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How about a replacement for Greg ing Davis?
Someone needs to loosen the burnt orange purse strings and bring Major home.
Texas defensive coordinator on thin ice after frustrating season
12:40 AM CST on Monday, December 24, 2007
By CHIP BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
AUSTIN – Texas coach Mack Brown was asked if co-defensive coordinator Duane Akina would be back calling plays next season.
The answer wasn't exactly an endorsement.
"What we'll do is – you constantly look at what you can do to re-evaluate and upgrade your program," Brown said.
The Texas coach in his 10th year went on to say he'll evaluate all of his coaches after Thursday's game against Arizona State in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl.
Brown said he spent the last two weeks looking back over a season plagued by inconsistency, adding, "I've probably worked harder the last two weeks than I have my entire life."
It was a season that saw Texas need to recover onside kicks in the final minutes to secure victories against Arkansas State, Central Florida and Nebraska. Texas suffered the worst home loss in Brown's tenure in a 41-21 shocker against Kansas State, which finished 5-7. UT trailed TCU, 10-0, at halftime at home before winning, 34-13, and led only 17-10 at Baylor midway through the fourth quarter. There were also losses to rivals Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
Leadership concerns
Talent wasn't the issue, Brown said.
"People have talked about this team maybe not being as talented as the last two," Brown said. "This team was talented enough to win each week. Maybe they weren't as talented as all those guys in the NFL. Still doesn't matter. They were as talented as the guys we were playing against."
Brown said when a team doesn't play up to its talent, it's the coaches' fault.
"When we lose a game, I question my leadership, the staff's and then the players," Brown said. "And I question the players last because we're supposed to recruit and develop leaders. So any lack of leadership is on us."
Brown took a chance on promoting Akina to defensive play caller. He did it, in part, to stabilize the position after having Carl Reese, Greg Robinson and Gene Chizik all call plays on defense in a four-year span.
Outside of last year's 26-24 Alamo Bowl victory against Iowa, Akina had never called plays on defense before this year. His only play-calling experience was as offensive coordinator at Arizona from 1992-95.
Brown also trusted Akina's recommendation to hire Larry Mac Duff as co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach before the season. Mac Duff worked as defensive coordinator at Arizona under Tomey from 1987-96. Mac Duff and Akina, both of whom earned $300,000 this season, worked together at Arizona in 1996, with Mac Duff calling plays on defense and Akina serving as defensive backs coach.
Age gap
But whether it was subs ution patterns that called for older players to start and younger players to rotate in or inability to make adjustments, the defense has given up a school-record 4,498 yards, including a school-record 3,306passing yards.
UT never generated a pass rush, posting 25 sacks, among the lowest in the country, and experienced one missed tackle after another.
"When we looked back at the regular season, we felt like we didn't have that great team chemistry like we had on our past teams," said junior defensive end Brian Orakpo. "The thing I noticed was the older guys not relating to the younger guys and not coming together as one.
"The older guys probably wanted to do too much or the younger guys wanted to do too much. That doesn't work in our defense when you have to be gap sound and do your assignment and trust the teammates on the field with you."
Much was made of the coaching staff's decision to start veteran linebackers Scott Derry, Rashad Bobino and Robert Killebrew, rather than start sop res Rod Muckelroy, Jared Norton and Sergio Kindle of Woodrow Wilson.
At midseason, Akina made an impassioned case for continuing to start the veteran linebackers even though the younger players were making some big plays and appeared to have more athletic talent despite their inexperience.
"The older ones have spilled a lot of blood for this program. And I'm one that maybe believes they should still be playing," Akina said. "There's nothing on tape that says they should not. And yet the younger ones are playing well, too, and there's nothing on tape that says they should not be playing, either. That's why you see them rolling in and out."
And while most will look to the secondary for the reason Texas has given up so many pass yards, very few have been deep passes. Most of the damage has been done with catch-and-run plays at the linebacker level.
Breaking point
Brown said his patience expired after a 38-30 loss at A&M.
"A&M was unacceptable because they came out and did something totally different than they did all year and we didn't handle it well," Brown said.
Asked after the A&M game how his defense performed this season, Akina said, "I thought it was inconsistent. The inconsistency has probably been the biggest thing with our team this year and for sure our defense."
Akina couldn't explain why his players couldn't stop Oklahoma State for two and a half quarters, then completely shut down the Cowboys over the final quarter and a half in a come-from-behind victory.
"I wish I could say the calls changed," Akina said. "But the execution was just better."
Defensive tackle Frank Okam of Lake Highlands said watching film of the defense against TCU, when UT gave up just 251 yards, compared to giving up 533 against A&M, "was like watching two different defenses."
Brown could ask Akina to stay on as co-defensive coordinator, give up play-calling and go back to coaching the secondary, where Akina has turned out six current NFL players, including two Thorpe Award winners (Michael Huff and Aaron Ross). Akina has turned down jobs coaching defensive backs in the NFL with Baltimore, Cleveland and St. Louis since he's been at Texas.
If Brown demoted Akina, Brown might be inclined to let go of Mac Duff, who has the least history with the Texas program, and bring in someone else to call plays.
For now, Brown is not saying what he'll do. But Brown made a call to arms with his team's bowl practices – more hitting, 6 a.m. workouts and punishment served by the entire team for individual mistakes. It's clear he expects to see a lot of improvement on Thursday.
