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Emergency Episode (Jimbo Fisher is fired and Jonathon Brooks is out for the season)
21 Plays1 year ago
In this emergency style episode of Trouble with the Snap, Colton and Will discuss the firing of Jimbo Fisher and the impact of the Jonathon Brooks injury.
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Transcript
Major Changes at Texas A&M and Key Injury for Texas
00:00:01
Speaker
In today's very special edition of Trouble with the Snap, Colton and I will be looking at the major coaching change made here this past morning here at Texas A&M, as well as a key injury that happened to the Texas football team this past weekend. I'll just give a quick disclaimer. This episode will be a little bit shorter than normal, but with all that being said, let's roll the intro. Next statement, and in 2003, the Tigers captured the BCS.
00:00:39
Speaker
He's going to try and run for it. Leaps gets spun around. Snap that shot to Cam Rising. Now he breaks it down and rolls out, Rising. Snap out and gets absolutely demolished.
00:01:14
Speaker
All right,
Jimbo Fisher's Firing and Its Repercussions
00:01:15
Speaker
everybody. Welcome back to Trouble with the Snap. As always, I am Will, joined by my five-star colleague and absolute scholar down at the University of Texas at Austin, Mr. Colton Deutsch. Colton, how are we doing today, boss?
00:01:27
Speaker
We're doing pretty well. Always happy to hop on the podcast and talk some balls. So I definitely do not mind doing an emergency podcast and I'm sure you are pretty happy.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty happy. As Colton was just saying, and I touched on this briefly in the intro, this is a bit of an emergency-style podcast, considering the major news that has come out of college football today. Head coach of the Fightin' Texas Aggies Jimbo Fischer has officially been fired, regardless of how much money he is still owed. Clearly, up to this point in his tenure in year six, he's just not getting the job done. And even though he has the most lucrative contract buyout in the history of collegiate sports,
00:02:06
Speaker
Clearly, the higher ups here at A&M were just fed up with what he's doing and the direction he has the program headed in right now. So at about 8 or 8.30 this morning, Billy Lucci of Texags broke the news that Jimbo Fisher has officially been fired. And since then, kind of all hell broke loose on Twitter, both good and bad. And yeah, pretty crazy day here in Aggieland. Yeah, so it was actually pretty funny. So I was in Fort Worth for the long wins game.
00:02:36
Speaker
wake up at about nine nine thirty to the text from Will. It was just on it was just on my kind of lock screen so I couldn't really see the full context but it just says like I can't believe he's gone or something. So in my head, I'm thinking something terrible happened that someone died or something and then I click on the text and it's that LeBron meme where he looks really happy. He's like I can't believe this is like my life. I'm smiling through it all and so then I checked Twitter. I saw that Jimbo
00:03:05
Speaker
was in fact out at A&M. And it was pretty shocking, but definitely a pretty funny way to find that out in the morning. I apologize for that. That was completely ill advised. But as I was explaining to Colton before we started recording just a moment ago, like Colton, I was also sleeping or just waking up when news first broke. So I was still like half awake, half asleep when I was scrolling through my phone and first came across this.
00:03:34
Speaker
And as soon as I saw that that tweet from Billy Lushi, I immediately texted Colton because I'm like, we have to talk about this. And as I was just saying a moment ago, I was half awake, half asleep. And I probably didn't convey the message as well as I probably should have. So good. At least it definitely got me up and awake early for my drive home.
Behind the Scenes of the Firing Decision
00:03:54
Speaker
But yeah, pretty jarring news. And I had trouble with the snap on that text. Yeah. Well,
00:04:02
Speaker
I'm glad and troubled to start with my logs in the week that we'll get to in the next episode. But yeah, this, this was definitely pretty, pretty jarring news. And credit to Will, um, last, or before our last episode, we were kind of discussing what we wanted to talk about after doing our preview. And Will kind of said, Hey, why don't we talk about the Jimbo fissure anem situation? And the first I kinda was pushing against it because
00:04:29
Speaker
He's like, well, I mean, we talked about this after the Tennessee game and we talked about it probably a week or two ago. I don't really see anything changing. And Will kind of brought it to my attention that there was a Board of Regents reading called and he kind of thought that there was potentially more smoke out there and that something could definitely happen. So, you know, credit to Will for
00:04:49
Speaker
having his sources and, you know, kind of being down there on the ground. I'm on my game boots, boots were certainly on the ground. Um, and I got my people. So shout out to my people, my, my inside sources, as we like to call them. Um, they didn't lead me astray this time. So, uh, I appreciate it making me look good. Well, so, well, I mean, what was your, I know you're kind of just waking up, but what are your kind of initial thoughts from usings from the shocking
Shock and Skepticism Over Fisher's Departure
00:05:12
Speaker
news? I mean, I know we talked in the last episode about how
00:05:16
Speaker
I think we both knew as a matter of time, but I think we're both of the opinion that this would probably happen next season. So what are your initial thoughts? So initially when I first heard it as the perfect way, as you just described it a moment ago, was just pure shock.
