The Football Brainiacs

Oddly enough the biggest run play of the game for Texas was on a 3rd and long draw play. Jonathan Gray broke a tackle to go for 38 yards. And with all the talk of Texas “hitting us in the mouth” a lot of what went wrong in this game was about missed assignments and missed tackles as we see in this play.

3rd and 10; 13:58 in the 2rd quarter

Texas is in a Twins stacked open gun split 20 personal – OU calls man against the stacked receivers and at first it looks to be press but Colvin bails. Sanchez is playing a cover 2 to the single receiver side. The D Ends are standing up in a 5 tech to really get after the quarterback.

Texas calls a strong side draw lead. Both DEs get up field quickly allowing the tackles to keep pushing them up field to causing a big vertical gap.  Wade is playing a 0 technique and goes Weakside A gap where the LG takes him and pushes him all the way to B gap. This allows a free release for the center to seal off Shannon but it didnt matter because Shannon was playing a Tampa technique so he is out of the play from the very beginning anyway.

It looks like Alexander might have a shot at Gray but #28 comes out of the backfield to block Alexander which gives Gray a cut back lane and he takes it. By this time Sanchez’s receiver is up field on our safety and Sanchez has a clean shot at Gray.

However, he isn’t able to squeeze the gap, gets over extended and lunges at Gray’s feet. Gray is too good for that and Zack’s arms are spread too far apart to really clamp down on Gray’s legs and Gray’s gone. It’s unfortunate because if Sanchez is able to even slow Gray down a little bit we’ve got Cream jerseys in the area to finish him off. One of the things I did like here was how aware Sanchez was of not letting Gray get outside of him. This seems like part of the reason he’s a little hesitant to squeeze that gap and Gray finds just enough inches between him and Dom. It’s a game of inches.

Gray is finally hawked down by Shannon but not until he gets a gain of 38 yards and another first down conversion. We’ve got a guy in perfect position to make a tackle (scheme), we’ve got guys running to the ball (effort), but we just don’t make the play (execution).  This drive doesn’t end up yielding any points for Texas but it forces the defense to stay on the field for a lot more plays than they should have and takes time away from our offense.

The Football Brainiacs note to the reader: This play analysis is meant solely as an attempt to bring our readers closer to what’s happening on the field. This is not intended to demean or deprecate any player or the coaches. We all made mistakes and we all made plays just like any one of these fine young men. It’s part of the game and it is part of life and we wish them nothing but the best on the field and off.