Week 5

[utee94]

Well, now that we have Slick's permission...

[CharleyHorse46]

Hey BC.  Ever walk into a room and instinctively pick out the best-looking woman?

Every heterosexual male does that but may not have ever stopped to realize why.   We're not being horndogs.  We are subconsciously assessing genetics to determine who we are instinctively obligated to save and protect in the event of a horrible calamity.

We're not perverts.  We're noble creatures.  We're the last hope for humanity.

[BrownCounty]

Hey BC.  Ever walk into a room and instinctively pick out the best-looking woman?

Consistently, without fail.

[CharleyHorse46]

Then you're doing your part and our species has hope.

[BrownCounty]

Then you're doing your part and our species has hope.

My wife needs to understand this.

[Mr Tulip]

I think there's an important distinction between the idea of a "worthy opponent" and the thought of "someone I'm excited to see my team play."  

Beyond that, as decent or worthy as Iowa State might be, they're still a team that Texas must beat, in order to return to being the kind of football team that competes for conference and national championships.  Texas fans are going to use this game as a litmus test, and if Texas doesn't win it, they're going to believe that nothing (or at least, not enough) has changed from last year to this year.  This coaching staff already failed their first such test against Maryland, in miserable fashion.  Texas fans aren't going to, and shouldn't, accept bad coaching decisions and bad player development.

So although I understand what you're saying, I actually don't agree.  Nobody should take Iowa State lightly.  And yet Texas absolutely must win the game, for many fans-- including me-- to believe this coaching staff has any hope of moving in the required direction.

You can lump me in with the t-shirts if you like, but you'd be absolutely wrong in doing so.

I believe that the Maryland game needed to happen. 
After all the spring practice and summer bonding, the players knew what their coaches had been saying. They heard the words and went through the motions, but when it came time to fight, they forgot it all and reverted to what they did last season - and got last season's results. 
I believe the coaching staff reviewed that tape with the players and then showed them practice. Two totally different tapes. Against SJSU, they trusted their coaching and their training, but it was SJSU. 
Watch the USC tape. You see a defense that fits all gaps, then a streaking 46 rockets through and just kills the ball carrier. That's not a man who's thinking. That's a man that knows his role and uses his athletic talent to execute it violently. I was gratified that, even when USC hit a couple of big plays, the defense didn't lose composure. They kept playing their roles.
One game of fierce defense is unique. Two can be chalked up to a "name" opponent. A third such performance would a habit. 
All this to say yeah, you're right. The ISU game is important to demonstrate that Texas didn't just overachieve in a loss to USC, and things really are different.

[CousinFreddie]

My wife needs to understand this.

My wife always is the best looking woman in the room, so the only time where it gets a bit tricky is ...
when she's not in the room.

[CharleyHorse46]

My wife always is the best looking woman in the room, so the only time where it gets a bit tricky is ...
when she's not in the room.

Ah.  

[CharleyHorse46]

My irrepressibly, sweet, cute and adorable wife is most often the prettiest woman in the room too, but alas... she's also the one who's most pissed off at me.

I was joking, by the way, on the other other thread when I said I might call her voluminous.  Voluminous is a lovely world and it sounds deceptively enough like luminous that I might could impishly slip it by a tired or distracted woman, but my wife is not large.

All of her girl friends who I once found so attractive are now big as cattle and grotesquely they are even more coquettish than they were when they weighed in at a third of their current heft.  So I praise the good Lord every day that I never had the opportunity to flirt seriously with any of them when they were younger because if I had they would sure be a hell of a lot baggage now.  I'm talking baggage heavy enough to bring down a plan.

[BrownCounty]

All of her girl friends who I once found so attractive are now big as cattle

I could count over 2 dozen beauties that I was insanely hot for at one time in my life that now have ballooned into human livestock.
The only thing I struggle with however, is that I still want to hammer them home.

[BrownCounty]

on a handoff to Kyle Porter, if the defense ran completely off the field, I wonder how many yards Porter would gain.

[CharleyHorse46]

I feel like Fred Akers is our coach once again.

[utee94]

on a handoff to Kyle Porter, if the defense ran completely off the field, I wonder how many yards Porter would gain.

Still, zero.

I feel like Fred Akers is our coach once again.

That, or Lynn Amedee is our OC.

[CharleyHorse46]

I'm grateful for the win.   Road win.  Conference win.  Thursday night trap game.  Defense played lights out.  I love Orlando.  He has the D playing the best I've seen a Texas defense play in several years.

I'm grateful we have a placekicker who can make field goals and make kickoffs unreturnable.

I'm glad they put an experienced player at punt return but pissed that apparently it has never occurred to Naivar that an automatic touchback to the 20 is better starting position that fielding a ball inside the five.  We thought that happened the last three years because Strong was careless or inattentive to details.  How can Herman be so attentive to the color of people's urine and so absent on returns?

We all know Herman famously refused to watch any tape on his team.  So obviously he has no idea that Burt and Duvernay have been deep threats in the past or that Warren once gained 277 yards rushing on 25 attempts in a game where he started off with 21 yards on 7 carries.  

But did he not watch any tape on Iowa State either?  He seemed to have no idea that Iowa State was actually effective at loading the box and stopping the run.  How could he not know that?  It's what they did against their first three opponents and what they did to Texas the last two years.

Why won't Beck use Buechele and our plethora of receivers to take deep shots down the field on 1st or 2nd down?  You're in the damn shotgun.  It's not like you have to count on the line to protect a pocket for more than a second or two.  All you need is for one of your receivers to get off the line.

I understand the desire to establish the run.  Set it up with the pass.   It's what Mackovic did when he had Ricky, Priest and Shon.