Message-ID: <2051553.1075857327890.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 04:50:00 -0700 (PDT) From: truorange@aol.com To: truorange@aol.com Subject: True Orange, September 18, 2000, Part 1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-From: TruOrange@aol.com X-To: TruOrange@aol.com X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Clint_Dean_Dec2000\Notes Folders\All documents X-Origin: Dean-C X-FileName: cdean.nsf Jerry Scarbrough's True Orange The Internet Newsletter For The True Texas Longhorn Faithful Volume 10, No. 23, September 18, 2000 Late, Great Rally Comes Up Short at Stanford; Texas Falls From No. 5 to No. 15 After Loss The Longhorns couldn't run, couldn't protect the quarterback, got a punt blocked for a Stanford touchdown, and still almost won the game against the defending Pac 10 champion Cardinals. But they didn't. Stanford won a 27-24 verdict with a late touchdown that negated a 15-point fourth-quarter Texas rally. Coach Mack Brown praised the Longhorns' fight, and they did fight, and he said the team can build on the loss because it showed the young players the= y have a chance to win tough games on the road. "We tried," he said. "This one was tough because of the mistakes we made. W= e came back and had a chance to win it with those two big fourth quarter drives. We just came up a little short." Brown said the team has to work hard to improve. He didn't single out the offensive line as a unit that needs to improve, but, while the receivers dropped some ball, the quarterbacks missed some open receivers and the defense bent more than it should, the one constant negative this year has been an inability to run the football. After playing two teams who are not very good at stopping the run, the Longhorns are last in the Big 12 and No. 112 of 114 Division I football tea= ms in average rushing yardage per game at 50. In two games, they have 100 net rushing yards. The Longhorns actually ran the ball better against Stanford than they did against a weak Louisiana-Lafayette team in their opening 52-10 win, but the Cardinal defenders had five sacks to cut into the net figure. I have been predicting a very good season, and Brown has been saying the te= am has some problems and must get better to accomplish its goals. He's right a= nd I'm wrong. Let's just hope he and his assistant coaches can work out the problems in the offense in time to let the team accomplish its goals. The victory gave Stanford, a 14-point underdog, a 2-1 record, while the Longhorns fell to 1-1. Here, briefly, is how the game went: FIRST QUARTER Stanford won the toss and took the ball. After an exchange of punts, Stanfo= rd drove to midfield, but backup DE Maurice Gordon sacked QB Randy Fasani and Fasani suffered an injured ankle and had to leave the game. He was replaced by sophomore Chris Lewis. A face-mask penalty on a bad Stanford punt negate= d that punt and gave Stanford a first down at the 47 and the Cardinal took advantage of that Longhorn miscue, scoring in four plays with Lewis hitting WR Luke Powell behind Quentin Jammer for the final 37 yards to put Stanford ahead, 6-0, with 6:06 left in the quarter. DE Cory Redding blocked the extr= a point. Ivan Williams ran the kickoff back to the 22. Texas drove to the Stanford 43 before stalling. Kris Stockton got off a great punt that kicked out of bounds at the Stanford 2. A fumbled snap pushed Stanford inside the = 2, then Redding and DT Casey Hampton led a surge that trapped FB Casey Moore i= n the end zone for a safety with 1:14 left, leaving Stanford on top, 6-2. Chr= is Simms came in at QB for Texas and the Horns were at midfield as the period ended. SECOND QUARTER Simms hit freshman WR Roy Williams down the middle for a 37-yard touchdown strike on the third play of the quarter. Williams broke an attempted tackle by CB Ryan Fernandez at the 21 and strolled in for the score. Stockton's ki= ck put Texas on top, 9-6, with 13:59 left. Applewhite relieved Simms midway through the period. Neither team threatened again until Stanford drove 67 yards, primarily on two big pass plays, to take a 13-9 left with 4:49 left. Neither team threatened again before intermission. THIRD QUARTER Texas got the ball first, but failed to make a first down and had to punt. = A horde of Stanford defenders poured through and blocked it and backup FB Emo= ry Brock covered it in the end zone for a touchdown, putting Stanford up, 20-9= , just one minute deep into the second half. The rest of the quarter was a defensive struggle, with each team making only one first down. FOURTH QUARTER Applewhite hit WR Montrell Flowers for 19 yards on the second play of the fourth quarter to revive the long dormant UT offense and get the Horns started on a drive that enabled them to get into Stanford territory for the first time in the second half, but a holding penalty and then a sack pushed the Horns back and killed the