The Coaching Match Up
On Paper this game looks like it will be evenly matched and high scoring. Defensively maybe Texas has the edge. Whatever the case most of the pre-game attention has been focused on David Ash, which of the two OSU quarterbacks will start, and the various match-ups such as Texas’s offense line versus OSU’s defense. If this game turns out to be as close as the Vegas betting line has it, a key match-up that no one is talking about will probably be the most important one. It is the coaching match up.
I hate to bring up a painful subject but when the Horns lost to Texas Tech in 2008, a loss that cost Texas a birth in National Championship game, everyone pointed to Blake Gideon’s dropped interception as the play that cost Texas the game. Texas would have never been in that position if it wasn’t for a huge coaching mistake by Mack Brown and or Greg Davis in the first quarter. Texas was backed up on their two yard line and they lined up on first down in the power I formation with tail back Chris Ogbonnaya five yards deep in the end zone. When I saw that I thought to myself, “surely they aren’t going to hand the ball to Ogbannaya in the end zone. Not with our suspect run blocking.” That just what Texas did and Ogbannaya was tackled for a safety. He didn’t get within a yard of the goal line. That play call was a coaching decision, an unforced error and it cost Texas a decisive two points.
If this game is a close one it likely will be won or lost by in-game coaching decisions including halftime adjustments. Wise clock management at the end of the first half as well as at the end of the game will be critical if it’s a close high scoring game. Clock management decisions at the end of quarters will be important if it’s windy. Do we want to call a time out so we can punt with instead of against the wind and so on? Speaking of timeouts will Texas have to burn a time out or two because of disorganized substitutions or because the OSU coaches showed them something they weren’t prepared for? I could go on but I think you get the idea. Keep your eye on the chess match between the coaching staffs.
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Perhaps the most important in-game coaching decision in the history of Texas Football was made by Darrell Royal in the 1969 game versus Arkansas. AKA The Game of the Century. For those of you who know the story well bear with me while I set the stage for the rest of our readers.
In 1969 Texas and Arkansas were bitter rivals in the Southwest Conference which was comprised of seven teams from within Texas plus Arkansas. Traditionally as in always, the Texas- Arkansas game was played in the middle of October the week after Texas played Oklahoma. In the spring of 1969, Roone Arledge, the president of ABC sports, seeing that there was a very good chance the Texas and Arkansas would be highly ranked teams in the coming season, asked the two schools if they would consider moving their game from October to December 6, which would make it the last game college football season. Arledge figured the game would probably decide the SWC Championship and might have major implications on a national level thereby making it a dramatic contest that would command a large national audience. Arledge figured pretty good.
Texas started out the season ranked #2 and steam rolled all opposition averaged 44 points a game prior to the Arkansas game. Ohio State was the 1968 National Champion and started 1969 ranked #1. Texas’ #2 ranking was a distant #2 as Ohio State was nearly a unanimous #1 among all voters in both the UPI and AP polls. Nobody but nobody thought Ohio State would finish anything short of undefeated and repeat as National Champion. Alas two national championships in a row were not to be for the Buckeyes because on the Saturday before Texas’ Thanksgiving day game with A&M, Ohio State was upset by Michigan in Ann Arbor 24-12 and Texas ascended to #1. To this day I always root for Michigan when they play Ohio State. Mean while Arkansas raced through the first nine games of their season undefeated and benefiting from Ohio State’s loss, moved up from the #3 ranking to #2 setting the stage for Texas #1 versus Arkansas #2 on the last day of the regular season. If that didn’t make it a big enough game, the 37th President of the United States decided it would be fun to attend the game and award a National Championship Plaque to the winner. It bears repeating, Arledge figured pretty good.
Let me cut to the chase and Royal’s decision that resulted the play that runs on the Jumbotron before Texas home games in 2012. With 4:47 left in the game Texas was not having a very good day. Neither was a 14 year old and his father watching the game on television in Vestal, N.Y. They had turned the ball over six times and their vaunted Wishbone running attack had produced only eight points well below their 44 point per game average. Texas had the ball on their 43 yard line and it was 4th down and three and they trailed 14-8. Royal called time out. What to do? Frankly things did not look good for Texas. Arkansas had effectively blunted Texas’ Juggernaut Wishbone which had averaged 363 yards per game. Texas only passed the ball 13 times per game and was completing less that 50% of those throws. Joe Namath James Street was not. So naturally Royal called a long pass play(Right 53 Veer Pass) to a tight end who had caught just three passes all season. A play that they had run once before the entire season and it had been incomplete. There is plenty of good lore on Street’s reaction to Royal when he told him what play to run and so on but I won’t gone into that here.
What I think is instructive about Royal’s call was that he had the nerve to take a big risk with everything in the world on the line. He decided to take that risk because what Texas had been been trying to do offensively the entire game hadn’t worked and he recognized that he had to try something different to get a different result. In other words he decided not to fit the classic definition of insanity which is to try the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. The play worked gaining 44 yards and a first down on Arkansas’ 13 yard line. Two plays later Texas scored the wining touchdown and after the game Dick Nixon presented Royal with the plaque. Deciding to call Right 53 Veer Pass was a risky decision but a sane one.
Enjoy the Youtube clip and notice the girl in the Longhorn Band.
HooK eM,
W.E.
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