Dealing with Dysfunction
About 25 years ago, in one of his Sunday sermons, the pastor at our church said that there were 250 million Americans who were part of dysfunctional families. In other words, every family is dysfunctional to one degree or another (this was a great relief for me to hear). The issue was not whether or not your family is dysfunctional, but how effectively your family works through its dysfunction. I think this maxim applies to any business or other kind of organization.
The dysfunction in Charlie Strong’s Longhorn Family has been on full display for the last month or so. Since January, Strong, his staff, and the players have been putting the word out that they were installing a spread, up-tempo offense. Really hip football bloggers use the acronym HUNH (hurry up no huddle) for up-tempo offense. When preseason workouts began in August, if you were listening closely, you heard Shawn Watson say that he needed to forget 35 years of offensive football knowledge to install a spread, up-tempo offense. Talking about the development of Tyrone Swoopes, Watson was nearly moved to tears. Talk about “mom always liked you best.” Tyrone Swoopes said they were running the same offense as last year, only they were running it faster. Hmm, so your offensive coordinator is saying he is just now learning the new offense that he’s going to be in charge of, and your quarterback is saying the new offense is the old offense at a faster pace. Meanwhile, the coaches are telling recruits to check out the Longhorns’ new spread, up-tempo offense in their first game of the season versus Notre Dame.
What we and the recruits saw in the Notre Dame game was decidedly not a new offense, and the only thing up-tempo about it was how quickly it went three-and-out over and over again. The look on Charlie Strong’s face during the fourth quarter was that of a man who had been swindled by business partners or family members, and he was really angry with the people who swindled him and maybe even angrier at himself for being swindled. What we have here is a dysfunctional organization of the highest order.
I’ll set aside for the moment asking how Charlie Strong could be so surprised by the offense that Shawn Watson unveiled against Notre Dame. Or why he didn’t intervene during the game at least by insisting that Jonathan Gray carry the ball more. Instead, I’ll laud Strong for taking immediate and major remedial steps to deal with his organization’s and his offense’s dysfunction. By demoting Shawn Watson and Joe Wickline and promoting Jay Norvell to play-caller and de facto offensive coordinator, Strong chose not to avoid confrontation and to not be overly concerned about hurt feelings and bruised egos. He also sent a message to the entire coaching staff and the players that they will be held accountable for their performance. In announcing these changes Tuesday afternoon, Strong said, “You can either accept the problem or divorce yourself from it and just let it go. I couldn’t let it go. There are just too many people involved. This university is too big for it to happen. I wouldn’t be doing my job.”
I don’t expect miracles to be performed by Norvell. I’m braced to see only modest improvement in the offense this week against Rice. First of all, Norvell will be working with the same players that Watson was against Notre Dame. In addition, Novell’s resume is less than inspiring, in my opinion. At this point, to me, he’s just another recycled, vagabond coach with stops at Iowa, Northern Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State (does this man have a family?), the Oakland Raiders, the Indianapolis Colts, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. There is no career-defining success that I can find at any of these stops.
The Quarterback Situation
Theoretically, Jerrod Heard’s speed and elusiveness make him a better fit than Swoopes for the spread HUNH—see what I did there?—offense. It will be interesting to see if he is the starter this week.
And You Want Him to Be Your Offensive Coordinator?
I’ve read numerous fan posts on various UT Football blogs promoting the idea that special teams and tight ends coach Jeff Traylor should be the new offensive coordinator because of his legendary status as an offensive guru at Gilmore High School. I guess these fans aren’t concerned that during the Notre Dame game his punt coverage team had only 10 players on three of Texas’ punts.
Ticket Sales
Did you see the commercials for Texas-OU tickets during the Notre Dame game? Somebody google the last time the Texas-OU game wasn’t a sellout months in advance.
I read this week that there are 15,000 tickets available for the Rice game.
Parting Thought
With Longhorn Football ever gentle on my mind this week, a lyric from “Rosalita”—one of my two favorite Bruce Springsteen songs—has been stuck in my head.
Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.
HooK ‘eM,
W.E.
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