drive. With 9:39 left and Longhorn fans everywhere beginning to despair, Texas, starting from its own 29, got back = in the game on one huge play. Applewhite found freshman WR B. J. Johnson behin= d all the defenders and hit him for a 71-yard scoring strike. The Horns decid= ed to go for a 2-point conversion and, after a pass interference penaty put th= e ball on the 1, Mitchell went over the top to get the two-pointer and cut th= e Stanford lead to 20-17 with 9:29 left. The Texas defense, again forced Stanford to punt quickly. Mitchell returned the punt to the Texas 41. Applewhite hit TE Mike Jones for 25 yards to the Stanford 34, but, under a big blitz, he was intercepted at the Stanford 4 with 7:46 left. Stanford punted with 6:42 left, and Mitchell made a great punt return, dashing 48 yards to the Cardinal 18, but a holding penalty on the return pushed the Horns back to the 38. Backup TB Victor Ike was stopped for no gain and Applewhite threw an incomplete pass and to bring up third-and-10. Ike raced down the left sideline and caught Applewhite's long throw just behind a Stanford defender and sprinted in for the TD, putting Texas ahead, 24-20, with 5:44 left. Stanford got a good kickoff return to the Cardinal 46, but couldn't move and had to punt, giving Texas a chance to run the clock out with 5:44 left. A couple of first downs would have done it, but two false-start penalties left the Horns in a hole. They made 19 yards in three plays, but faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 29 and had to punt. Stanford, held in check throughout the second half by the Longhorn defense, started i= ts drive with 1:55 left. The Cardinal scored in five plays, with Lewis hitting WR DeRonnie Phipps for 30 yards to the Texas 29. The Longhorns were called for roughing the passer and a penalty to the 15 was tacked on. After an incompletion, Lewis found Pitts again and he barreled over for the winning = TD with 1:12 left. Texas had enough time to come back, but the Stanford defens= e, which already had three sacks, got two more in that final minute to finish off the Longhorns. Notes . . * The Longhorns haven't rushed for 100 net yards in their last five games. They are 1-4 in those games, with the lone victory being the season opener against Louisiana-Lafayette. * The Texas' defense allowed Stanford only one first down in the third quarter and only two in the fourth quarter, until the Cardinal's winning drive in the final two minutes. * Texas had 18 possessions. Three of them resulted in touchdown, two ended with pass interceptions, 12 ended with punts and the one at the end of the game ended on downs after Applewhite was sacked twice. * Texas' three touchdown plays accounted for 149 of the Longhorns 343 total net yards. It was a feast-or-famine kind of game for the UT offense, which only three other plays that gained more than 12 yards. 900 Number Updated Daily I update my 900 number daily with football and football recruiting scoops. The number is 1-900-288-8839. It costs $1.59 a minute. You must be 18 to ca= ll. Coach's Corner Coach Mack Brown was tired Sunday afternoon for his weekly post-game news conference. The team plane left Palo Alto at 3 a.m. Texas time and got back to Austin around 7 a.m. But he was fairly upbeat. "You always hate to lose," he said, "but if you have to lose, you ought to lose early. If you're going to lose, it ought to be out of conference." He said the only thing the lose really costs the Longhorns is a chance at going undefeated, "and we're not a national championship caliber team, in m= y opinion." He said the Horns can still accomplish a lot. "Look at Stanford last year," he said. "You never want to lose a game, but Stanford wins the Pac 10 last year after they leave here with an embarrassing loss." Brown said nothing went the Longhorns' way in Palo Alto. "It was a night th= at nothing worked for us, but the positive thing is that we still had a chance to win." No one asked him about his starting quarterback because he says he has two starters, but it appears Major Applewhite is back in the saddle. He started Saturday night and was the quarterback on 14 of UT's 18 possessions. Sophomore Phil Simms got the other four possessions. He can't comment on officiating without getting in trouble with the Big 12 office, but there were a lot of penalties against the Longhorns that came a= t crucial times, like the flagrant face-mask call that negated Stanford's pun= t on a fourth-and-25 and gave the Cardinal an automatic first down en route t= o their first touchdown. The Longhorns also had two false start penalties whe= n they were trying to run out the clock with a 24-20 lead. They gained 19 yar= ds on their three plays that stood up, but that left a yard short and they had to run.Then there was a roughing-the-passer penalty on Stanford's winning drive in the final two minutes. While Brown couldn't comment after the game, he had several animated discussions with the officials during the action. Without commenting on the officiating, he said, "They got a holding call on an incomplete pass on third down on one touchdown. The face mask penalty le= d to a score. There was a late hit call on the quarterback on their last (scoring) drive. Those things just abolutely kill because just about every one led to points for them." Brown said the Longhorns didn't use their shotgun formation with four wideouts more because "we weren't throwing the ball and catching it very well. That's something we would have done more if we had done better at it.