Maybe we should call it The Curse Of 2007.
Shortly after the Longhorns had wrapped up their 2007 season with a resounding beatdown of Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl, Junior RB Jamaal Charles and Sophomore TE Jermichael Finley each declared early for the NFL Draft. They took with them a good chunk of the 2007 offense’s punch. Now, eight years later, Texas is still trying to replace them.
As with each new season, hope springs eternal. But is this really the year Texas plugs the holes at two key offensive positions? Let’s take a look.
Running Back
Jamaal Charles 2007: 258 carries for 1,619 yards, 18 touchdowns and 6.3 ypc.
Charles’ 2007 was made all the more impressive considering that he did most of his damage in the last half of the season after an unspectacular start. Since then, Texas has used a ton bodies at the position, but none have come anywhere near what Charles brought to the table.
Part of the problem has been Texas’ running back by committee approach. Only once since then has a Texas RB surpassed 200 carries, that was Malcolm Brown in 2013. Malcolm was also the last Texas back to seriously threaten the 1,000 mark, topping out at 904 yards that year. Brown came to Texas in 2011 after three years of largely unspectacular play in the running game. How unspectacular? Quarterbacks were either the leading rusher (Colt McCoy 2008) or second leading rusher (Colt ’09, Garrett Gilbert ’10) each year.
Brown was heralded as the stud that would reestablish Texas’ running back traditional. He turned out to be more of a workhorse than a big play guy. That role was supposed to be filled by Jonathan Gray when he arrived in 2012. Gray was well on his way to breaking that 1000 yard mark in 2013 before an Achilles injury derailed his season.
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Brown, Gray and the departed Joe Bergeron actually made a fine committee in 2011-2013, but what Texas really hasn’t replaced since Charles’ departure is his explosiveness. Look at the last two numbers in Charles’ 2007 stat line: 18 touchdowns and 6.3 yards per carry. No Texas back, not Brown or Gray, Bergeron or Whitaker or Newton came close to those numbers. The best yards per carry averages since belong to Bergeron (6.4 in 2011) and Vondrell McGee (7.3 in 2008). However, both of those backs failed to log 100 carries in those years.
Bergeron and Cody Johnson are the only backs to score double digit touchdowns, Johnson as a short yardage specialist in 2011 and Bergeron as the thunder to Gray’s lightning in 2012.
The great hope for 2015 is the Gray finally blossoms into the homerun threat everyone though he would be. It seems like each year brings the hope that some often-injured, under-utilized senior will finally fulfill all that unrealized potential. Gray is this year’s version.
Most of the hopes that Gray will emerge this year stem from his monster game against West Virginia in November. However, Gray largely disappeared after that, carrying 34 times for 90 yards and one touchdown in the last three games of the season.
If Gray doesn’t breakthrough, the only returning back with any experience is D’Onta Foreman, who has taken the Jalen Overstreet role as the guy who is really promising because “he looked really good in the fourth quarter of that one game.” Foreman is a power back with surprising burst who could be a punishing between the tackles runner but it is hard to hang too much hope on a guy who only carried the ball 15 times last year.
After that, you have redshirt freshman Duke Catalon, who earned rave reviews in fall camp before an injury shut him down. Catalon is the favorite to win the third down back role in a competition with true freshman Tristian Houston. Both are shifty change of pace backs with good hands. However, neither appear to be the every down back Texas really needs.
The real hope, the Next Great Texas Back, is Chris Warren III. He has all the tools, the genes and the looks of a can’t miss running back. He was one of the “must get” recruits for Charlie Strong and his staff. However, the last two Next Great Texas Backs didn’t turn out to be great at all, so we should probably tap the breaks on unrealistic expectations. If recent history is any indication, Warren will get his chance to shine in 2015. Hopefully, he’ll take advantage.
Tight Ends
Geoff Swaim’s blocking will be missed but he was a non-factor in the Texas passing game. Mandatory Credit: Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports
Jermichael Finley 2007 line: 45 catches for 575 yards for a 12.8 ypc and 2 touchdowns
The tight end has been a blackhole for Texas since 2007. Remember David Thomas’ monster Rose Bowl in 2006 when he caught 10 passes for 88 yards? There have been entire years where Texas tight ends failed to replicate those numbers.
