Texas Football: Offense Caused Longhorns to Underperform This Season

Allow me to state the obvious—this past season has been much greater than last year's miserable season.

Texas, however, is not where it once was a few years ago nor where it should ever be, but progress has been made. The clear-cut source of Texas' problems lies in their offensive struggle to score touchdowns.

One obvious problem that I believed harmed Texas was the lack of a true starting quarterback after Gilbert’s benching.  The quarterback rotation between McCoy and Ash harmed the continuity of the offense and resulted in predictability for the offense.

Everybody knew that whenever Ash was in the game, it was clearly going to be a running play, and whenever McCoy was in, it most likely resulted in a pass or handoff to the running back. This caused a situation where defenses could easily predict the play.

That predictability was partially the cause of Texas’ offensive futility and failure to put up touchdowns against teams like Missouri. That is especially harmful in the Big 12 because, as we all know, it is the offensive juggernaut in the country.

The other source of offensive woes was to be expected, because the Texas offense completely shifted styles from a pass-first traditional spread offense to a more balanced attack. This balanced attack should have helped Texas and its young skill players ease into the new system more smoothly because they would not have to pass the ball every down. 

But because the quarterbacks were so young as well as many of the skill positions, the running game no longer served the purpose of mixing up the offense, developing into a crutch.

Texas’ offensive woes also caused the defense to not play up to par.  The Texas defense is probably one of the most underrated defenses in college football. They have matured as the season wore on and were the main reason that Texas remained competitive in many of the games that they lost, and they were the sole reason Texas was able to beat A&M.

The offense impacted the defense because of their inability to stay on the field. Since the offense couldn’t convert first downs and score touchdowns, it meant that the defense had to stay on the field much longer than they would have otherwise needed.

The result was that the defense simply grew fatigued from trying to combat the prolific offenses of the Big 12.

The solution to these problems is not getting rid of Mack Brown, because he has been able to maintain Texas’ recruiting superiority in the country. The only way for Texas to get back to prominence is through those fantastic recruiting classes.

The solution lies in the players on offense growing more accustomed to the new system and gaining experience. Texas simply needs to stay the course.

Through experience and sheer talent, I have no doubt that Texas will return to national prominence and hopefully again win the National Championship. 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/969262-baseball-winter-meetings-day-1