= " "We didn't have a good night throwing the ball overall," he said. "We had some drops, we had some passes that missed and we had some young receivers who were playing on the road for the first time. Montrell Flowers was the g= uy who played the best among the wide receivers, and he's the most experienced= . It was a combination of errors on our passing game. We were just not smooth= ." Brown was asked about the team's performance in specific area that have caused problems in the past and have gotten special attention, like the offensive line and the special teams. He said, "After looking at the tape, the offensive line played better than = we thought. The blitzes were our big problem. It looked worse than it was. I feel like we've made some progress with our offensive line. We've got to ke= ep working on that. I think the special teams have improved a lot. We had some kickoff returns and Hodges (Mitchell) had the good punt return, but we had = a blocked punt for a touchdown. We had to punt a lot, but that blocked punt really bothers me. We can't have one, no matter how many times we have to punt. That's the part they have to focus on." He said Texas has to bounce back quickly from the long, tiring road trip, coupled with the loss. "Our guys are totally exhausted. We got back at 7 a.m. (Sunday). That's why we didn't go to Hawaii =01) because we knew it would be a hard game and a l= ong trip." "Our team played really hard. This was tough because we played so hard, but had too many mistakes. But our kids fought all the way. That's what we have to build on. We've got another game Saturday." "Houston is not going to care about our loss," he said. "It'll probably excite them. We can sit around and mope or we can get ready to play again. This was a little eye opener for us to get better and move forward." He said players and coaches can't get as up or down as fans because they kn= ow they have to get ready to play another game and can't dwell on a win or a loss until the season is over. "That's the least of my worries," he said. "They really tried. When you really try and you can come back on the road and have a chance to win, that= 's something that's a positive to build on." He said this game will help the team later on because it was a game the Hor= ns could have won on the road against a good team. "We just made too many mistakes," he said. "That's something we can correct= . If we had a team that didn't care, that it didn't both to lose, that's the worst thing that can happen to you as a coach, but that's not the problem." After the game Saturday night, Brown said most of the players were so upset they were crying. "We can build on this," he said. "We have a really young football team. We'= ll come back and get better. We can correct the mistakes." "We took a big step in these big games by just hanging in there and hanging in there. As long as they'll fight, you can coach them, and they fought all the way. It was mistakes that cost them, not their effort, and that can be fixed. We made three or four mistakes that probably cost us the game." Brown said the bottom line is "we're a young team and we will get better." INJURY UPDATE: Brown said safety Lee Jackson has a strained hamstring and linebacker Marcus Wilkins has a sore groin. He said those appeared to be th= e only injuries sustained in the Stanford game and both players are expected = to be back at practice by the middle of the week. It's a Great Time to Subscribe To The Fax/E-Mail Service I'll Have Frequent Reports on Recruiting And Practice Throughout the Season ! Get Instant Updates for Pennies a Day ! Save As An E-Mail Subscriber ! The True Orange Fax/E-Mail Service is the way to keep up with Longhorn football and Longhorn recruiting =01) instantly. Follow Mack Brown and the Longhorns with frequent fax updates. There are at least 99 timely faxes a year, primarily about football and football recruiting. To subscribe, sen= d your check to True Orange, Box 26530, Austin, Texas 78755, and copy or clip the coupon below and fill in the blanks. If you want it mailed, or by E-Mai= l, just include the right numbers. o I'm enclosing $99 for the 99-fax package for the next year o I'm enclosing $130 (a $14 saving) to renew my subscription to True Orange and to subscribe