Blaine Irby was supposed to be the next in a line of fantastic tight ends stretching back to All-American Pat Fitzgerald in the 90s. However, a nasty knee injury ruined those hopes in 2008. In Irby’s absence, Peter Ullman and Greg Smith combined to catch 5 passes for 14 yards.
When Barrett Matthews arrived in 2010 he was supposed to be that guy. He got off to a promising start, catching 10 passes that year, then dropped off the face of the earth, finishing his Texas career as a blocking specialist. The most accomplished tight end since Finley was D.J. Grant, who posted back to back years of double digit catches in 2011 and 2012 with five touchdowns. However, Grant was more of a big, slow possession receiver who was an iffy blocker and didn’t really keep opposing defensive coordinators up at night.
Texas has been so desperate to find reliable tight ends that they have experimented with defensive players at the position. Three times. Greg Daniels was a big body who tried hard, but other than catching the Wishbone Pass against Iowa State in 2012, made no real impact.
Geoff Swaim will be greatly missed this season, but not because of his pass catching ability. Swaim caught passes as regularly as Ryan Reynolds makes good movies: rarely. However, he was like a sixth offensive lineman and an indispensable piece of the Longhorn running game, inconsistent as it was.
This was supposed to be M.J. McFarland’s chance to shine, but he chose to leave the program, returning home to UTEP before being dismissed by the Miners for disciplinary reasons. McFarland was another guy that seemed to have the tools but couldn’t keep his head in the game and his tail out of the doghouse long enough to make an impact.
Texas Longhorns
Texas returns a whopping one catch for 23 yards from their tight ends this year, and that one catch comes with an asterisk as it belongs to fullback/tight end Alex De La Torre. DLT, a converted linebacker out of high school, has been a body at FB who can sometimes hold his own against smallish linebackers or defensive backs but gives little reason to believe that he can ever become a servicable in-line blocker and is zero threat in the passing game.
Former linebacker Andrew Beck made the switch last year and hopefully with a year of grooming he can develop into a legitimate tight end. Shawn Watson fell in love with his hands but most Texas fans probably remember him for dropping a perfectly thrown wheel route from Tyrone Swoopes against Texas Tech.
Then there is redshirt junior Blake Whiteley. Whiteley was the #1 Junior College tight end when he signed last year and has the always enticing elixir known in football circles as “upside”. However, he has relatively little experience as a tight end and did nothing of note in the Spring Game.
In an effort to increase depth, the coaching staff has shifted redshirt freshman Garrett Gray to tight end. Gray has the height, at 6’4″, and the hands, but currently is light for a tight end and will likely need at least another year of strength and conditioning before he could be counted on to make an impact.
One of the big scores of the 2015 recruiting class was Florida tight end Devonaire Clarington. Part of the Famed Florida Five, some hailed Clarington as the second coming of Jermichael Finley. However, eligibility problems have put Clarington’s status in jeopardy and one has to wonder if the move of Gray to tight end is a sign that the coaching staff is moving on without him.
Then there is ultra-stud athlete DeAndre McNeal. Recruitniks have been salivating over McNeal. Some have even speculated that he could be a better all-around athlete than high school teammate Malik Jefferson. I’ve read many experts drooling over how Texas could use McNeal in a multi-purpose role. They see him as a devastating lead blocking H-back one play and then a seam busting TE on the next.
I’m intrigued by the scouting reports on McNeal and the speculation regarding his uses is entertaining, but color me skeptical on this one for now. For one thing, imaginative use of superior athletes to get them the ball in space so that they can exploit their abilities against overmatched defenders isn’t exactly a strong suit of our current offensive braintrust. Or the one before that. Or that one before that. Or…
Much as is it with the running backs, there are some guys with talent on the roster. The question is when, or even if, one of those guys can stay healthy and actually develop into a big time player at this level, or if the Longhorn will have to continue searching high and low for someone who can.