Don't blame Mack Brown

Mack Brown deserves all the blame.

The people on this board knew Chris Simms wasn't clutch. Most people who follow UT knew who the better QB was. Unfortunately, Mack Brown thought otherwise. Brown in effect cost his team the season by going with clearly the wrong choice from the start of the year for the single most important position on the team. It's his fault, not Simms'. Had he yanked Simms after, say, the first 3 turnovers, UT wins. His fault again.

Saying "don't blame Brown" is a convenient way to say you weren't wrong, Cat -- pretty cute. But you were wrong, as was Mack Brown.

 

I've come to the conclusion that Cat=Mack Brown.

 

We are questioning why Mack Brown started Simms in the first place without giving Applewhite a fair shake.

Yeah, Simms had a great year against weak competition and ranked opponents at home - but he should have never been in there in the first place.

 

Cat-You're right 90% of UT fans at Hornfans.com "wanted" Simms to be the starter. What's funny though is that all my UT friends at the time, said that Applewhite should be the man.

Take comments from HF.com with a grain of salt. If anyone supported Major at HF from Aug-Oct, they would have gotten flamed to no end, so all the Major supporters were hesitant to speak out. I believe there were a lot more Major supporters as you think. Proof is in the reaction of the crowd when Major comes in the game.

There really are some two-faced UT fans. They support Simms' starting because A) they have too much trust in Mack Brown, or B)they were afraid to be chastised for wanting Major in there.

Major vs. Simms is a very touchy subject for UT fans, and it's evident that some UT fans don't want to speak out because they think they'd be adding fuel to the fire.

If Mack played Applewhite from Day 1 this year, there wouldn't be much of a controversy, or at least as big of one.

 

90% of people who post at HF.com post good and great stuff about Simms.

In the game Sat, 80% of the fans were booing Simms and wanted him out.

Shows how "honest" some fans can be...

Not until now, are fans finally speaking out against Simms.

 

your comments seem to bely a pre-existing agenda: that of proving empirically that Texas is overrated. that's why I call you a hater. if you're here to discuss rationally what happened on saturday night or this season, then great. but I don't think that's what you're doing. it seems to me that you have an agenda. if we agreed that Chris Simms = Texas, then I'd agree with you that "Texas" was overrated. but I don't agree with you that Chris Simms = Texas, and consequently I don't agree with you that "Texas" is overrated.

sure. why not?

no, it's not. it's a fact. did or did not 26 of colorado's points come directly off of simms' turnovers? it probably only seems like a cop-out if it stands in the way of your badly desired conclusion that the entire Texas team was a straw-house sham this year. go talk to ANY knowledgable football anywhere, and see if you don't get laughed out of the room when you suggest that the Texas defense was ANYTHING other than one of the 5 best defenses in college football this year. go ahead.

define "couldn't stop", please. was the UT defense required to shut them out to qualify as a non-overrated defense? please. the UT defense gave up 13 points on saturday night, and the colorado buffs earned every last one of those 13. chris simms took care of the rest. you seem like a pretty intelligent guy. . . how can you possibly even consider that Simms had nothing to do with the job the UT defense was required to perform on saturday? the UT defense forced the buffs to punt plenty of times. they may even have forced them to punt more often than not [I don't have the stats]. they just didn't do it enough to overcome simms' turnover-mania.

please tell me what color the sky is in the world where this logic makes sense. what is at issue here? are we talking about simms, or are we talking about major, or are we talking about whether the entire Texas roster is overrated? why won't you just simply pay attention to all of what happened the other night? I don't even know what to argue here because your comment makes no sense. it's just a rhetorical misdirect.

that's funny. ooh. . . the big, bad wolf. fact: yes, the colorado defense forced 4 turnovers from simms. they should be given all the credit in the world for that. you think they scored 32 offensive points on Texas. I think they scored 13 offensive points on Texas players not named simms. we disagree. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

if I'm wrong about you having a need to prove that Texas [the entire team] is overrated, then what are you trying to prove?

are you trying to prove that simms shouldn't have been mentioned as a heisman candidate? agreed.

are you trying to prove that colorado isn't getting enough credit for their win saturday? okay, I can agree with that.

are you trying to prove that some people have eternal UT penis envy and can't be satisfied with UT fans pinning the game on one guy instead of heeping ashes on our heads and tearing our sackcloth as we admit that every UT player is overrated? also agreed.

 

Exactly!

