted you it was rocky last year, but we could see towards the end of the year, okay, Brandon Baker's getting better. Like you can watch games and the PFF numbers, whatever metric you're looking at, you can look at it, say Brandon Baker's getting better. That's why I like the move of him inside the guard. Because now you're going to take some of that athleticism that probably plays better on the interior. He's been through the battles in the SEC for a year. I just like him at guard. You know, we don't know what you, what they're going to get from Lawrence Seymour, which is a question mark at this point. We don't know what left guard's going to be. But your personnel, Rod, I think that's a big part of the problem is your personnel. Guard, center, guard, just has to be much more consistent, much better, much better in critical situations than it's been. And I know that might sound Like a knock on Jake Majors or Hayden Connor or whatever. But you got to remember too, this kind of goes back to the premium player, premium position discussion for me. Some coaches do consider defensive tackle a premium position. And if you've got a rotation of guys or you got a couple of guys. Yeah, they can impact the game. Which probably means if your personnel, center and guard isn't up to snuff. Yeah. You're not going to be able to to establish a lot of scrimmage. You're not going to be able to get a push. You're not going to be able to prevent your quarterback from getting pressure in his face. So I, I just think, I think part of it is maybe not over correcting as much or finding that counter punch for Sark whenever teams do make an effort to stop the wide zone. But I think you really. And to. To their credit, you know, they kicked Baker inside, they went out and got Seymour, they went and got Dylan Sikorski out of the portal. Your personnel on the interiors got to be more consistent.
- [18:21]
Blake Monroe
Yeah.
- [18:21]
Rod
No, I agree with you 100. I love your take about the overcorrection. I do think that might have been part of it. And I know they thought because they had been so good run the outside zone, they'll always be able to have that as a bread and butter. And that didn't work as well last season either. But bringing in, I think more, having more physical tight ends and a better combination. I down with you. I think that'll help that. I just think also to kind of wrap things up here, I think Sark's got to get big on. He's got to get more variety back in the offense. There's no doubt his offense was more explosive when he had variety and diversity in it. Last year you were basing 95% or higher. It's 11 and 12 personnel. You gotta have more variety than that, Sark. You have to. If you don't trust me, this offense will starve. And I think the diversity in the offense actually helps you create more explosive plays. I know this because I've tracked it your 6o line packages. See, last year you were probably at. You're probably a 7% explosive play rate in terms of producing 20 plus yard plays overall 24, you were right around probably 10% which was really, really high. But listen, some of these explosive play rates for some of his different personnel groupings, the pony package, you were over 4, 13, almost 14 in 24. You were over 20% in 23. You've over 16% in 21 and 22 in the pony package and explosive play rate. 6, zero line package, you were 15 and 18 explosive play rate. Your empty sets, you were 19, 19, 21 and 22% explosive play rates out of those. I mean it's to me, some of these cheat codes and some of these different personnel groupings that he can use have proven that they're explosive. Even if you, you turn over the personnel. Right. I know when you have Bijan there and Rojo, 21 personnel is supposed to be elite, but you still, when B and rojo left the 40 acres, you were still over 20 supposed to play pro rate out of your two back sets, out of pony package. So I think you got to get back to having more diversity in the offense. If he doesn't, I think that's a big part. Shrinking your personnel groupings is a big part of why I think the explosivity in the offense also shrunk considerably.
- [20:36]
Jeff Howe
Here's something I always go back to with Sark, Rod. I know it must sound like a broken record. It's all about trust with Sark, and you can find that in his quote, and I'm probably going to butcher it. But Sarkis said, hey, the more things we can do well, the tougher we are to defend.
- [20:51]
Rod
Yep.
- [20:52]
Jeff Howe
By being so limited last year, I think that was Sarc way of saying, you know what? I'm not very confident that there's a lot of things we can do well. We've pared it down to here's a few things we feel like we can do pretty well and let's just stay within that because if we get too far outside the box, I don't trust whether it's the online personnel or whatever the case is, I don't trust the personnel to execute anything outside of these few things that we've repped and we've proven we can do well. So I think that's a really big part of it. It's about trust with Sark and for the newcomers on offense, like, I think Cam Coleman probably already has Sark's trust just because talked about him in the off season. But for Relig Brown, for Hollywood, Smothers Massunas, how quickly can those guys gain Sark's trust? Because the quicker they do, the more diverse they're going to be. The more stuff they can rep early in the year, the more stuff he can start to stockpile. And then when you look at the big picture, Rod over, the more personnel he trusts. When you get to game 16, game 17, hopefully down the road, you're not going to run out of stuff. I know that's a whole different discussion. But the more personnel Sark can trust, the more diverse you can be, the more stuff he's going to have in his bag on that call sheet.
- [21:57]
Rod
Totally agree with that. All right. Great stuff as always, Jeff. Let's thank our sponsor Laura Baker before we end things. Football Theory brought to you by accomplished Austin realtor Laura Baker. Laura and the Andy Allen team at Keller Williams can handle all of your real estate needs in the Austin area. Laura is not only a die hard Longhorn fan, but a long time Austin real estate experts. Who have any concerns or questions regarding real estate in the Austin area, please don't hesitate to give her a call today. 5127-8405-0551-2784-0505. She's a great partner. Also can be a great teammate for you. If you're looking for real estate in the Austin area, check her out at laura@andiallenteam.com that's laura@andyellingteam.com all right, thank you to Matthew behind the scenes. Great stuff as always. Appreciate him as a real mvp. Appreciate all your expertise, Jeff and thank you out there for watching and for listening for Jeff and for Matthew and for accomplished Austin Real to Laura Baker. I'm lifetime 100 rob papers until next time.
- [22:50]
Jeff Howe
Hey guys, Blake Monroe here from coffee and football. YouTube thinks that you're gonna like this video right here and if the algorithm knows ball, it's a good one. So go check it out and then don't forget, hit that like we all
- [23:00]
Blake Monroe
do the same things with our phones like searching your symptoms and freaking yourself out. Save €420 with a Samsung Galaxy S26 for 99.99 on our €45 club card bill pay plan plus free buds 3 FE get the same coverage and reliability of a big network but with the great value and service of Tesco Tesco Mobile every little helps. Ts and C supply 24 month minimum term over 18s direct debit required savings based on upfront handset and monthly club card discounts while stocks Last offer end September 2nd.
- [23:29]
Commercial Announcer
See TescoMobile IE Best Menswear Summer sale now on everything reduced in store and online. Boss Hilfiger Marco Capelli Bugatti now open on level two in the square Tella.