00:05:34
Speaker
I didn't really believe it at first, because you know, with social media, Twitter, things like that, rumors get spread around so quickly, so easily. And especially when it comes to certain subjects like pertaining the status of Texas A&M's head football coach with that mammoth of a contract deal.
00:05:53
Speaker
I don't know, I would necessarily tread kind of lightly when it comes to reading about reports like that, especially if there are rumors, as like I was just saying, but clearly there wasn't rumors and especially with the initial tweet being broken by Billy Lucia Texags, who was one of the most trusted A&M football guys, he's A&M sports guys in general in the business.
00:06:15
Speaker
Anyways, I was just completely shocked. And at the same time, I'm sure like a lot of Aggies, I felt relieved if that makes sense. I felt like there was this like this weight that had been lifted off my chest a little bit in that sense. Because, you know, when Jimbo Fisher first got here, and I believe it was like December of 2017 is when he had his introductory press conference here.
00:06:39
Speaker
You know I like every single other Aggie was just elated and was just so excited that he was here because up to that point he was a proven winner like the track record was there he had the national title from 2013 and after that title and after Jamis Winston left Florida State he constantly had Florida State
00:06:59
Speaker
competing for playoff spots, for conference championships, things like that. And so seeing that track record that he had and having him finally show up at College Station, I was like, wow, now it's finally time. And clearly the first, I would say, I believe his first three seasons here were unfortunately his most successful out of his six year tenure.
00:07:25
Speaker
You know, I remember the, the first game too, that I remember where it really felt like the tone shifted with a new coach was probably that week two of his first season when we welcomed Clemson here, uh, to college station, Kyle field. Uh, we lost that game 28, 26 on a pretty questionable touchback call. If anyone remembers that. Um, but I remember leaving the stadium with my family after that game thing, like, wow, like we finally have the right guy.
00:07:50
Speaker
And I thought from there, it was only up. And it was up for a little bit. His first three years in College Station, we made three bowl games. We went three and 0 in those bowls. And the highlight of his career came in that shortened 2020 season with A&M bringing home the Orange Bowl.
00:08:12
Speaker
But after that Orange Bowl, kind of like what I was explaining just a moment ago, it was just only up and up from there in my eyes. It's only been down and down since that Orange Bowl. And that was the exact opposite thing of what I thought I was going to see going forward. But it's just how it played out.
00:08:30
Speaker
So anyways, ultimately, I feel like I just got sidetracked there. So I apologize. But, um, going back to your ultimate question, my initial reaction this morning, um, explaining what I just told you and all that, um, I was immediately shocked and I, at the same time was relieved. Cause as I was just saying, I felt like I certainly had a bit of a weight lifted off my chest.
Speculation on New Coaches for Texas A&M
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely I was kind of the same way when Texas Fire Tom Herman that whole last year I was just totally out on it and it definitely is nice to have some new hope. What are there any initial candidates that you've seen thrown around or guys that you really want to see and I'm looking to and I guess I'm going to that what type of I guess scheme or I guess like what type of coach and kind of like what their specialty is like are you really looking at?
00:09:19
Speaker
So there have certainly been names thrown around that I've seen on on Twitter, Texax, things like that. The most notable one that I'm sure you've probably seen in a lot of college football is seen from A&M Twitter today is Dan Lanning, the head coach of the Oregon Ducks this year.
00:09:34
Speaker
Um, considering what Dan landing has done with those ducks this season, um, you know, you have that one close rock, one close loss to a top five Washington team on the road. And that's the only blemish on your resume up to this point. That's that truly just speaks for itself. That's incredibly impressive. Um, so his name certainly been thrown around, uh, you know,
00:09:54
Speaker
Another big, not big name, but another name that's been thrown out there as well as Jeff Traylor, the head coach of UTSA. What Jeff Traylor has done at UTSA these past few seasons, the pretty major success that they've had in the group of five is undeniable and it's been really impressive. So it makes sense why he would be another candidate for the A&M job.