After the home game vs. CU, I thought Chris had turned the corner. We were playing so well there was no need to bring in Major. Then reality struck on Saturday, a change had to be made. Too bad Major is only going to be around for one more game.

 

Cat-You might have really wanted Simms to start from Day 1, I don't doubt that. But I guarantee you that the majority wanted Major to start. Yet, the only majority that voiced their opinion without being bashed into pieces were the pro-Simms fans.

What exactly is Mack's reasoning for starting Simms?

Yes, Applewhite's record wasn't great as a QB. But bear in mind that the 98 and 99 UT squads were NOWHERE near as good as the 2001 team. Also, Major played Neb and KSU a few times, whereas Simms hasn't faced either school yet.

Put Simms in at QB in 99 (at his current skill level as a Jr.) and UT probably does not fare as well as it did with Major. Hell, UT might not have beaten Neb that year either.

 

I can't wait to see how Chris plays in Lincoln next year. The Huskers are too good to allow the UT defense to carry Simms to victory.

Spring ball should be a lot of fun.

 

Smokey-I, being the biggest Simms basher, too thought Simms might have turned over a new leaf after the CU game. Turns out all he did was just turn the ball over.

Major would have been perfect in the UT offensive system, which require quick reads. UT has been throwing short slants to WRs all year long. You don't need Simms' cannon arm to throw 10 yard slants. However, Major's awareness, is needed.

If UT had a spread offense attack which forced a QB to make long downfield throws, or a lot of sideline passes, then Simms might have been the best guy for the job.

But, UT's offense didn't seem to require the QB needing to have mobility or a cannon, Major's 2 weaknesses.

This was the PERFECT system for Major to thrive in, yet the Major bashers felt like Simms was the better fit.

 

your comments seem to bely a pre-existing agenda: that of proving empirically that Texas is overrated. that's why I call you a hater. if you're here to discuss rationally what happened on saturday night or this season, then great. but I don't think that's what you're doing. it seems to me that you have an agenda. if we agreed that Chris Simms = Texas, then I'd agree with you that "Texas" was overrated. but I don't agree with you that Chris Simms = Texas, and consequently I don't agree with you that "Texas" is overrated.

If believing that Texas was overrated before this game means I had a pre-existing agenda then I most certainly do. That doesn't make me a hater, but rather someone looking to judge Texas on the merits. I've displayed without a shadow of a doubt that Texas played well against horribly inferior teams all season long but when they played the teams closer to their talent level (but still way less talented) they magically played poorly. If that's the case and you're ranked #3 in the nation then you're way overrated.

no, it's not. it's a fact. did or did not 26 of colorado's points come directly off of simms' turnovers? it probably only seems like a cop-out if it stands in the way of your badly desired conclusion that the entire Texas team was a straw-house sham this year. go talk to ANY knowledgable football anywhere, and see if you don't get laughed out of the room when you suggest that the Texas defense was ANYTHING other than one of the 5 best defenses in college football this year. go ahead.

Points off turnovers require an offense to SCORE those points. The Colorado offense wasn't kicking field goals, they were slamming home touchdown after touchdown. The UT defense could not stop them. Any knowledgeable football fan can look at the facts and those facts show that Texas played played some of the worst offenses in the country to rack up it's defensive ratings. Not only that, because Texas played cream puffs they didn't suffer the injuries that often occur against tough physical offenses.

define "couldn't stop", please. was the UT defense required to shut them out to qualify as a non-overrated defense? please. the UT defense gave up 13 points on saturday night, and the colorado buffs earned every last one of those 13. chris simms took care of the rest. you seem like a pretty intelligent guy. . . how can you possibly even consider that Simms had nothing to do with the job the UT defense was required to perform on saturday? the UT defense forced the buffs to punt plenty of times. they may even have forced them to punt more often than not [I don't have the stats]. they just didn't do it enough to overcome simms' turnover-mania.

The UT defense, by any definition, gave up 32 points. They didn't come anywhere close to shutting them out. You can go on and on about Simms but 32 points is 32 points. Unlike what you would like to imply, Colorado didn't run it in from the 10 yard line after each interception. They moved the ball right at the defense and they did it well. Simms had 4 int's against Oklahoma but the UT defense stopped Oklahoma. Of course Oklahoma's offense isn't on par with Colorado's, these are all things that are not being mentioned while we dwell on Simms' turnovers. While we're talking about Simms' 4 turnovers, why is it no UT fan has pointed out that Colorado had 2 turnovers of it's own? Guess they only count if UT gives them up.

please tell me what color the sky is in the world where this logic makes sense. what is at issue here? are we talking about simms, or are we talking about major, or are we talking about whether the entire Texas roster is overrated? why won't you just simply pay attention to all of what happened the other night? I don't even know what to argue here because your comment makes no sense. it's just a rhetorical misdirect.