to the 99 faxes. o I'm enclosing $79 for the 99-fax package for the next year by E-Mail (a $= 20 saving) o Here's $110 to renew my subscription to True Orange and to subscribe to the 99 faxes by E-Mail (a $31 saving) o Here's $99 to subscribe to True Orange by E-Mail and to subscribe to the 99 faxes by E-Mail (a $42 saving) Name Fax No. (or E-Mail or mailing address) Game Quotes . . "We have a very young football team. There are four or five key games this year, and this was one of them. As long as they'll fight, you can coach the= m. We had a great effort and we played with a lot of heart. We can build on that." =01) UT head coach Mack Brown * * * * "You would like to have more success running the football, but when you don't, you have to be good enough to win with the passing game." =01) Longhorn offensive coordinator Greg Davis * * * * "We tried to battle them all night. We shut them down most of the time, but we just had too many penalties and mistakes. They have a good team, but we'= ll be okay. We'll fix the things that went wrong." =01) UT defensive tackle Shaun Rogers * * * * "We just have to keep fighting. A loss like this really hurts, but we have = to bounce back and win the rest of them." =01) Longhorn linebacker De'Andre Lewis * * * * "I won't know for sure what happened until we look at the tape. We got some confidence and some momentum in the fourth quarter, but we made too many mistakes early in the game. Stanford has a good team and we just made too many mistakes to win." =01) Texas quarterback Major Applewhite * * * * "When we give our quarterbacks time, they can complete passes, but we had some breakdowns tonight. We'll get better. We have to work to eliminate our mistakes and we can still have a great season if we can improve and elimina= te some of the mistakes." =01) UT tailback Hodges Mitchell * * * * "This was the biggest win we've had. Texas has a very good team and we were coming off a tough loss." =01) Stanford head coach Tyrone Willingham * * * * "You just have to go out and do it. We had to buckle down. It was now or never. There was no real pressure. It's what we practice every day. You jus= t have to execute and that's what we did." =01) Stanford quarterback Chris Lewis, who threw three touchdown passes in relief of injured starter Randy Fasani, on the game-winning drive * * * * "It's a great feeling. It's so much better than last week (a loss to San Jo= se State). I get to wipe that bad taste out of my mouth. It's also great to wi= n this one at home after what happened to us last year in Austin (a 69-17 loss). Texas has a very good team, so this was a big one to win for us." =01) Cardinal linebacker Riall Johnson Texas-Stanford Statistics Scoring Summary Texas 2 7 0 15 =01) 24 Stanford 6 7 7 7 =01) 27 Stan - Powell 37 pass from Lewis (kick blocked) 6:06 1Q (77 yds 12 plays) UT - safety 1:14 1Q UT - Williams 38 pass from Simms (Stockton kick) 13:59 2Q (64 yds,5 plays) Stan - Pitts 17 pass from Lewis (Biselli kick) 4:49 2Q (67 yds, 6 plays) Stan - Brock 22 blocked punt return (Biselli kick) 14:00 3Q UT - Johnson 71 pass from Applewhite (Mitchell run) 9:29 4Q (71yds, 1 play) UT - Ike 38 pass from Applewhite (Stockton kick) 5:44 4Q (38 yds, 3 plays) Stan - Pitts 15 pass from Lewis (Biselli kick) 1:P12 4Q (59 yds, 4 plays) Official Attendance: 43,970 Team Statistics Texas Stanford First Downs 16 18 Rushing 3 4 Passing 12 10 Penalty 1 4 Rushing Attempts, Net Yards 28-13 37-60 Net Yards Passing 330 255 Passes Comp., Att., Int. 21-46-2 15-37-0 Total Plays, Offense 74-343 74-315 Avg. Gain per Play 4.6 4.3 Fumbles Lost 0 of 0 0 of 2 Penalties, Yards 10-81 5-31 Punts, Avg. 12-32.2 11-40.5 Time of Possession 29:47 30:13 Third-Down Conversions 5 of 18 4 of 17 Fourth-Down Conversions 0 of 1 0 of 0 Sacks by Team, Yds Lost 1-15 5-36 Individual Statistics Texas Rushing - Mitchell 19-52; Ike 3-4; Johnson 1-minus 7; Applewhite 5-minus 3= 6. Passing - Applewhite 18-40, 274 yds, 2 TDs, 2 Int.; Simms 3-6, 56 yds, 1 T= D, 0 Int. Receiving - Flowers 6-74; Johnson 1-71, 1 TD; Ike 2-51, 1 TD; Williams 2-38= , 1 TD; M. Jones 3-36; Healy 2-31; Mitchell 5-29. Stanford Rushing - Carter 17-71; B. Allen 11-8; C. Moore 5-0; Lewis 3-minus 4; Fasa= ni 1-minus 15. Passing - Lewis 12-33 214 yds, 3 TDs, 0 Int.;Fasani 3-4, 41 yds, 0 TD, 0 In= t. Receiving - Stewart 3-82; Pitts 3-62, 2 TDs; Powell 2-52, 1 TD; Wells 3-20; C. Moore 2-20; McCullum 2-19. Tackles by Texas Players, Unasst., Asst., Total Jackson 6-1-7; Rawls 5-1-6; D. Lewis 3-3-6; Redding 2-4-6; Jammer 5-0-5; G. Brown 5-0-5; Hampton 3-2-5; Babers 3-2-5; Geiggar 1-2-3; Rogers 2-0-2; Gord= on 1-1-2; McClintock 0-2-2; Pittman 0-2-2; Ungar 1-0-1; T. Jones 1-0-1; Flower= s 1-0-1; Thornton 1-0-1; J. Anderson 0-1-1; Trissel 0-1-1; Pearson 0-1-1. Tackles for Losses: Redding 3-minus 6; Jackson 2-minus 5; Hampton 2-minus 4= ; Rogers 2-minus 3; D. Ldewis 1-minus 2. Sacks: Gordon 1-minus 15.