00:10:15
Speaker
And you know, of course you have some like realistic hires that have been thrown out there and there's some other ones that are just kind of hypothetical more like pipe dream kind of hires, you know, people like Lane Kiffin from Ole Miss or Caitlin DeBoer from Washington. I've seen those names thrown around a couple times, but realistically speaking, I don't think there's any possible way.
00:10:38
Speaker
that those guys would come to College Station no matter how enticing this job might be. Especially Lane Kiffin. I surely think Hell would have to personally freeze over in order for him to get down here and coach his football team. But... Yeah, there's no way Lane would do that. No. It would be funny as hell. That would be a very awkward introductory press conference.
00:11:00
Speaker
to say the least, yes. But I'm just saying it because I've seen his name pop up in at least like two or three articles I've read today. And quite honestly, I'm not, I would not be in favor of that hiring probably because of the whole previous track record these past few years that he's had.
00:11:16
Speaker
buttonheads with Jimbo and A&M in general. So I'm not the biggest fan. But anyways, those are just some of the names. I apologize. I didn't even mention Mike Elko, the former defensive coordinator here at A&M who came on from Notre Dame. He's now the head coach of Duke. As we've seen with Duke up to this point, they started out really well.
00:11:36
Speaker
And pretty much after the Notre Dame game and their star quarterback Riley Leonard went down with that lower leg or that lower body injury. I feel like that one injury sustained by their starting quarterback really just kind of just knock the wheels off. That makes sense. The wheels just fell off after that. And so it's just kind of been really up and down since then.
00:11:57
Speaker
So if Mike Elko were to be the guy coming to A&M, you know, I certainly I would like the hire I certainly would but it's just I guess it's just not one of those hires that would just truly excite me, you know, if that makes sense So I think kind of piggybacking that Into the next question. He asked me what I personally would be looking for if I were responsible for making this choice The main thing I would be looking for is
00:12:22
Speaker
is, at least in my opinion, I would think someone who was a more offensive focused head coach would be the right guy. You know, because that's that's kind of been the thing with A&M, aside from the Johnny Manziel years, of course, because that's when he had just a generational talent on campus.
00:12:42
Speaker
ADM has mainly been a defensive focus program. And that still checks out going back all the way to probably the 1980s. You think back to the teams of the 90s and the late 80s, their defense was just stacked. And that's actually when the ADM wrecking crew defense, that whole kind of moniker was born just because of how stout they were.
00:13:07
Speaker
and then you get to the early 2010s, you know, it's early 2000s, mid to late 2000s, things like that. You have Dennis Francione here, or Francione, excuse me, and everything just kind of went backwards. There's nothing really good about those years.
00:13:23
Speaker
And then, you know, Kevin, someone comes in a little bit, a little bit farther along down the line. And, uh, well, I apologize. I forgot to mention Mike Sherman, but it was just a little bit better than what Fran did, but nothing too of note. And then, you know, Kevin, someone comes in after Sherman and, um, I feel like he just kind of lucked into a generational quarterback, similar to what happened to Jimbo Fisher at Florida state in 2013 with James Winston.
00:13:46
Speaker
I feel like when you have such an incredible athlete like that on your roster who's able to win that many games for you or keep you in just really tight games no matter who the opponent is,
00:14:03
Speaker
You know, with guys like that, they were able to cover up a ton of the glaring flaws of the head coaches who run the program for that time being, just because everyone's so enamored with the play of these athletes. And so that was kind of the case with Kevin someone.
00:14:19
Speaker
you know, with Johnny Manziel, you know, A&M's first year in the SEC, they go 11-2. And, you know, they won the Cotton Bowl over Oklahoma. It was like 41-13, something like that. And, you know, once that game happened, everyone's like, oh my gosh, like A&M, like, they look so good, things like that. Kevin, someone's one of the best coaches in the country.
00:14:41
Speaker
Just all of that. And then literally as soon as Johnny Manziel left, it was just an absolute roller coaster of emotions. Um, just because, as I was saying a moment ago, Kevin, someone at best was probably an average to just slightly above average coach. But when you have such a generational talent like that, the, all the flaws that make you that average to just above average coach are completely covered up because everyone's so enamored with that star athlete. And so that was a similar case to what happened with Jimbo Fisher. I feel like here.