Huh? You, after rolling bad teams all year, want to remove Simms from the team and judge him separately from the offense because he played poorly? You want to have your cake and eat it too. Either Simms is a huge part of this offense or he isn't. Simms is overrated and because Simms runs the UT offense which racked up 40 point games week after week, the UT offense is overrated. That makes pretty good sense to me. The quarterback position isn't like a safety or an offensive lineman. The QB position plays a huge role in the success of the offense so I see it as pretty fair and accurate to heavily rate the offense on the play of the quarterback. The position is unique in that way which is why a huge premium is placed on quarterback play.

that's funny. ooh. . . the big, bad wolf. fact: yes, the colorado defense forced 4 turnovers from simms. they should be given all the credit in the world for that. you think they scored 32 offensive points on Texas. I think they scored 13 offensive points on Texas players not named simms. we disagree. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I don't think they scored anything, I know they scored 32 points. The Buffalo offense was on the field, not Chris Simms.

if I'm wrong about you having a need to prove that Texas [the entire team] is overrated, then what are you trying to prove?

I don't really have a need to prove anything. I always suspected that Texas was not as good as people tried to have us believe and they simply confirmed that for me last night. I believed that since the UH game where Texas was actually losing late in the 2nd quarter to a team that eventually finished the season winless. What I've attempted to show here is how UT has racked up numbers against some of the worst teams in the nation and played poorly against teams more on par with themselves. I don't think that is something that anyone can dispute. So yes, Texas was overrated, it's defense was overrated, it's offense was overrated, and Simms was overrated. I kind of wish Simms would have stayed in the game so we could see what he was really made of or maybe we already saw and that's why he didn't go back in.

 

and you are taking your pre-existing agenda and trying to fit the events of saturday night to your presupposition. don't worry, it's a common thing to do. it just doesn't make you right.

well, yeah, if you have selective memory. first off, no one's arguing that the entire Texas team played a weak schedule. and by that rationale alone, anyone who plays a weak schedule will I guess be overrated by definition. so on that, I suppose we agree.

but how, specifically, did the Texas defense fail to perform against Oklahoma, Colorado and even North Carolina [who hung 41 on f.s.u.]? you can't have it both ways. if colorado is a good team, as you suggest [and I agree they are], then you can't say the UT defense "magically" failed to show up the first time they played. and neither did they "magically" fail to perform when they played o.u.

explain colorado's 5 punts [it would have been 6 if not for barnett's call]. and then, when you're done explaining that and how soft the UT defense is, explain how it is that Texas punted 2 fewer times than colorado. if a defense's job is to stop the other team's drives, then you must be able to admit that the UT defense was the better unit on the field saturday night.

dammit, Timing, you've made me resort to facts.

no, it's really not. but you want SO BADLY for it to. 32 points is a lot of points to give up if your special teams are pinning the other team back in their own territory, and they just keep marching it down on you. 32 points is really a whole lot more like 18 points when you stop thinking so simplistically.

did the colorado offense move the ball better than any other team this year on Texas? yes. does that make Texas a straw-house defense? no.

I can kind of follow you here. yeah, Simms is/was/and shall forever be overrated, and since he is the quarterback of the offense, it follows that the offense could be considered overrated, though I think that unfairly reflects on studs like the legend, mike williams, benson, etc. but I'll give you that. the only problem is that you're talking about the offense, and I'm talking about the defense. the defense is NOT overrated.

by the way, who in their right mind would want to have cake but then not eat it, too?

 

and you are taking your pre-existing agenda and trying to fit the events of saturday night to your presupposition. don't worry, it's a common thing to do. it just doesn't make you right.

If I believe that a team is overrated after easily beating bad teams and it loses to a clearly inferior team in terms of talent ( though a better team than previous opponents) how could that not make me right?

but how, specifically, did the Texas defense fail to perform against Oklahoma, Colorado and even North Carolina [who hung 41 on f.s.u.]? you can't have it both ways. if colorado is a good team, as you suggest [and I agree they are], then you can't say the UT defense "magically" failed to show up the first time they played. and neither did they "magically" fail to perform when they played o.u.

