|
|
Enron Mail |
Jerry Scarbrough's True Orange
The Newsletter for the True Texas Longhorn Faithful Volume 11, No. 25, October 1, 2001 Longhorns Blast Raiders, Run Record to 4-0; Huge Showdown with OU Looms Saturday Junior QB Chris Simms completed his first 10 passes and 235-pound sophomore RB Ivan Williams bulled for 152 yards and two touchdowns to spark Texas to a 42-7 victory over Texas Tech Saturday night in Austin. Simms had his sharpest performance as a Longhorn, completing 21 of 26 passes for 224 yards and a touchdown, and scoring two TDs on 1-yard sneaks. It also was easily Williams' best game. His strong runs gave the Longhorns such balance that they scored on their first three possessions and kept the Raiders' defenders guessing all night. The Longhorn defense, coming out in a 3-4 and inserting sensational freshman LB Derrick Johnson in place of DT Maurice Gordon, also rebounded strongly after last week's poor showing in the victory over Houston. The victory ran Texas' record to 4-0 for the first time since 1983. But getting to 5-0 will prove a monumental task for the No. 5 Longhorns because they will face defending national champion and No. 3-rated Oklahoma Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in the teams' traditional showdown in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (see OU scouting report in second part) Defensive coordinator Carl Reese, a staunch advocate of man-for-man pass defense, fed Texas Tech's high-octane offense a steady dose of zone coverages Saturday night. He also got to use his favored man-for-man defense on occasion, but it was primarily a tight zone with a lot of different looks that was responsible for holding the Raiders to seven points. The Longhorn defenders kept the dangerous Tech receivers in front of them, making them catch the ball in the short flat most of the time, then try to use their speed to make something big happen. The Raiders' problem is that this Texas defense is speedy, too, and those two-yard catches often became four-yard gains. Consider these telling statistics - the Raiders couldn't run (11 carries for 36 net yards) and they threw 58 passes, completing 40 of them for 260 yards. That's a net gain of just under 4.5 yards per pass and it's exactly 6.5 yards per completion. Raider coach Mike Leach, who had poked fun at Texas CBs Quentin Jammer and Rod Babers and QB Chris Simms in pre-game comments, gave them little credit in his post-game interview, then bristled when a Lubbock reporter asked him about all the short passes Raider QB Kliff Kingsbury threw. "I don't know who all those experts are that know so much about going vertical," Leach said. "I would guess I know a lot more about going vertical than they do. With that being the case, I thought we went vertical the right number of times." Their longest pass completion was 25 yards and they only scored 7 points, so maybe they did and maybe they didn't. What he didn't say was that the swarming UT defense didn't give the Raiders much chance to go deep - or vertical - in his terminology. Here, briefly, is how the game went First Quarter The Longhorns won the toss and deferred, so Tech took the ball. The UT defense forced a quick punt. Simms led the Longhorns 80 yards in 11 plays, hitting five straight passes, all of them to WR Roy Williams, for 49 yards. Ivan Williams got the other 31 yards on six bullish runs, including the final two yards for the TD. Dusty Mangum's kick gave Texas a 7-0 lead with 7:49 left. After another Tech punt, the Longhorns struck again, going 74 yards in nine plays. Simms was 3-for-3 on the drive, hitting WR B. J. Johnson twice for 23 yards and TE Bo Scaife once for 5 yards. But Ivan Williams had the big play, a 30-yard run to the Raiders' 21. Simms got the TD on a 1-yard run. Mangum's kick gave Texas a 14-0 lead with 1:26 left. The Longhorns totally dominated the quarter, leading 8-3 in first downs, 77-20 in rushing yardage, 77-44 in passing yardage and 154-64 in total offense. But the Raiders were driving for the first time as the quarter ended. Second Quarter Tech's Ricky Williams squirted through a huge hole on a fourth-and-1 and dashed 31 yards for a touchdown on the second play of the quarter, cutting the UT lead to 14-7 just 33 seconds deep. But the Longhorn offense retaliated immediately. Victor Ike returned the kickoff to the UT 47, and Simms found Roy Williams with a 40-yard TD pass two plays later. Mangum's kick gave Texas a 21-7 lead with 13:00 left. Tech drove to the UT 9 late in the half, but LBs DeAndre Lewis and Tyrone Jones stopped Kingsbury a yard short of a first down on a keeper that got to the UT 7. Simms was 13 for 15 for 130 yards and a touchdown at the half. TE Bo Scaife who had 5 receptions for 64 yards, had a rare drop, and Simms' other incompletion was one he threw away under a big rush. Third Quarter The Longhorns put the game on ice with two touchdowns in a 46-second span early in the second half. They drove 80 yards in 10 plays to start the half. Ivan Williams got the touchdown on a 1-yard run. He had six carries for 39 y ards on the drive and Simms hit Scaife twice for 37 yards. Mangum's kick gave Texas a 28-7 lead with 10:44 left. Derrick Johnson ripped the ball out of Ivory McCann's grasp on the kickoff and walk-on Richard Hightower recovered at the Tech 13. Williams carried twice to the 1, then Simms scored on a sneak. Mangum's kick put UT on top, 35-7, with 9:58 left. Neither team threatened again in the quarter. Fourth Quarter Tech drove to the Texas 15 early in the fourth quarter, but a fourth-down pass fell incomplete. Texas came back with a 12-play, 85-yard scoring drive. Simms gave way to Major Applewhite during the drive. Ike