00:15:12
Speaker
You know, exact same thing, except he was at Florida State and it didn't happen at A&M Forum. With Jamis Winston in 2013, obviously they go all the way when the BCS title over Auburn. And everyone since then has just, up to that point, had just been applauding Jimbo for being an incredible coach. He's running an absolute star-sided program down in Florida State. They have nothing but success with him at the helm, things like that.
00:15:38
Speaker
And clearly as soon as he leaves that job and goes to goes to A&M in 2017 And tries to rebuild our program to his liking clearly his
00:15:52
Speaker
His coaching was certainly on display with him. I guess pretty much what I'm just trying to say is same thing that happened with Kevin someone towards the middle of the end of his tenure at A&M happened with Jimbo Fisher here at A&M as well.
00:16:08
Speaker
Um, those glaring flaws that were just covered up by star loaded athletes like that finally came out and finally came to light here. Um, but anyways, kind of going back to your question, what I would be looking for, I would certainly be looking for a more offensive minded coach in my opinion. And I would also, you know, unlike the, the past few hires anim has had, um, I would look for someone, you know, who's young and up and coming.
00:16:33
Speaker
Because you know some of the younger coaches in college football you mainly look at someone like Lincoln Riley I mean he's like what 30 plus years younger than like Nick Saban like I mean two completely different coaches and different styles of football but at the same time they both have a ton of success on their On their resumes. I mean obviously no one will ever touch the resume of Nick Saban but
00:16:58
Speaker
When Lincoln Riley first took over the job for Mark Stoops at Oklahoma, everyone was like, oh, kind of this young up and coming guy. We'll see what he's got. And clearly, he was able to get Oklahoma to the playoffs multiple times in his time there. And as soon as he left that job for USC, he, of course, brought Kayla Williams with him, who's a bit of a generational quarterback as well. But as soon as he went to USC,
00:17:22
Speaker
You know, he had them competing for conference titles and, uh, potential playoff spots, things like that. So clearly he's a damn good coach. And as I was saying, he's like 30 plus years younger than people like Nick Saban and other guys like that. So ultimately what I would be looking for is what I just said, um, an offensive minded coach and someone who's certainly young and upcoming and someone who's hungry to prove themselves and just go out and win football games. Yeah. I mean, I.
00:17:50
Speaker
I definitely think if I was an A&M fan, I'd be feeling the same way, especially with kind of how dated that Jim Bufisher offense looked for almost the entirety of his tenure there, at least after the 2020 season. One thing I was curious about with, I guess, what kind of impact do you think that won this new era of college football coming up with
00:18:16
Speaker
the 12 team playoff and now with conference realignment, do you think that the success this year of Texas and Oklahoma being at nine and one and eight and two and now coming in to be two of your main rivals, do you think that had any sort of any sort of impact on the timing of this decision? So I can certainly see certainly see that side of the story. No question.
00:18:42
Speaker
Do I think it played an impact? If it did at all, it was probably incredibly minimal, in my opinion. I'm not saying that as disrespect to Texas or Oklahoma by any means at all. I just think that the past few seasons at A&M with what Jimbo had done with the type of rosters and talent that he had on this team,
Influence of Texas and Oklahoma's Success on A&M
00:19:07
Speaker
I don't necessarily think that the success of Texas and Oklahoma were like major contributing factors, but I'm sure it was probably in the back of the minds of someone like Ross Buehler just a little bit. I mean, it's kind of hard to ignore that, especially when that's going on in virtually your own backyard. But no, I think this ultimately boiled down to just how Jimbo was able to do so little with so much. Yeah. And like we were saying, it was, it was becoming pretty clear that it was never really going to happen there. So.
00:19:36
Speaker
Credit to A&M for making that commitment. I really didn't think that it was going to happen this year. But definitely, I think you'll be more excited to talk some more football, probably for the rest of the year. Yeah, for sure. Definitely at the start of next season. I guess for me, because you mentioned Kaitlyn DeBore, how you don't think it's that realistic. I've seen some kind of rumblings that he's kind of in some NFL circles.
