Texas' goals for fall camp and "the Diaz doctrine"

Over at Inside Texas I explain what this team needs to get done in fall camp in order to have a chance to win more games (>6) than last season.

I also mention that the Texas defense will probably rely on "the Diaz doctrine" as a general strategy for stopping opponents in 2015. The Diaz doctrine is essentially to use blitzing to inflict negative plays that kill drives and rely on this for the purpose of stopping teams from scoring.

The key is that the defensive backfield can tackle and prevent the inevitable instances where the offense finds a soft spot in the blitz and get a player out into the 2nd level from resulting in explosive plays and scores.

Diaz accomplished this in 2011 when he had Texas playing a lot of 2-read cover 4 on non-blitzing downs and Blake Gideon, Manny Acho, Keenan Robinson, and Kenny Vaccaro were all tracking down loose ball carriers in the middle of the field. Texas is going to need the 2015 group to have some similar athleticism and tackling ability at safety and linebacker.

Although this method was not effective later on, the Diaz doctrine is actually based on a very sound principle. The offense can do well on a given play, but they are inherently limited by the 3-down structure. If you give up a 12 yard gain on 1st down, the damage is already done and the defense can write it off up until they get their backs to the red zone. If you inflict a 2-yard loss on 1st down, it's now 2nd and 12 and you have a major advantage as they need to start making progress.

We'll see how it goes, should be a fun season.