got the touchdown on a 1-yard run. Redshirt freshman RB Sneezy Beltran got his first three carries of the year on the final Texas' possession, netting six yards. Game Quotes . . "We didn't play as well as we should have tonight. We got stopped at key times on all sides of the ball and didn't play together as well as Texas did. The Longhorns deserve a lot of credit for their effort." - Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach * * * * "These spread offenses are like the wishbone. If they know what you're doing and where you're going to line up, they'll get you. With that kind of offense, you've got to play around a little, give them a two-man rush, a three-man rush, just keep them guessing. We've got another offense like that coming up this week (Oklahoma). We can't just do the same things we did tonight. We'll have to come up with some new wrinkles." - Texas defensive coordinator Carl Reese * * * * "We ran for more than 200 yards and we passed for more than 200 yards. Chris (Simms) played extremely well. I think his best game is yet to come. He gets better each week. I think he's playing within himself." - UT offensive coordinator Greg Davis, talking about the offense in general and answering a question about whether this was Simms' best game * * * * "The line did a great job of blocking. We go out every Saturday and play the game like it's the national championship game. OU will be a great game and we're looking forward to the challenge." - Longhorn RB Ivan Williams, who had a career best 152 yards rushing * * * * "We showed them some things they hadn't seen before from us. It was a lot of fun.." - Texas' senior LB De'Andre Lewis * * * * "Roy (Williams) split the two safeties. They gave us the look we wanted. It was a great call by coach (Greg Davis). They gave us the middle of the field all night." - UT QB Chris Simms, talking about his 40-yard touchdown pass to Roy Williams and the Raider defense * * * * "It's not like getting an extra cornerback in there, but our linebackers are all pretty fast. It was a lot of fun getting to play most of the game. - UT freshman LB Derrick Johnson, who got his first start, talking about the 3-4 defense * * * * "They did what they needed to do, running and passing the football. We got a tail kicking." - Tech defensive coordinator Greg McMackin * * * * "We had opportunities, but we struggled in the red zone early. In the second half, the wheels just came off. I have to take my hat off to the Longhorns. They played a great game tonight." - Raider QB Kliff Kingsbury 900 Number Updated Daily I update my 900 number every day with football and football recruiting news. The number is 1-900-288-8839. It costs $1.59 a minute. You must be 18 or older to call. Coach's Corner Coach Mack Brown said Sunday a thorough study of Saturday night's game film by all of the Texas coaches showed "nearly everybody played well" for the Longhorns. He also said the team has improved since the beginning of the season and said it is important that it continue to improve. "We feel good about where we are," he said. "We'll know a lot more after Saturday because this will be by far the best team we have played." He was referring, of course, to the upcoming meeting in Dallas with Oklahoma. Brown said it was really important for the players to focus on the Texas Tech game last week. "We're really excited about the way the guys played," he said. "It was a tough game to play because so many people were already talking about the Oklahoma game." "We told our team last week the OU game wouldn't be nearly as important to us if we didn't beat Texas Tech, and Texas Tech is a good football team that we knew would come in here and play us hard." He said the Longhorns new 3-4 defense, with freshman LB Derrick Johnson replacing DT Maurice Gordon, worked great against Tech because "it gave us more speed." Against more run-oriented teams, he said the Longhorns' base defense will still be the 4-3. "We felt going into the kind of offenses we're going into (Tech and Oklahoma), we needed to change it up, play some zone, try to give the quarterback some indecision and keep the ball in front of us." "We've been using it since the spring, but we didn't feel like we needed it against Houston," Brown said. He also said the three starting linebackers, all seniors "have been playing the best since we've been here." He said Johnson "is just so talented that we needed to get him in there, and we can do that in a 3-4 with an extra linebacker." "We've been losing three games a year since we got here," Brown said. "In the games we lose, we've been giving up too many big plays, playing too much man for man." He said the use of some zone coverages in the secondary helps the defensive backs "keep the receivers in front of them, helps eliminate some of those big plays." Offensively, he said the Horns are much better this year than they were last year at this time. "Chris (Simms) has a lot more experience. The receivers have more experience," he said. "We're blocking better, we're running better. Last year we weren't able to run the ball consistently and we had one quarterback who was hurt some (Major Applewhite) and one who hadn't played much (Simms), and that really hurt us." He said Simms is playing much better than he did early last year and he said the emergence of TE Bo Scaife has helped the offense. Scaife was supposed to be a weapon last year, but suffered a season-ending knee injury during the pre-season drills. "My goal, and the assistant coaches' goal, is to make this team the best team it can be," he said. "We also want to continue to improve, to be a better team at the end of the year than we were at the beginning."
|