00:20:05
Speaker
And so I guess that would kind of add up. Dan Lanning, I do think would be a great hire. I mean, he has Oregon playing some pretty solid defense and obviously their offense is still doing really well. And the one thing Will and I kind of briefly discussed it, I do wonder if maybe in a normal situation where a PAC 12 coach would leave to go to an SEC school with a lot of resources in the past, now that you have teams like Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA going to the big 10, I wonder
00:20:34
Speaker
What kind of impact that will have on their decision making if offered a opportunity at the job, if they kind of just are saying, Hey, you know what? A&M is a great job, but we have a good thing going up here and we're now in one of the two super conferences. So we have a good thing going on. So that's just one thing that I'm curious to see if that is a factor in any of these decisions. And yeah, I mean, I think if I was an A&M guy, I would be looking at Dan Lanning.
00:21:00
Speaker
I do like Jeff trailer a lot. I think it's obviously a risk anytime you go from a group of five school up to not just a power five school, but a big time SEC program. You know, but the thing with trailers, I think he has a lot of hireable traits. I mean, I think, I mean, like one obviously being the state of Texas, he has a lot of ties of being a former high school coach, and he was an assistant at Texas for a while. And then now has had a lot of success at UTSA. And
00:21:25
Speaker
Well, I think one thing that is obviously really important is, because even more than who the head man is, is what kind of staff is he going to bring in? And I mean, Trailers had, I mean, multiple coaches so far, UTSA assistants that have found their way up the ranks, particularly the most recent one, Will Stein, who's the offensive coordinator at Oregon. So I think that's definitely kind of a feather in Jeff Trailers' cap there. And I mean, the guy simply wins. I mean, UTSA, we haven't really talked about it as much, because I think we were pretty high on them before the season.
00:21:55
Speaker
They kind of got off to a rough start, but they're right there in position to potentially win the American. We'll get to that in the episodes later this week. But yeah, I mean, and obviously you have Michael who kind of has familiarity there with the program and you know that he's going to play some good defense. So I definitely think that there's some good options out there and you know that A&M has the ability to get
00:22:17
Speaker
a pretty big-time hire. I'm just always interested to see, I mean, I think a lot of times people talk about, oh, we're going to fire the coach. But it's who do you get, right? Because there's not that many coaches, you know what I mean? And a lot of coaches are kind of setting their spots. So definitely think that A&M is going to probably make a pretty good hire. And I'm interested to see how it plays out. I'm sure there'll be a lot of rumors kind of flying around in the next few weeks. The thing that's, I was talking to you about this before we started recording just a moment ago.
00:22:47
Speaker
I will completely take off my A&M bias cap for a moment or I will try my absolute best to.
00:22:53
Speaker
The thing with A&M here is given the resources of this of this school, given, you know, the crazy amount of big time money donors that you have here, given the facilities of this school, given the roster or not, excuse me, given the talent, the talent pool of high school players and recruits just literally virtually all around you in this state. With all these factors coming into play,
00:23:23
Speaker
It truly is a bit of a head scratcher up to this point why A&M has not had more success than they've probably had these past 20 to 30 so seasons. And I say that mainly because, as I was just saying, I'm sure there have been a ton of talking heads in national media who've already covered this, but the resources to have success at the level of college football, they're here in College Station.
00:23:55
Speaker
It's pretty much everything that a head coach could most likely want. And a job offering, A&M can offer that. As I was just saying between facilities and big time donors and an absolutely passionate fan base. I mean, prime example of our fan base was yesterday's game against Mississippi State. It was a battle of just the most average teams possible up to this point this season. And Kyle Field still drew over 103,000 people.
00:24:23
Speaker
Um, so clearly with the fan base like that, um, and the student body and things like that, all that, um, we are, we are hungry for good football and we are, we're dying for, we're dying for a damn good coach and we are dying for our athletic department to finally make the correct hire. Because I feel like the problem with A&M up to this point is that.
