As noted in this earlier post and several previous posts, football is synonomous with autumn in Texas and, each year, there always seems to be one play that stands out among all the rest from the season.
This season, there really is no question about the play of the year, but it’s not for the faint of stomach. During a key part of the 4th quarter in the state 5A D-1 championship game between Southlake Carroll and Austin Westlake, Southlake Carroll QB Riley Dodge barks out the signals, vomits immediately before taking the snap, proceeds to throw a perfect TD pass to put Southlake ahead for good in the game, and then is helped off the field by a couple of his teammates as he vomits again on his way to the sideline.
Through the genius of YouTube, you can now enjoy — or at least admire — QB Dodge’s effort.

Dave Berri over at the Wages of Wins blog has posted his final ratings for NFL quarterbacks for the 2006 season (related blog post here). The final rating is further confirmation that the David Carr saga is over in Houston.
As noted earlier here, here and here, Berri’s QB rating is a much more accurate measure of a QB’s true value than the misleading QB rating that the NFL uses (incredibly, the formula for the NFL rating system not only is complicated and unclear, it also ignores sacks, yards lost from sacks, rushing yards, rushing attempts, and fumbles!). Carr finished the season ranked 28th among the 32 starting NFL QB’s (he ranked 15th in the NFL’s official rating), higher only than such luminaries as Joey Harrington, Charlie Frye, Bruce Gradkowski and Andrew Walter. Suffice it to say that Texans coach Gary Kubiak — who had nothing to do with the decision to use the Texans’ first draft choice in history to acquire Carr — will not likely elect to continue hitching his coaching legacy to the wagon of such high-priced mediocrity at the QB position.
Carr is a nice fellow, so it’s too bad that it didn’t work out for him in Houston. The team certainly didn’t do him any favors, what with a chronically make-shift offensive line and several failed forays at acquiring a true left tackle to protect Carr’s backside. And it’s important to remember that player statistics tracked in football are not the same as statistics tracked in baseball. In baseball, many of the hitting statistics that are tracked reflect the ability of the individual. In football, however, this is not precisely the case. The stats that a quarterback accumulates are a reflection of not only his ability, but also the ability of his teammates, his coaches and the defensive players that the quarterback faces. Consequently, it’s not always the case that even Berri’s QB rating shows that one player is “better” than another player.
But after five seasons, Carr’s numerous technical deficiencies — poor reading skills, a low release point that causes many tipped balls at the line of scrimmage, poor pocket presence, mediocre leadership skills, inability to handle the shotgun formation, etc. — are simply too numerous to overlook. His abysmal QB rating simply confirms that he is unlikely to improve to even an average level of NFL quarterback. At this point, backup Sage Rosenfels is a far better bet than Carr to achieve a better-than-average QB rating in the 2007 season.
By the way, for the fourth consecutive year the top quarterback in the NFL is Peyton Manning, who achieved a QB score over 2,000 under Berri’s rating system, only the fourth time that a QB has attained that level since 1995. In watching Manning in his prime, we are witnessing one of the truly great NFL QB’s in history.

Although I have long had my doubts that Texans’ QB David Carr is a top flight NFL quarterback, I must concede that the deficiencies in the Texans’ offensive line have really not given him a fair chance to develop his skills here. Along those same lines, the Colts’ masterful QB, Peyton Manning, is often unfairly criticized for not being among the top NFL QB’s of all time because his team has never qualified for the Super Bowl.
As Allen Barra explains in this lucid OpinionJournal op-ed, Manning truly is one of the NFL’s all-time best QB’s regardless of whether his team’s limitations in other areas have prevented him from playing in a Super Bowl. Meanwhile, in another OpinionJournal piece on a Colts quarterback, Geoffrey Norman reviews Tom Callahan’s biography of legendary Colts QB, Johnny Unitas, in the appropriately named Johnny U (Crown 2006). Just to give you an idea on how much the nature of the NFL has changed over the past 60 years, Norman reminds us of an anecdote that Callahan passes along about Unitas:

[W]hen [Unitas’] teammate [and star running back] Alan Ameche and his wife bought their first house for $8,000, it was former construction worker Unitas who laid the floor.

Texans 14 Browns 6

Despite having no effective passing game, the Texans (6-10) rode a strong second half rushing performance from rookie RB Chris Taylor and another spunky defensive effort to beat the Browns and fulfill my pre-season prediction that the team would win six games. Although two straight wins with strong defensive performances to close out the season must be gratifying to Texans owner Bob McNair, this remains a team that has multiple problems to address in the off-season — generally poor pass blocking, QB David Carr, a need for a big-time running back, depth on defense, etc. The Texans will pick eighth in the first round of the upcoming NFL draft and then will rotate with the two other 6-10 teams (the Dolphins and Vikings) for the 7th, 8th and 9th slots for the remaining rounds of the draft.
Although the Texans remain far from contending for a playoff spot, they did finish 6-10 after a horrendous 0-3 start, going 6-7 over their final 13 games and 2-2 in their last four. They won their last game for the first time and won back-to-back games for only the second time in franchise history (the other time was in late December 2004). They did all this without a top notch QB or RB, three starters lost to injury in the offensive line, two starting defensive tackles lost to injury, Pro Bowl kick returner Jerome Mathis contributing for only two games and former star RB Domanick Davis not playing a lick. As Andy Dufresne says in The Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a great thing, maybe the best of things.”

