Starkiller said:
I'm making fun of him for being dumb (j-o-k-e).
Oh, well, let's just sign Danny Wuerffel, Eric Crouch, and Jason White while we're at it, then...
http://www.sportsline.com/spin/story/9260509
"One long-time NFL scout told El Hombre that a Longhorns coach said Young just couldn't do it. That's why the Steers went with the offense they used in '06. Instead of asking Young to drop back and work through his available targets, they simplified things for him."
That Sportsline article is just so wrong that I had to register to respond.
First off, "El Hombre"??? that pretty much screams respected journalist.
Second, no one calls the University of Texas Longhorns "Steers" except maybe Aggies or Sooners, again not exactly inspiring confidence.
Now to the meat of the issue... Texas dumbing down the offense for Vince.
Vince's first year (redshirted freshman) Texas basically ran the same offense they had under Applewhite/Simms; that being a basic pro-set, conventional drop back pass with draws, counters and occasional screens. At that time, the coaches were attempting to modify Vince's
throwing motion from his natural 3/4 delivery wrist flick into a more conventional overhand "pro" style. Also Vince was splitting starting duties with Chance Mock, a high rated dropback passer. Vince had problems his freshman year (as most freshman do) with occasional flashes of brilliance. Mostly he would force throws into tight coverage and unlike High School, he didn't always get away with it, leading to an interception. This would sometimes hurt his confidence which would make him try even hard (forcing another ill timed throw) at which point the coaches would sub in Mock (who had his own troubles). But as I said, at other times Vince would look simply unstoppable... just lacking consistency and the decision making and confidence of a more experienced player (keep in mind, he was still a freshman).
His sophomore season continued on not unlike some of his freshman year but now the coaches started to tinker with the offense to better utilize Vince's ability to run. He also was pretty set in as the sole starter. That's when the Zone Read started to take over as the main set that the Longhorns ran. It was particularly brutal with a back like Cedric Benson that didn't need a "downhill" start that the Pro-I set provides and someone that was particularly good at getting yards after initial contact. At the time, the coaches were still insistent on tweaking Vince's motion and also at times Vince still struggled with confidence and consistency on his passing. The low point in the season was the shutout loss to Oklahoma. Vince played poorly, Cedric played poorly, the whole offense played poorly and the coaches playcalling was as bad as any Longhorn fan could remember. The next game against Missouri was a win but was hardly better especially for Vince who had two picks and was relieved by Mock.
If at anytime in Vince's college career it could be said that they "simplified" the offense, it would be here. But even that is not an accurate description. After that game, the coaches realized that while they were trying to stuff Vince into "what a quarterback should be", that they were destroying the truly great talent that they had recruited out of High School (Parade All-American Player of the Year). By making him concentrate on his freakin release point, they had taken away the very things that made him dangerous and had destroyed his greatest asset... his confidence in himself.
They famously made a tape of all of Vince's highlights, sat him down and said that this was the guy that they wanted leading the team. Vince whole-heartily agreed and also asked that the coaches become a little more relaxed both on and off the field (which was truly a sea-change for Mack Brown and the high pressure cooker of a job of Head Coach of Texas). This is where they stopped F'ing with Vince's throwing motion and release point. This is where they finally "Let Vince be Vince".
The next week Vince simply destroyed Texas Tech, both passing and running. Then a couple of weeks later came the Okie St. game where in the first half, absolutely nothing went right for Texas. At 35-7 with just 1:21 left in the half, Vince commanded a 9 play 80 yard scoring drive that simply shocked everyone, whether playing on the field, watching in the stands or glued to the TV set. It was the single most decisive change in momentum that I have ever seen and there wasn't a single person that saw it that didn't know for sure that Vince would come out in the second half and beat the living sh*t out of the Cowboys (including the cowboys!). 30 minutes and 42 unanswered points later, Vince became a God to Texas fans and most importantly, a leader to both his team mates and the coaches. For the night, 18-21 passing for 278 yards while running for 123 on just 12 carries. Okie St. may not be the Steelers, but in College football, any team can lose if they don't have their sh*t together. In fact it happened to Texas again later against Kansas, but Vince just refused to lose, scrambling for an unheard of 4th and 18! Then against A&M, Vince tried to go Superman when he shouldn't have, trying to poke his out stretched arm across the goal line on a Quarterback sneak only to have the ball punched out and run all the way back for a 99 yard TD. A 14 point swing that most would be hard pressed to recover from. But this Vince didn't crumble or get benched for his stupid mistake. He came back in the second half and won the game.
That set up his first RoseBowl MVP winning performance that many of you none-Texas fans might have seen against Michigan.
So his Sophomore year, Texas did run a "simpler" option style offense. But again, he was only in his second year, he was (is) the best running QB in College, and he still put up very good passing yards.
That leads up to his Junior and final season. Anyone that has made even a passing glance at the 2005 vs. the 2006 Texas offense would not call it simple, even though is still was mainly (though not exclusively) set out of the shotgun Zone Read. Vince's ability to make his reads and the heavy incorporation of the play action off of the Zone Read was particularly brutal to opposing defenses. While they mainly saved the pro set/undercenter/power-I for goal line/short yardage situations, even then they ran a wide variety of rollouts, bootlegs, draws and strait hand offs. The variety (and effectiveness) of plays was actually frustrating to a fan like me because we often didn't end up running some stuff more than a couple of times. Even though Texas came with 3 pts of taking the all time NCAA scoring record, we still left a lot of good plays on the table!
If the only game you saw was this years RoseBowl, suffice it to say that you didn't get much of a look at what Vince is truly capable of.... and that in and of it's self should be a scary notion, cause he really kicked some *** that night (against a NFL defensive guru in the Mighty Pete Carrol with a whole month to scheme to stop that "simple" Texas offense). But as I think I have illustrated, that was just Vince taking care of business.