2023 TCU Horned Frogs Postmortem: Defense/Special Teams
Once again, a tale of two halves.
The Longhorn defense owned the first half, limiting TCU to a pair of field goals while turning over a flustered Josh Hoover on a change up zone drop interception that allowed an end of half score and a 26-6 lead. In the second half, the Texas defense was dominated as Frog halftime adjustments trumped our own and the defense lost cohesion and composure, evidenced in less urgent play, confusion, sloppy tackling and schematic straying from what had made it successful in the first stanza of action.
The Texas defense struggles badly when robbed of certainty and game pressure ratchets up while pressure on the QB ratchets down.
In this time of thanksgiving, be grateful that the Texas offense held the last possession and ran out the clock. If the Frogs had another meaningful possession, overtime or an outright loss was probable.
Why do I say that?
TCU’s last 4 possessions of the game (they only had five in the 2H) totaled 247 yards on only 30 plays. On those four drives, they had 249 available yards to them and gained 247. Josh Hoover was 10 of 16 for 91 yards and a pick in the first half. In the second? 14 of 20 for 211 yards and 2 touchdowns.
TCU’s last three touchdowns took a grand total of 5:37. The idea that college football defenses can “protect the lead” by allowing productive offense and preventing “big plays over the top” or force meaningful clock burning at all is disproven every week.
Those last four possessions went:
12-62-DOWNS (stopped TCU inside the 5)
6-74-TD
9-75-TD
3-36-TD
That’s how it ended. How did it start?
Pretty damn well, actually.
The Longhorn defensive staff got a lot more aggressive in the form of six man pressures and much more line movement in general. The six man pressures were a consistent 3rd down feature early in the game. It yielded excellent results.
That’s a true six man pressure on 3rd and 6. Meaning not provided by superfluous exterior blitzers or the late nickel. The key is its immediacy, urgency and the mandating of 1 on 1 matchups inside. Note also that there are twists and varied paths to cross up the protection.
Crucially, it eliminates the “bystander problem” that has plagued some of PK’s calls – players who aren’t in coverage, aren’t in the rush, and not really doing much at all.
We’ve got six attacking and five guys guarding men. No indecision here.
Texas brings six, plays man behind it, invites a horizontal throw behind the sticks and then cleans it up with Barron. In this circumstance, we want a shallow crossing route. Notice that covering up all of the OL creates 1 on 1s inside.
Absent pressure, Hoover could hold the ball, survey the field and perhaps hit the motion man that gets open late past the sticks. He did this several times in the second half. Pressure is key, as is the early invitation read to the open receiver.
When Hoover tried to hold the ball on similar plays against six man pressures, he was sacked, threw inaccurately under pressure to an open man deeper down the field, or still had to throw short of the sticks.
This is why TCU started the game 0-6 on 3rd down. They went 4 of 7 on their remaining money downs when we drifted away from this.
What about when Texas didn’t bring extra men and still had success? Note this tackle/end stunt on a regular down, which is against tendency year to date.
1st and 10. Notice that Burke and Sweat (in 3 tech) cross and this collapses the pocket. Murphy is eating two blockers inside initially, but not for long. Hoover drops his eyes, now just trying to survive. Murphy shows a terrific work rate to finish the play, but note that if he hadn’t, Burke would have.
All accomplished with a four man rush twist on an early down. Good stuff.
Texas went away from much of this in the second half.
I’m not sure why.
Any Texas blitzing came more late from the exterior (so, irrelevant) rather than the interior and we played more coverage with straight up 3 or 4 man rushes. For Texas, the best way to cover isn’t adding more coverage, unless it’s an off speed pitch to the fastball that’s working. To state it bluntly, we don’t really know what we’re doing in pure coverage scenarios.
We succeed by shortening the QB decision window and getting on the early outlets.
On an individual basis, TCU murdered the Horns with Savion Williams (11-164 yards, career highs, of course) lined up all over the field. He actually got yards in both halves, but the six man pressure packages prevented TCU from finding him on downs that mattered.
