Texas 2011

Texas 2010 Statistics

(Big 12) The Longhorns play on an artificial field at Memorial Stadium (seats 100,119)

• Mack Brown enters his 14^th year as head coach of Texas (click here for their schedule).  After nine straight seasons of winning at least 10 games, Texas took a huge crash back into reality in 2010 with a losing record (5-7).
  

  Head Coach Mack Brown

• This year Brown has charged his staff to act like this is their first year coaching there.  2010 was a terrible year for the Longhorns. It began with the National Championship game in January in which Texas lost to Alabama much in part due to the fact that Colt McCoy was hurt early in that game.  Garrett Gilbert was thrown into the fire in that game and then in the following season.  He did a fine job, but Colt McCoy had racked up over 13,000 yards of offense in his four years as a starter and that production is not easy to replace.
• How is it going to be different this year? Brown hired a consultant and the entire team and coaching staff is getting away from the idea that they were invincible and entitled.
• It appears that Texas is switching up their offense to a more tradition one with the quarterback playing out of the shotgun and using the running backs to establish the running game as a major threat. In the past, the threat came from the quarterback for the most part who utilized the zone read to run the spread option.  This required a mobile quarterback who could read defenses and pose an equal threat with his running ability as his passing ability.
• Complete Offensive breakdown.  Last year the offensive line had problems blocking and the running backs couldn’t take control.  It’s no surprise as the line had just two starters return (and only four starters return in total on offense).  The quarterback was asked to do a lot, but the receivers weren’t that helpful.  There were a lot of poor decisions to make matters worse.  This year I expect Texas to do a lot of work on their offensive line and also really work to establish their running game.  Regardless of who emerges at quarterback, the reality is that he is not as experienced as they are used to and probably not as talented (or at least not yet) and is going to need a lot of help elsewhere because last year we saw what happened to this offense without that help.
• And who is going to be the quarterback? Garret Gilbert has the experience but at times looks uncomfortable in his skin and has questionable leadership skills.  Sophomore quarterback Case McCoy (Colt’s brother, of course) looked impressive in the spring, but still needs work on his footwork.  The third option is Connor Wood who has shown confidence and accuracy.
• Defense changes?  Hopefully not much as this team finished 6^th in the nation in total defensive in 2010.  But former defensive coordinator Will Muschamp has moved to Florida to become their new head coach.  The new DC is Manny Diaz. The defense only returns 6 starters, but they do have 5 of their top 6 tacklers back and are solid at the linebacker position.
• They also have a change of coordinators on offense.  New offensive coordinator Bryan Harson was at Boise State from
  

  Strength and Conditioning Coach Bennie Wylie

  2006-2010 and during that time his offense finished in the top five in scoring four times.

• Finally, they have a new strength coach, Bennie Wylie. Watching him at the spring game, it was hard  not to notice how muscular he is.  ESPN analyst Urban Meyer commented during the spring game that the way you evaluate the condition of your team is when “your safety starts looking like that!”