Horns Look to Rebound, Respond With Robinson Hiring

By Steve Habel

Horns Illustrated Associate Editor

Texas has turned to an old friend and known commodity – former defensive coordinator Greg Robinson – to restore the bite to its battered defense after coach Mack Brown dismissed Manny Diaz in the wake of the Horns’ 41-20 loss to BYU last Saturday in Provo.

Diaz’s defense allowed 550 rushing yards, a record amount surrendered by the Horns [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] and the most ever gained by a BYU team, prompting Brown to pull the plug on the 28-game tenure of its young coordinator.

“The decision to change defensive coordinators was based on our lack of ability to stop the run, period,” Brown said Monday at his weekly press conference, a day after Diaz was fired.  “We had that problem at times last year. I thought we had straightened that out at the end of last season, especially the Oregon State game. But Saturday night was unacceptable.”

On Monday, instead of focusing on the task at hand (beating Ole Miss this weekend, perhaps without injured starting quarterback David Ash and definitely sans running back/wide receiver Daje Johnson, who is out with a sprained left ankle), the Horns’ coaches and players dealt with the aftermath of the defeat by BYU, the dismissal of Diaz and the need for a quick assimilation of Robinson’s defensive ideas.

Brown said the conversation with Diaz about his decision to move forward was a difficult one.

“Manny is great – he’s one of the best young people I’ve ever been around, and he’s a tremendous coach,” Brown said. “For whatever reason, it wasn’t working. But he understood; he knew Saturday night it didn’t work. I think he anticipated us moving in another direction even after the game.”

Cornerback Carrington Byndom said he and his teammates felt responsible for Diaz’s dismissal.

“When you give up so many yards on defense and the defensive coordinator gets fired the next day, you kind of feel responsible,” Byndom said. “We do take that upon ourselves. There’s nothing we can do about it but just continue to get better and strive to keep working for this weekend. We know we got a job to do, and we know this past week wasn’t acceptable for us. We can’t let it happen again.”

Linebacker Jordan Hicks, who had a team-high 15 tackles against BYU, said Diaz would want the team to move on and to make sure that the loss to BYU doesn’t affect the way the Horns play against Ole Miss, which is 2-0 after wins against Vanderbilt and Southern Missouri State.

“If we had played better, coach Brown wouldn’t have been in that type of position to make a difficult decision like (dismissing Diaz),” Hicks said. “Everybody across the board had a lot of respect for coach Diaz – I really enjoyed him as a coach, and enjoyed him off the field.”

At the time of the Monday press conference, the Texas players were not privy to the changes Robinson had planned for the defense.

“We’re not sure yet. The players don’t know, but we’re excited to see,” Hicks said. “Every scheme is built to stop the run, pass, whatever it is. We’ve got to go out there and perform, and we’ve got to do a better job of executing in those situations.”

Texas was going to have its hands full with Ole Miss, which is improving rapidly, even before the events in Utah.

Now the Horns will need to find a way to respond.

Based on prior performances, expect Texas to bounce back with its best effort of the season. If not, the questions will continue and the pressure to succeed will grow.

 

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