00:24:46
Speaker
We've made good hires when it comes to head coaches, but we haven't made great hires. We thought that the good hires we were ultimately making would turn out to be these great hires that we were hoping for, but they clearly have not. What it all boils down to for me now is this go-around now and the head coaching search
00:25:07
Speaker
I'm just, I'm really hoping that our athletic department and our AD and whoever is involved in the head coaching process like this, the hiring process, I'm really hoping that they completely do their homework and just do as much research as possible and make sure that when they ultimately have a candidate in mind that it truly will be the right person for the job. Because if you get the hire correct this time around,
00:25:37
Speaker
it'll be just incredible, at least in my opinion, just the type of success that they will have the potential to have here. And so I'm just as an A&M fan, I'm just hoping that they truly do not screw this up. And I hope that they truly get the right guide this time around. Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely I think you and I both had a lot of
00:26:01
Speaker
experiences with coaching searches. And while it's definitely unfortunate to have them happen as often as our schools do, it always is a bit fun to kind of surf the message boards and see all the possibilities. So like I said, I'm just going to make it get higher. I'm just really curious to see who that is going to be because I don't know that there's anyone
00:26:22
Speaker
Super obvious that you know is very very attainable, but there's obviously still I mean I think Jeff trailer is definitely attainable Mike alco probably definitely is I think you're looking at a kind of maybe the guys like Dan Lanning and Kaylin to board and seeing if if those are guys that you could possibly a lure away Yeah, well the thing with someone like Dan Lanning I
00:26:46
Speaker
Everyone likes to say that A&M has these big time oil money boosters. And oil money just runs deep here in Texas, which absolutely it does. No questions asked. Both A&M and Texas, certainly, they got more money than they know what to do with. But the thing with someone like Dan Lanning, I didn't really, I mean, it totally makes sense, but I didn't necessarily think about this initially. A&M supposedly has several big time boosters like this.
00:27:13
Speaker
But when you look at Oregon, who's their one big booster? It's Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike. And that dude clearly has more money than he knows what to do with as well. So I'm sure if someone like Uncle Phil up in Oregon really wants to make sure that Dan Lanning stays in Eugene, he will probably make that happen, if that makes sense.
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah. And Oregon has had what to their two last coaches were picked off by other programs. And those weren't really for money purposes. Willie Tigard and Mario Chriswell went to their dream jobs, but I think they're there. I mean, I think if Oregon loses him, it's probably not because of money.
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this is certainly the most amount of success that Oregon has had since, you know, the Chip Kelly, Marcus Mariota type of days. And obviously, since they've had success like that within the past 10, 10 or so years, you know, they're not the fan base in Oregon is certainly not going to want to let go of a great coach that Dan Lanning may be, you know, they're going to want to try to hold on to him for as long as possible and ride this out for as long as possible. Yeah, as they should. I mean, he's done a great job there.
00:28:17
Speaker
Absolutely. Um, okay. I think that's probably enough Jimbo Fisher talk. Uh, another talking point that we would like to talk to John real quick in our emergency press conference is Texas star
Implications of Jonathan Brooks' Injury for Texas
00:28:28
Speaker
running back. Jonathan Brooks went down. Unfortunately it was discovered today that he went down with a torn ACL. Um, Colton, I had, I certainly had my tangent, my, my little talking points there about Jimbo. So the floor is absolutely all yours when it comes to Jonathan Brooks. Um, take it, lead us, lead us off. Yeah. I mean,
00:28:46
Speaker
It just sucks. That's about kind of all I can really say. I mean, being at the game last night, I was behind the end zone where he got hurt. So it wasn't a, then I'm a great view of it, but I thought he may be a hyper extended his knee. I definitely, definitely did not look like a torn ACL to me. I'm obviously not a doctor, but I feel like you kind of know sometimes in football when there's an ACL injury. And a lot of times is when you're making a cut or it can even be not contact. So.
00:29:14
Speaker
I was definitely, I was already kind of preparing myself for him to probably be out for maybe the rest of the regular season at least. But yeah, definitely being a torn ACL, I mean, it sucks not only for Texas, but for Jonathan Brooks. I mean, he's a guy that he kind of waited his turn and he would always kind of flash in garbage time the last couple of seasons playing behind Bijon Robinson and Roshan Johnson. And I mean, he gets his turn this year and to his credit, I mean, there's a lot of I think pressure to replace Bijon Robinson and the Longhorns really didn't see any sort of drop off from him.
00:29:44
Speaker
He was getting close to 1,200 yards. And I think we mentioned in the last couple of shows, I was saying, hey, if Texas can win out, I mean, Jonathan Brooks should maybe get some Heisman consideration and definitely be up there for the Doke Walker award. But for him being an ACL injury, I mean, I just really worry about what his draft future is going to be. I mean, I think I even saw it during the game last night. It was the Mel Kuiper, Todd McShayer, one of them tweeted, like, Jonathan Brooks running back won. And now, I mean, I don't even know, like,
00:30:13
Speaker
Because the NFL doesn't even value running backs, you know, very highly anymore as it is. Now, I mean, are you going to take a guy that has a tortoise yell and he's not even going to be able to go through any, through any draft type of thing. So, yeah, I mean, I think Texas is going to struggle without him. I think there's talented backs there. CJ backs are jade and blue, but it just, it's kind of different whenever Brooks is running. He's just more experienced and I think he's pretty special back. So.