Texas Longhorns 26 Iowa 24

The Longhorns (10-3) avoided another major embarrassment by edging a mediocre Iowa (6-7) team in the Alamo Bowl, and the game underscored the problems that the Horns will need to address over the off-season if the Horns are going to return to becoming a true top-10 team. The two main problems are a lackluster rushing attack and inconsistent pass coverage, which again combined to cause the Horns to sweat another game against an opponent with inferior personnel. Already facing a search to replace departed defensive coordinator Gene Chizek, head coach Mack Brown has his work cut out for him over the next several months.

Cal 45 Texas Aggies 10

After staying close for a half, the Aggies (9-4) laid a major egg in folding down the stretch in the Holiday Bowl to the Cal Bears (10-3). As already noted, the Aggies’ lackluster performance has already revived skepticism in Aggieland over head coach Dennis Franchione, whose four year performance at A&M has not been particularly impressive. Although this season’s 9-4 finish was the best of Franchione’s tenure at A&M, most of those wins came against cupcakes and the only signature win came against the Longhorns in the final game of the regular season. The Aggies still struggle throwing the ball effectively and the defense remains suspect, so those are two areas that the Ags will need to address in the upcoming off-season.

South Carolina 44 Houston 36

In a hugely-entertaining game, South Carolina (8-5) edged the Cougars (10-4) in a Liberty Bowl shootout. Essentially, neither team’s defense could stop the other team’s offense, so the difference in this one was a Houston fumble that allowed South Carolina to score an easy TD and a key second half possession when a bad snap foiled a a third and goal situation for the Cougars at the SC five yard line. Replacing outstanding QB Kevin Kolb and upgrading the defense are the key areas that the Cougars need to address during the off-season, but this season has returned the Houston program to the college football map in Texas. The future looks bright over on Cullen Avenue.

Rutgers 37 Kansas State 10

Rutgers (11-2) easily handled a mediocre Kansas State (7-6) team in the Texas Bowl over at Reliant Stadium, but not many folks in Houston were able to watch it because the television network carrying the game — the NFL Network — does not allow Time Warner Cable, the major cable company in the Houston area, to carry the network. As noted earlier, the NFL owners are attempting to induce an outcry from cable customers over Time Warner’s failure to accede to the NFL owners’ financial demands, but what’s happening instead is that the NFL owners are coming off as being petty and greedy. I cannot imagine a worse way of marketing what essentially is a public relations product for a community than to limit the number of television viewers who can watch the game.

Texas Tech 44 Minnesota 41

Although not technically a local team, the Texas Tech Red Raiders (8-5) merit a mention this week for their amazing comeback victory over Minnesota (6-7) in the Insight Bowl. Down 38-7 with less than 20 minutes to play in the game, the Raiders scored 31 straight points to send the game into overtime, and then won the game with a TD in OT. The Gophers reacted to the stunning loss by firing their coach. I know where the Gophers can find an excellent replacement.

My light holiday posting was even lighter today as I’ve been dealing with some technical issues. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the glow of the Aggies’ late November victory over the Longhorns is now officially gone after the Cal Bears thumped the Ags 45-10 in last night’s Holiday Bowl.
Meanwhile, the best crack of the bowl season came at halftime of the Houston-South Carolina LIberty Bowl game. After a wild first half that ended with Houston leading 28-17, the sideline reporter asked South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier as he headed to the locker room: “How do you defend the explosive Houston offense?” Coach Spurrier replied with a wry grin: “Obviously, not how we’re doing it.”

Texas Longhorn uber-fan Matthew McConaughey is starring in the new movie, We Are Marshall, the story about the rebuilding of the Marshall University football program after the devastating 1971 plane crash that killed most of the university’s players, coaches and support staff. But as noted in this Gene Frenette/Florida Times-Union article, the success of the Marshall rebuilding project owed much to legendary University of Houston football coach, Bill Yeoman, whose innovative Houston Veer offense allowed the undermanned Marshall program to spread the field and rely on deception and finesse in competing with its opposition. In the small world department, it was former West Virginia coach and legendary Florida State coach Bobby Bowden who introduced the Marshall coach at the time to Coach Yeoman’s creative offensive scheme.
Coach Yeoman was the head football coach of the Houston Cougars from 1962-1986, and he remains a vital member of the University of Houston community to this day. Coach Yeoman and the Cougars quickly gained national prominence after he introduced the explosive Veer offense in 1964, but more importantly, Coach Yeoman that year also broke the color barrier for major Texas football programs when San Antonioís Warren McVea accepted the University’s offer of a scholarship to play football at UH.
During his 25 year coaching career, Coach Yeoman compiled a record of 160-108-8 and guided the Cougars to 11 bowl games appearances including Cotton Bowl victories over Maryland in 1977 and Nebraska in 1980. He also led the Cougars to four Southwest Conference titles (1976, 1978, 1979 & 1984), including the 1976 title that came during Houstonís first year as a member of that venerable conference. For that achievement, Coach Yeoman was named Texas Coach of the Year and runner-up for National Coach of the Year. On top of all that, Coach Yeoman is one of the nicest and most engaging people that I have ever met, and yet another one of the numerous people that make Houston such a fascinating place to live.