2022 Texas vs. Oklahoma Postmortem: Offense
As against West Virginia, Sark’s opening drive script for Texas vs. Oklahoma was a sputter followed by a series of easy laps around the track. After an initial three and out, Texas had four touchdowns in the next five drives that went 90, 92, 80 and 79 yards, respectively. Tempo was a big factor in that early success as the Horns short circuited OU sideline adjustments.
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That move against type (Texas plays slow) is exactly the kind of big game adjustment you want to see from a staff. They’re not getting enough credit for aggressively attacking OU with pace when they had every reason to shy away from it due to offensive youth, Quinn’s return, “don’t lose it doing something different” impulses, and a big game environment. Trusting the offense to execute pace grew that unit and it will pay dividends down the road. At any level of football, if you have four touchdown drives averaging 85.3 yards per drive with equal success running and throwing to every receiver on the field, that game is a wrap. Particularly when the defense has the opponent stuck on 0.
Oklahoma largely attempted to run a flyover defense with a three man front, layered coverages, and fourth man pressure from a variety of linebacker and defensive back blitzes. The idea was to prevent single shot big plays, take away Xavier Worthy, and force a young signal caller to march Texas methodically down the field while throwing to second and third options. That was the theory. The Longhorns shrugged and decided to take a bunch of 5-25 yard gains behind tough-minded and assignment sound offensive line play, outstanding misdirection, tough running, and a seemingly bored freshman QB calmly surveying the field and throwing the ball where they ain’t.
49-0 is a thorough woodshedding, but it could have been worse. The Longhorns last attempted forward pass was a 18 yard Ewers to Sanders touchdown at the 2:03 mark of the 3rd quarter. After that play, the Horns ran the ball 15 consecutive times with a cleared out bench (Keilan, Brooks, Blue) and still managed to add another touchdown and a field goal attempt.
Steve Sarkisian ended the game as Sark The Merciful, but for the first three quarters, he was Sark the Merciless, effectively putting on an offensive clinic which demonstrated every facet of the Longhorn offense. We didn’t see the single play long scores that characterized the OU defeat at TCU. Instead, it was chunk gains and endless third down conversions (Texas was 10 of 15 on 3rd down) that ground the Sooner defense into dust. Texas finished with 585 yards on 81 plays at 7.2 yards per play with only two offensive penalties. The Horns boasted a balanced attack: 296 yards rushing, 289 yards passing but that’s deceiving in that the Horns just attacked what they saw and went pass heavy or run heavy in spurts. When it didn’t work, it was either bad luck (Worthy ran out of end zone on a vertical touchdown play) or human error (Ewers threw a bad fadeaway interception trying to throw a ball away). When your fifth string running back gets 5 carries in a football game, things are going exceedingly well or exceedingly poorly.
Before the season, I predicted that this would be the most formation-diverse team in Longhorn history. Well, here it is. Texas is as comfortable in 21 as in 5 wide. That’s enabled by high IQ players at tight end, receiver, and in the running back room, but having a natural thrower at QB whose blood pressure doesn’t break 120/80 in front of 100,000 fans helps to unlock it all. With Ewers at the helm, Texas has exploitable diversity. Steve Sarkisian remarked that no offense in the country is asking its players to learn what Texas requires and I think that’s probably true. That Texas is able to make it palatable for an offense starting three freshmen and eight total underclassmen is impressive teaching. There are plenty of educators on campus who might benefit from auditing a Longhorn offensive meeting.
QB
A young quarterback with a shaggy mullet and a line beard suggests some “It don’t make a shit” to his personality and that can play really well or really poorly at his position. Quinn has the good kind. #3’s calm detachment while playing football is amusing to me, but I don’t think the Sooners found him funny and I think his teammates actually find it incredibly comforting in the middle of the storm. It’s also clear that he can see the game while others are experiencing it. On Quinn’s first two drives, he went 9 of 10 for 121 yards and a touchdown. I wrote in my notes: Dunks at the rim. Sark scripting easy throws. As the game progressed, Quinn expanded his game. He started facing up 25 feet out and drilling step back 3s and mid range pull ups off of the drive.
That’s a really good throw in the seam. Now watch it again, but watch #3 the whole time. He throws a dime for a touchdown and shuffles off the field, completely unimpressed. The only thing missing is an ashy Marlboro dangling from his lip. Quinn effortlessly layered the ball all game and made it look easy. While his ability to throw accurately at weird angles is notable, the rewatch demonstrated how efficient his footwork is in helping his blockers create a pocket. He tried to bail around the end twice while surrendering yardage and he’ll learn that’s not doable soon enough. Sark also set him up beautifully with some outstanding calls in the screen and play action game. He finished 21 of 31 for 289 yards, 4 touchdowns and with one interception.
WR/TE
Jordan Whittington was nails, making terrific catches all day and led the Longhorns with 97 yards on 5 catches. He also continues to be a beastly blocker on the edge.
Whittington pancakes his man and then tells him about it as Robinson sprints in for the easy 6. He had several other plays that were equally effective blocking on the perimeter.
Oklahoma was rightfully concerned about Xavier Worthy and that showed up in their drop heavy coverages. Worthy dropped a ball on the sideline, but was otherwise good giving high effort on double teams, allowing others to eat. JT Sanders went 5-71 for 2 touchdowns, proving to be an outstanding finisher in the plus red zone area. He is the best tight end in the conference and the layered threat of Sanders/Whittington/Worthy/Texas RBs is going to be a bear for Big 12 defensive coordinators. Aside from his game impact as a receiver, Sanders also pass blocked extremely well when Texas went max protect. What a pleasure to watch his growth. Gunnar Helm (2 catches, 13 yards) got involved and Andrej Karic was very physical as a blocker.
OL
Terrific performance overall, though the Texas running backs had to run their blocking better early. Ewers had very little pressure and the running game opened up as they kept pounding away. I pointed out last week, with some pushback, that Texas ran the ball much better in critical down and distance situations against West Virginia than is perceived by per carry averages or raw totals and that was something to note going forward. Once again, Texas ran the ball for first downs on 3rd and short with great success, going 3 for 3 on short yardage conversions in the 1st half and then converting a 3rd and 4 with a 5 yard run on the opening touchdown drive of the second half and then converting a 3rd and 6 with a 8 yard run on the next possession. An offensive line going 5/5 on 3rd down runs and then jamming it in inside the 10 is winning.
Eventually leading to jog ins like this:
The interior OL held up well and Christian Jones crushed as a run blocker while young Kelvin Banks remains our best pass protector. The Texas offensive line was chippy early – Banks drove safety Justin Broiles #25 ten yards to the echo of the whistle early in the 1st quarter on a play where plenty of young OL would’ve been content to screen and lean. Mr Banks understood that this game is a fight. The Sooner defense, whatever their faults, had shown the ability to inflict negative plays on an offense, but had only 4 tackles for loss, 0 sacks, single digit pressures. Hat tip to the big boys up front. It’s only going to get better as they develop physically and learn their craft.
RB
The most talented running back room in the country pummeled OU for nearly 300 yards rushing while adding a collective 6 catches for 79 yards and a touchdown. Bijan was the bell cow with 22 carries for 130 yards and two touchdowns. A game long run of 18 yards proved that his gains didn’t come cheap. Roschon chipped in with 9-57 (with three 3rd down conversions and a 38 yard screen run) while Keilan showed his burst with a 26 yard run before Brooks and Blue came in to finish the Sooners off. Brooks and Blue are good players and I liked what I saw from both.
Final
The Texas offense dominated physically, schematically and in every game context that matters and their upside has still not yet been realized.