00:30:43
Speaker
I mean, look, Texas has a lot of talent and I think they should probably find ways to win the next two weeks, but, uh, definitely gets a lot tougher. And yeah, I mean, just sucks. I have an injury like that and really, really bad timing for not only Texas, but for just Jonathan Brooks himself.
00:31:01
Speaker
So I guess my main question about this injury is just, I guess, how do you think, or just how different do you think the offense will look? And I know that's a really broad kind of scoping question, but what I mean by that is, you know, there's certainly been times this season when a quarterback like Quinn Ewers has been either spot on or just all over the place.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's it's kind of been hit or miss isn't necessarily been Probably as consistent as it should be at times Because you know you look at like the Alabama game we to the dude was absolutely lights out dropping the ball in the bucket everywhere He wanted and then you kind of go back to that Wyoming game
00:31:40
Speaker
When not week three or I believe it was week three You know, he was just kind of hit or miss kind of missing You know five yards slants across the middle and just certain things like that where you'd expect him to hit those routes So I guess what my question is At that time, you know when Quinn Ewers may have been hit or miss Especially on a missed night, you know, Texas was able to rely a lot more on someone like Jonathan Brooks He was able to really
00:32:07
Speaker
really keep that offense going and headed in the right direction, even though their quarterback was having an off night. So I guess what my question now is, with your workhorse, Jonathan Brooks, like this out, just how much different do you think the Texas offense will look? And who do you ultimately expect to pick up this slack? Because obviously, I know there will be a ton of slack now with him out. But if you had to guess, if anyone could maybe just try their best to absolutely pick up where he left off, who do you think that might be? No, it's a great question. I mean, and we're going to talk about it.
00:32:37
Speaker
as the week goes on, um, cause I think Texas is actually gonna lose this week in Iowa state, but I'm really not happy with how Texas has been playing of late. And I don't really understand what their identity is offensively. I don't really know what they're trying to do. And it, but honestly, I do think as good as Jonathan Brooks is, I think Texas is actually a better team when they're throwing the ball a lot, particularly you see in the OU game when you're doing
00:33:02
Speaker
Kind of a lot of quick intermediate passes, RPO game, and you're going high up tempo. That's when Quinn Ewers really gets in a rhythm. You have a ton of weapons, like AD Mitchell, Xavier Worthy, JT Sanders. So even with Brooks gone, there's still a lot of weapons there. So I wonder if Longhorns are going to try and spread the ball around a little bit more, maybe rely more on Quinn Ewers, which while he's no perfect quarterback at this point, I mean, Sark has invested a lot into the guy, and he's proven he can do it on the big stage. So I think at a certain point, I mean, you got to just kind of roll with him and let him win you games.
00:33:32
Speaker
And so yeah, but I mean, I'm just concerned because kind of come to the realization that Texas is just what they are this year. They're not going to blow anyone out. And in a tight game, especially on the road, you would really like to have your, your star running back. You do have CJ Baxter who has played well in spurts this year. He was a five star recruit out of Florida, but he's a freshman. And while he has run hard at times, you still kind of see, he's still learning. He doesn't really have the vision and he might not ever
00:34:01
Speaker
kind of getting that vision, but he's still kind of finding his way, I think, in college for while getting his feet wet. You have Jayden Blue, who's a talented guy, but he's kind of been in the doghouse for various reasons and had a fumble early in the year. So I don't really know how much Texas trusts him either. You have Keon Robinson, who's kind of more of a scat back that's mostly used in like trickery and motions and a couple of flip passes here and there. So there's definitely guys, but I don't think that it's really in Texas' best interest to be running the ball 30 times a game.
00:34:30
Speaker
So, but yeah, honestly, I wish I could tell you more, but I'm really frustrated with how this Texas offense has been running for most of the season and I don't really know what their identity is.
Texas' Performance Challenges in Second Halves
00:34:42
Speaker
So that's the thing with this Texas offense as well. I remember there have been several times throughout the duration of the season in our episodes that you mentioned, their most glaring flaw has probably been their red zone efficiency. They just, for whatever reason, just struggled pretty heavily in the red zone.
