Texas Longhorn Football and the Tom Landry Grading System

For those that browse a Texas Longhorns web board, known as hornfans.com, you might have noticed a series of Saturday night/Sunday morning posts entitled "Grading the Team's performance: Week (insert number)."

In it, I go through a detailed checklist of goals that the offense, defense, and special teams need to accomplish in order to improve their chances at winning their games. The system was devised by Tom Landry and it's widely used (through variations from team-to-team of course). Here's a sample of the latest edition: the Oklahoma game.

 http://forums.hornfans.com/php/wwwthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=football&Number=5736744&Search=true&Forum=football&Words=grading&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=1week&Main=5736744

Offense

-Win—check
-35+ points—check
-100% Green Zone scoring—check
-425+ yards total offense—check
-40% or better on 3rd downs—check
-1 or fewer turnovers—check
-Four plays, 20+ yards long—check
-60%+ pass completions—check
-No sacks allowed—no check
-Eliminate foolish penalties—no check
-Win the 4th quarter—check

9/11

Defense

-Win—check
-17 or fewer points—no check
-Force 2+ turnovers—check
-Give offense the ball twice or more inside the 50—no check
-Force five 3-and-outs—no check
-No run over 20 yards—check
-No pass over 25 yards—no check
-49% or worse completions—no check
-Goal line or 4th and short stop—check
-Less than 200 yards passing—no check
-Less than 100 yards rushing—check
-Less than 300 yards total offense—no check
-Score on defense—no check
-Shut out—no check

5/14

Special Teams

-No penalties—no check
-No blocked punts allowed—check
-No blocked PAT's/FG's allowed—check
-No fumbles—check
-No more than 10 yards per return covering punts—no check
-Catch all fieldable punts—check
-Average 10+ yards per return on all fieldable punts—no check
-Return one kickoff past our own 40—check
-No kickoff return past their own 35—no check
-PAT's 100%—check

6/10

20/35

That is an excellent score against the No. 1 ranked team. Really, to get above 50 percent in a neutral site against such a team is a very good score. I am happy with this. Yes, our defense's numbers look like hell, but OU possesses one of the nation's most potent offenses.

Our offense just beat the crap out of their defense. Greg Davis pulled Brent Venables' pants down, plain and simple (never thought I'd say that). Special teams was a bit wobbly, but it was good enough.