GIVING GROUND
While Texas is ranked 10th nationally in run defense (99.3 ypg), the Longhorns are giving ground in several other areas this season.
Here's a look:
Total yards allowed, 4,498 - Most in school history
Yards allowed per game, 374.8 - Most since 1997 (399.2)
Yards allowed per play, 5.2 - Most since 1998 (5.3)
Passing yards allowed, 3,306 - Most in school history
Passing yards per game, 275.5 - Most in school history
Turnovers forced, 22 - Fewest since 1998 (21)
First downs allowed, 249 - Most since 1996 (250)
Points per game allowed, 24.6 - Most since 1998 (29.6)
Pacific Life Holiday Bowl:
No. 17 Texas (9-3) vs. No. 12 Arizona State (10-2)
7 p.m. Thursday, San Diego (ESPN)
How about a replacement for Greg ing Davis?
Someone needs to loosen the burnt orange purse strings and bring Major home.
having akina stay on as coordinator would be unacceptable.
What's crazy is that UT still outgained their opponents by a thousand yards for the season (5544 on offense) with passing an issue on both sides of the ball. McCoy threw 18 picks (tied with the Baylor kid for most in the B12) and was sacked 22 times (most in B12).
Amen. Just get this game on thursday over and start looking for coordinators on both sides of the ball.
Exactly. Win or no win. He has to go.
akina must go. there is no discussion. that quote from mack is equally harsh as any other human saying his family and may they all burn their genitals off in a vat of acid.
I think it is unfair to talk as if the problems with the UT Football team are all due to Akina. This team has many many deep problems.
It's not Akina's fault for the preseason arrests
the preseason and in-season injuries
Colt's arm strength being exposed as equivalent to a rating of 77 on NCAA
Colt being so scared of getting hit his overall play sucked
Offensive Line ineffectiveness
Entering yet another season with no viable second option at QB and not giving your young QB's enough PT to learn
all of these are bigger reason our season sucked than the defense alone. Don't get me wrong. I think our defense sucked incredibly hardcore. But it was still good enough to put us in a winning position in every single game. We had no business losing to a team like A&M. We made them look like football gods while their overall season performance indicates they are a complete underacheiving team.
If we protect our QB, make some good drives, we don't lose to KState or Aggg.
I don't know what it is but his awareness and injury rating would be like 40 or 44
...i don't know what it is.
ASU 500
t.u. 3
Well, ASU has given up something like 40 sacks this year, so it would be even more pathetic if the Texas D got 0... and an instant firing would be in order.
You play a cupcake OOC schedule. Your rushing stats might be a little ed.
You're definitely right. I think it was poor coaching across the board coupled with a lax at ude from Mack all season long. Hopefully he realized it and the 6am workouts, increased hitting, and overall more intense at ude the article attributes to him are a sign of that for the future. Mack's not going anywhere, so the first thing that needs to happen is replacing Akina, McDuff, and definitely Davis. That's the start that is needed.
What big time program doesn't?
Auburn, Missouri, USC, OU at least scheduled an annual powerhouse in Miami eventhough Miami sucked, Colorado.
Auburn scheduled Tennessee Tech and NM State. Mizzou played Western Michigan and Illinois State (not to be confused with Illinois, who they also played). USC opened with Idaho. OU played UNT and Utah State.
I'm certainly not bragging about Texas beating the CUSA champ (UCF) in their house as opposed to SC going to 5-7 Nebraska. It's not like either program put this schedule together the week before the season started. For instance, there was a news story right before the Arkansas State game that UT and Ole Miss scheduled a home-and-home...starting in 2012. That's five seasons (including '07) in advance.
I would shred your comment but j6 did a good job of it already. Every major program plays cupcakes because they all have big time games in conference that are very mentally and emotionally draining.
one could look at the game logs and see that the big rushing games were conference games
now that scott derry, killebrew and marcus griffin are gone, the dc next year is going to look like venebels
J6 lust mentioned the facts that suited his argument, but left out the others that neglect his argument.
Auburn- played a dangerous K state and S Florida at the begining. Don't know why J6 would leave that out.
Colorado- and up and coming traditionaly a top 25 program always has one of the toughest schedules in the nation. Arizona St, and Florida St was an 07 OOC feature.
Virginia Tech- Played LSU.
Oregon - played Michigan.
Tenessee- played Califas.
Even looking at the aggies, they played the best two teams of the north and UT managed to not play both Missouri and Kansas.
UT could theoretically have a 7-5 season had they had the aggies scheduling.
All teams do play cupcakes, but they're out of conference schedule usually pulls in atleast one to two decent-good BCS conference opponent. Playing non bcs conference cupcakes is UT's thing.
Nebraska and Tech... LOllerz!!!
Did you even read his posts? Schedules are set a few years in advance, and nobody can say they saw Kansas and Missou as power teams back when the schedule set. Some could say those teams lucked out by not getting Texas. Also, Texas just got done with a home/home with Ohio St. and have scheduled others for the future. This year it was TCU, who had a down year but had been a big time program for the past few years, and was big time when the game was set.
Show me one national power team that didnt play a cupcake this year.
Does that say "TEXAS SWCKS" when you're not sucking in your gut?
Fight ON!!!
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