00:35:00
Speaker
But the thing is, well, I know that I don't want to dive in and to like game preview and things like that too much because we'll do that in the next episode. But something that's kind of glaring for me a little bit, maybe not just on offense, but just as a whole as a team and your opinion, what do you think it is about Texas? So.
00:35:17
Speaker
From what I've seen, I feel like the majority of the games, the Longhorns will just start out just scorching hot. They're just coming out really well, getting quite a few stops on defense, putting some points up on offense, things like that for the first half. And then once you get to the second half, it feels like there's just a drop off.
00:35:36
Speaker
Do you at least maybe agree with what I'm saying? So I guess what my question is, what do you think that drop off might like, what do you think the cause of that drop off might be in production in the second half? And clearly, if Texas is gonna meet the true expectations of what Longhorn fans and people like that have this season, what will they have to do in order to fix that to truly reach their ultimate potential this season?
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I don't really know if it's anything that, that can be fixed this season. And I think a lot of it is just simply, I think Sarc has a particular vision for this team that he wants him to be in.
00:36:13
Speaker
I kind of think what that vision is, is jump on teams early and then just kind of do what Georgia does. Just bleed clock and run teams over. And I just don't think that's the Longhorn strength right now. And maybe Texas doing that against Alabama was one of the worst things that ever happened to this team because yeah, I mean, it just.
00:36:34
Speaker
It just kind of seems like in the second half, like things just kind of really slow down. And from being at the TCU game, I mean, in the first half, they could not cover anyone. And even in the second half, I mean, like I don't think the Quinn years played like a fantastic game, but I thought he, I mean, I thought that he played pretty well. And even in the second half, I mean, it wasn't like TCU did something that different on defense. There were still guys running wide open at times. It's just, I don't know. This offense just feels just kind of clunky at times. Like even when they're moving the ball, sometimes I don't really understand what they're trying to do.
00:37:04
Speaker
you have a random big play touchdown and still some short yardage issue. So then honestly, I think defensively, I've mentioned on the long ones, I have a lot of trouble with zone defense in particular. And I think some teams start to realize that, hey, let's just drive back and throw the ball and see what happens. And oftentimes it works because the DBs are out of position or can't make a play on the ball. And yeah, and I kind of think one thing that I've noticed is
00:37:32
Speaker
I feel like sometimes SARC and even Pete Krakowski, I think they kind of assume if something worked in the first half that it can't work in the second half because they've already maybe burned it per se. That's just kind of some musings that I have. But I don't know. It's definitely just really frustrating when you're kind of killing a team early. I mean, I'm about 20 against TCU and I see some TCU fan in the concourse. And he's like, oh, it's over. I'm telling you, this game's not over.
00:38:02
Speaker
I mean, like trust me, you're always in the game when you're playing Texas, but yeah, it's a, it actually kind of reminds me of some of the Lincoln Riley's Oklahoma teams. I felt like they actually did this a lot and they would kind of just find ways to win at the end. So I'm definitely happy to be nine and one, but I'm also not one of those Disney Longhorn fans. It's just so happy about everything. Cause I know that there's a lot of things that are not really going too well right now.
Upcoming Challenges for Texas Football
00:38:27
Speaker
And I think that's going to bite the Longhorns in the butt pretty soon.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, it will absolutely be a ton of fun, I guess, potentially, just to see how the rest of the schedule plays out with these final two weeks coming up. And then, of course, with potential conference championships, bowl games, all that coming up. So I know that you and I said that this is like an emergency press conference, and it would be kind of short. But we actually ended up going to about 40 minutes on this episode. So this is pretty much a full-length episode. I mean, we can talk ball for hours. We can.
00:38:59
Speaker
Um, so that we pretty much just covered our two main points of our emergency press conference style show. Um, is there anything else on your mind that we need to discuss before we wrap up and get out of here? I think that's about it.
00:39:13
Speaker
All right, then I I've had my tangent about my biggest college football news I've had probably at least the past six years. So, you know, with that being said, thank you very much for tuning into this episode. We really appreciate it. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, et cetera, you always know where to reach us on socials.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty much all I got to say. Thank you very much for tuning in. And we will be back to our regular scheduled programming this upcoming week. So we will talk to you all then. Thank you all.