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Fall camp updates from Texas' opponents

On3 imageby: Ian Boyd08/10/23Ian_A_Boyd
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Texas vs Alabama (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

As Steve Sarkisian is always eager to note whenever asked about the SEC or realignment, Texas is still in the Big 12 in 2023 and playing for a Big 12 Championship.

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They’ll be one of 14 teams (I think, losing count now) competing for the Big 12 Championship trophy this coming season. Some of those teams are going to be pretty good, including a few on the schedule. There’s also that highly touted team in Tuscaloosa who’s preparing to host the Longhorns in Week 2 of the season. I’ve collected some information on how fall camp is progressing for a few teams on Texas’ schedule for 2023.

Back to traditional Bama offense

Halfway through the 2017 National Championship Game, Nick Saban pulled his starting quarterback and changed the nature of Crimson Tide football for several years.

The spread-option game with Jalen Hurts just wasn’t cutting it against Georgia’s defense, and had barely cut it against Pete Kwiatkowski‘s Washington Husky defense in the previous round of the playoffs. So Saban sent in five-star freshman Tua Tagovailoa, who brought the additional threat of the quarterback pulling the ball on Bama’s running plays in order to throw down the field. Georgia was caught and the Tide erased a deficit and won the championship.

From then through last year they had a parade of 4,000 yard passers every year up until recently.

YearQuarterback(s)Production
2017Jalen Hurts255 attempts for 2,081 yards, 8.2 ypa, 17 TDs, 1 INT
2018Tua Tagovailoa355 attempts for 3,966 yards, 11.2 ypa, 43 TDs, 6 INT
2019Tua Tagovailoa/Mac Jones392 attempts for 4,343 yards, 11.1 ypa, 47 TDs, 6 INT
2020Mac Jones402 attempts for 4,500 yards, 11.2 ypa, 41 TDs, 4 INT
2021Bryce Young547 attempts for 4,872 yards, 8.9 ypa, 47 TDs, 7 INT
2022Bryce Young380 attempts for 3,328 yards, 8.8 ypa, 32 TDs, 5 INT

In 2022 their receiver room went over a cliff (unless you count Jahmyr Gibbs, as the Detroit Lions apparently do) and Bryce Young‘s production dropped with it. For 2023 the receiver room doesn’t look miles better and the quarterback room may follow it over the ledge.

There’s a few things which stand out from those practice clips of Bama’s signal-callers. One is that their O-line is really up against it trying to protect their quarterbacks against the D-line.

That might be true for everyone they play as well, Alabama’s D-line is loaded for this coming season despite losing Will Anderson. There’s also a 7-on-7 portion to the clips above though which speak truth to the reality of the Alabama quarterback room.

The truth won’t shock anyone, it’s that they don’t have a Tagovailoa, Mac Jones, or Bryce Young this season. Ty Simpson may be the most talented natural passer but he doesn’t get through progressions very quickly or on time yet. Jalen Milroe will probably always struggle to be a rhythm passer when pulling the escape hatch and taking off is such an appealing option for him. Tyler Buchner appears to be both the most comfortable of the three and yet also the least talented.

Between that, the iffy receiver room, and a somewhat iffy pass protecting O-line (who are generating a bunch of quotes about how they’re gonna run teams over and make them quit), I think it’s safe to say the Crimson Tide are going to be much more run game oriented this coming season than we’ve seen since Saban invited Lane Kiffin into the program, something that eventually led to Brian Daboll‘s promotion of Tagovailoa in the title game.

This bodes well for Texas as defending an elite passing attack is much more difficult than defending a great, power run game. On the other hand, Texas has some run defense questions and the Tide do have great run game personnel.

I can tell you several weeks out that this game will involve an awful lot of run blitzing from Texas and a gameplan oriented around trying to score and hoping the Tide can’t match points simply running the ball.

Iowa State’s offseason swerve

Months of rumors were confirmed when Hunter Dekker’s lawyer released a statement regarding the quarterback being charged with betting on sports, including Iowa State games, and obfuscating his crime.

Suffice to say, he won’t be playing for the Cyclones this fall.