I never said the UT defense failed to perform against OU in fact I said the opposite, however, OU has the 67th best offense in the country. Holding the 67th rated offense in the country to 7 points doesn't prove anything does it? North Carolina had the 69th rated offense so again, what does that prove? Colorado had the best offense of any team Texas has played and they scored 32 points. I said that Texas failed to perform against the best teams. If you want to break that down to defense and offense, I think that still holds true. It's just that the UT offense faced tougher defenses against (OU 5th/A&M 17th) than the UT defense faced tougher offenses (Colorado 15th).

explain colorado's 5 punts [it would have been 6 if not for barnett's call]. and then, when you're done explaining that and how soft the UT defense is, explain how it is that Texas punted 2 fewer times than colorado. if a defense's job is to stop the other team's drives, then you must be able to admit that the UT defense was the better unit on the field saturday night.

Facts, well hell Texas had 3 punts and 4 turnovers. If a defense's job is to stop the other teams drive's then Colorado stopped UT 7 times (4 to's/3 punts) and UT stopped Colorado 7 times (2 to's/5punts) That looks even to me which is astonishing considering UT is the team with the top ranked all everything offense and defense.

no, it's really not. but you want SO BADLY for it to. 32 points is a lot of points to give up if your special teams are pinning the other team back in their own territory, and they just keep marching it down on you. 32 points is really a whole lot more like 18 points when you stop thinking so simplistically.

Do you get anymore points for driving 99 yards as opposed to 50 yards or 9 yards? No you don't. Points are points, 32 is 32.

did the colorado offense move the ball better than any other team this year on Texas? yes. does that make Texas a straw-house defense? no.

I would say that Texas overall is a straw house and if you were to pinpoint that further it's more on the offense than the defense, however, the defense was overrated and Colorado showed that.

I can kind of follow you here. yeah, Simms is/was/and shall forever be overrated, and since he is the quarterback of the offense, it follows that the offense could be considered overrated, though I think that unfairly reflects on studs like the legend, mike williams, benson, etc. but I'll give you that. the only problem is that you're talking about the offense, and I'm talking about the defense. the defense is NOT overrated.

I don't know how you can say that when Colorado just ran for 223 yards on them. I think both are overrated, just the offense more so than the defense. Good discussion though.

 

One obvious thing to me was that the "#1" defense in the nation did not show up in Dallas on Saturday.

A #1 defense does not get b****slapped at the LOS the way that UT did.

 

Timing UT's defense also held CU to 7 points, by far their lowest output of the season. Surely that counts just as much, if they hadn't won that game their wouldn't have been a Texas game last weekend. Also, the weak before the Buffs rolled up 62 points and over 500 yards against the Blackshirts, looks like our effort in our worst game against them was around 60% better than NU right?

In sum, UT has a fine defense. I won't say the best, nothing has lead me to believe that label trully doesn't belong in Norman, but probably one of the 8 or so best (I also believe the Huskiers are there too, it was just one of those days for CU offense where eveything worked and NU wasn't sharp). Tenn also gave up 32 last week (same # of offensive points we gave up in the strictest sense--disregarding 15 yard drives), but I don't think their defense is bad either.

 

Scar-Uh, UF's offense puts up a hell of a lot more points than CU's offense.

Nonetheless, I agree UT is somewhere in the top 8 or so in defense.

But like Simms, UT's d doesn't show in the big games, other than the OU game this year (who OSU shut down too).

 

Timing,

Out of curiousity, what teams do you think are better than Texas?

Personally, I think Miami is in a class by itself, and Florida is next. I never thought much of Tennessee, but now I'd have to put them at that level as well.

With Simms starting, I don't believe either Colorado or OU were flukes, so I'd put them above us, maybe along with Nebraska. With Applewhite starting, I would put UT up in the class with Florida/Tennessee, though. I think they could give Miami a good game.

 

I think as you pointed out it really depends on the quarterback. I think with Major they're top 4 with Miami, Florida, and Tennessee. Cedric Benson and the defense are good enough to be in that top class with just solid unspectacular QB play. Plus Major has won the big game on the road in Nebraska so he's kind of been there done that. I really think with Major starting they would be undefeated right now but still might come up a little short against Miami. Miami looks like they're on a mission.