Had Texas ever installed a dime defense this offseason, a double team is possible on a problem receiver irrespective of where Williams lines up from almost any base coverage call. Absent an extra DB who can flex to Williams (paired preferably with a five man pressure on their empty sets so Hoover throws early or gets sacked) Texas was left scrambling and confused as Williams lined up all over the field (he caught balls on 9 different Horn defenders).
Our bystander problem multiplied as well.
Texas allowed a redshirt freshman backup QB with saucers for eyes at the end of the first half to slice and dice the Horns with confidence in the second.
I’ve noted sometimes that Sark is reluctant to spam successful wrinkles on offense, assuming they’re burned long before the defense demonstrates that they can handle them. Unfortunately, I think we did something similar here. Great initial game plan. TCU’s weak OL couldn’t hold up to withering pressure and Hoover looked like he might break.
Then we came out in the second half seemingly with the expectation that TCU must have devised answers and so moved away from it proactively, perhaps exacerbated by the misguided notion that more bodies in coverage was “safer” to “protect” our lead. But college football demonstrably doesn’t work that way, no matter the platitudes.
Defensive Line
This made me laugh when it happened. Lifted them like purple carry ons.
Very strong performances from Murphy, Sweat and Collins. Broughton had a pair of terrific flash plays against the run that forced a TCU field goal, but he got beaten a couple of times in the second half. Sorrell earned a holding call (!!!!!) and had some nice power rushes. Ethan Burke was too athletic for the TCU OL on the move, but we robbed him of stunting and looping from the mid 3rd quarter on. At one point early in the 3rd quarter, we lined him up standing inside of Broughton and it freed up Trill Carter for the sack when we fake blitzed the six man pressure. Good stuff like that just sort of fell out of the defensive calls as the game progressed.
As for “Texas wore down” thoughts, TCU didn’t have many offensive snaps, Murphy and Sweat only played 40 snaps each and we have plenty of depth. We stopped getting pressure because we stopped doing the things that apply it.
Linebacker
Ford had a great PBU in goal to go. I would’ve liked Ford and Hill more as blitzers than coverage bystanders in the second half.
Hill struggled with this run fit here.
Burke has outside contain and perhaps thought it was an RPO, but he needs to squeeze down rather than circumvent that blocker. That written, Hill can’t give up the alley or take on a block stiff-legged. Less than ideal angle from #5 while #28 is shocked to see the runner there, but hay is in the barn once a quality back gets 10 yards of uninterrupted green. Letting TCU run it from deep red zone is a killer.
Defensive Back
Kitan Crawford only played about 15 snaps and he was lost on nearly all of them. Bad angles on nearly every down.
Ryan Watts played pretty well. The big on big Watts vs. Savion matchup didn’t really occur as TCU lined up Savion all over the place, including slot and the backfield. Holmes barely played and seemingly got pulled after giving up a 11 yard completion. Brooks had a nice pick on his zone drop, but his second half performance degraded as moved to a different tactic.
Tackling was poor as confusion increased and seeing guys stack on top of each other in zone drops rather than establish some spacing is not Game 10 defense.
Overall, this unit really benefits from pressure up front. The idea that we help them by adding more “coverage” and less pressure is provably wrong against a team like the Frogs. In fact, more coverage means coverage calls where we’re more likely to be guarding grass and not receivers or comboing coverages that we bust.
Stop stringing up yellow police tape and creating bystanders.
Special Teams
Poor, save the continued terrific performance of Bert Auburn, who nailed yet another 49 yard field goal like a lay up on a kiddie rim. Auburn is now 20 of 25 on the year and 11 of his last 11. Heater, baby! He has drilled 49 yarders two weeks in a row. We’ll need him to win in Ames.
Sanborn mishandled an XP snap and later had a very poor punt (distance and hang time) that gave TCU good field position, in combination with Savion Red committing one of the dumbest penalties of the season.
Final
The defensive staff implemented a strong game plan that freed the best playmakers on the unit to eat, but went away from it in the second half for an approach that we’ve demonstrated that we’re ill-disposed to execute, having never implemented the most likely measure to make it work (installing a dime).
Onward to Ames.
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