Tough break for Iowa State, who otherwise was hoping to field a team which could once again deploy dangerous receiving tight ends (DeShawn Hanika and Easton Dean) along with a retooled receiver room with returning starter Jaylin Noel and transfer Jayden Higgins. It’s a team built to win by throwing the ball a lot and now they’ll have to do so without the presumptive starting quarterback.

Their back-up options include redshirt freshman Rocco Becht (rated 87.31 out of central Florida) and early enrollee freshman J.J. Kohl (rated 92.89 out of Iowa). Becht got into the TCU game last year after Dekkers was taken out with injury and was respectable but doesn’t bring any game-changing attributes. Kohl is 6-foot-7, 240 pounds and pretty nimble with an arm that many consider to be NFL caliber.

He was probably already the most talented quarterback on the roster and the reasons not to take some lumps and just start him as a true freshman are diminishing rapidly with Dekkers out of the picture. From what I’ve seen, in addition to being very toolsy he’s also much more advanced than you might expect.

Certainly by the time Texas travels to Ames, expect to see the big true freshman behind center for the Cyclones.

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Oklahoma’s path to recovery

There’s quite a bit to parse from Oklahoma’s fall camp, where reports are generally rosy and optimistic but include some telling nuggets for Texas observers who are accustomed to reading tea leaves around a program struggling to rebound.

The trap for a school like Oklahoma or Texas, once they fall down on their backs, is to believe that the fix must surely be quick because of the superior recruiting relative to their Big 12 opponents. The arguments I’ve heard for why the Sooners should rebound with a 9-10 win season in 2023 always seem to start with, “well the schedule…”

But while Big 12 teams aren’t great, they are good. Navigating a nine-game conference slate (or SMU for that matter) without any slip-ups in games where you theoretically have the stronger squad is immensely difficult. Especially if many of your most talented players are underclassmen who don’t know how to win tough games against seasoned upperclassmen.

The Sooners’ challenge in 2023 is three-fold. First, they’re trying to improve, or at least tread water, on offense despite losing both tackles, the tight end, the running back, and the far and away top receiver to the NFL Draft. I think the prognosis here is poor although they may tread water due to Jeff Lebby‘s scheme so long as Dillon Gabriel can stay healthy. Wide receiver is a massive concern as their top players at the position can be described thusly:

Jalil Farooq: His receivers coach compared him to Percy Harvin in fall camp and I’m not entirely sure it was a massive compliment so much as a nod to the fact he’s often most effective when receiving the ball on sweeps and runs.

Drake Stoops: A stout, physical slot at 5-foot-10, 189 pounds who routinely gets called into the box to lead block. The former walk-on and son of Bob is like a diminutive flex fullback at times with good hands. Probably an underrated player but also not a natural fit for the Veer and Shoot offense where deep choice routes are the preferred skill.

Gavin Freeman: Another former walk-on checking in at 5-foot-8, 173 pounder with some Wes Welker level quickness and speed who happens to hail from the same high school. He could probably surprise, the only trick is he does his best work off the ball as a slot… same as everyone else I’ve listed.

Texas fans can probably easily recall the struggles that occur when your team’s skill talent is exclusively comprised of players who are dangerous IF they can operate off the line of scrimmage in order to move around and avoid press coverage.

The next problem for Oklahoma is a defensive front which was mauled in 2022, went into spring with optimism, then came out of spring and offered every linebacker or defensive tackle they could find to join the ranks for fall camp.

Finally, recruiting. The Sooners are still hoping to erase the issues at defensive tackle with some big splash wins after coming up empty in the 2023 cycle. Their main targets are David Stone, Williams Nwaneri, and Dominick McKinley. The challenge? Everyone wants guys like that and it’s hard to get momentum rolling without first establishing some proof of concept. Last time Brent Venables was part of a rebuild in Norman they inherited enough back seven defenders to play good ball, won the 2000 National Championship, and then signed 5-star tackle Tommie Harris. It was off to the races from there.

If they can’t sign at least one of those three above (Stone is likely), it’s going to be hard to see a path ahead for the current plan for an Oklahoma recovery.

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