okay, i think that i have collected my thoughts...
first off, hats off to the Longhorns for a well fought, tough win... VY especially impressed me. i knew going in that he was an incredible talent, but the way he kept picking himself off the mat again and again was amazing... i thought i was going to fall over when he came back in after Carp and Whitner combined on him with around 4 minutes to go... instead, he threw the game winner... what a gamer!
second, i must commend the outstanding efforts of the Silver Bullets... they absorded what essentially was a knock-out punch early, but came back with an amazing performance...
while i am obviously disappointed with the final score, i will not lose any sleep over this loss... we didn't make the plays when we needed them, and the Horns did. congrats...
some observations: VY can flat-out fucking throw the ball... yes, he made a couple poor descisions, but with Hawk, Carp, and Schlegs hounding him like they did, it's no wonder... what i found most impressive was how stone cold COOL he is... there is NO panic in the guy, which i think is the reason that the Horns won... i don't give Mack Brown the credit for the win - i give it all to VY...
i think that Texas' WRs are better than advertised, though they might have benefitted from a D designed to stop VY, and which didn't place as much emphasis on that group... for one thing, Youboty got burned a couple times, and i didn't see that happen last year, including against Braylon in The Game...
the Horns secondary was pretty good, though i don't think we really learned
that much about them... our O-line did not give Troy or Justin the time to really test them deep...
the Horns' young RBs now realize that college ball is not 'just like high school,' though Charles seems to be legit... did Ramonce Taylor have ANY touches?
as for the Buckeyes, Pittman had a nice game, but CLEARLY ran out of gas... where were the other RBs?
the O-line did a pretty good job, but i think the reason we didn't see many deep throws was that Texas D-line wasn't giving the Buckeye QBs the five seconds it takes to throw the long ball... which brings me to:
overall, we left a lot of points out there on the field tonight... some of it was scheme, some of it was execution, and some of it was the guys wearing white... i have a few questions though... where was the quick slant and the bubble screen? it seemed to me that after a couple early drops, Tressel never went back to them... those plays could have helped... where was Schnittker? when your are trying to pound the ball and burn clock, what kind of sense does it make to totally forget about the guy whom you annointed as your big, pound-it-out type back? i think maybe Tressel tried to get a little too cute at a couple times early, and then when they didn't work, he was afraid to pull the trigger later; though, once again, the lack of execution most likely was a major influence on those descisions...
all in all, it was a great game, and we came about two yards short... 'a game of inches is' is damn right... no loss on 2nd down there towards the end, and HUUUU's 6th field goal is good... however, with a little better execution by the O, we aren't relying on 50 yard game winners... we HAVE to score more points...
do Bollman and Tressel talk to each other? what does Bollman do? someone should have been whispering in Tressel's ear about the screen plays from the shot-Ginn... they were non-existant... and the yards were there.
TG2 is pressing, and it shows... call it sophomore slump or whatever, but he needs to relax, let the game come to him, and stop trying to score on every play... first you have to MAKE THE CATCH, Teddy... then you can do your thing... don't get me wrong, i LOVE this kid, but Santonio needs to help keep TG2's head in the game...
i'm not going to get into the Qb issue... both made some good plays, both made some mistakes... whatever... i just don't want to see Jackson/Germaine all over again
finally, i think we learned a lot about Texas tonight, but we learned even more about the Buckeyes... this game will only make the team better...
all right, enough rambling... let me know what you guys think...