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Coach V: Keep improving, that's the ticket

Joe Cookby: Joe Cook09/06/25josephcook89
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Arch Manning (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

Coach Mike Venable has been writing for Inside Texas since it was a print magazine, offering his coach’s insight postgame. Venable coached for several decades within the state of Texas and is one of the most insightful contributors Inside Texas has to offer.

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UT has some serious dogs on the defensive side of the LOS.

The turnovers are super nice but it’s the flying around battle scars that impress me—especially the huge number of willing participants.

We have at least nine DB’s that refuse to embarrass themselves—-these guys are looking for collisions and making plays.

Michael Taaffe (16) is not only a smart football safety but also our most active defender.

Anthony Hill (0) added another Derrick Johnson bolo punch to cause yet another fumble turnover.

Trey Moore (8) had a fumble recovery/return along with active tackles.

We got by with four DT’s with Alex January being sidelined with injury. The big splits their O-line opened up with went south in a hurry. Our guys are quicker than theirs and we put constant pressure up the gut.

Ethan Burke (91) might just be our most improved defender and he wasn’t half bad last year—that’s how good he is this year.

Lance Jackson (40) had two good plays—Burke, Vasek, and Jackson are a load three deep at strong edge.

Hill had three big plays.

Smith (26) had a strip recovery and two plays in space.

Lefau (18) throws his body as well as any defender and has a knack stunting.

Spence (14) is having a difficult time getting snaps due to solid LB play. Same with Barnes (30). Moore takes snaps at two positions.

Taaffe (16), McDonald (4), and Guilbeau (3) can play the game.

We scored 38 with help from our defense.

Manning (16) had five scoring plays and reduced his bad decisions down to three.

Baxter (4) had the best day carrying the mail, but we still don’t feature a back that can’t break an arm tackle worth a kiss my butt.

Livingstone (13) had another big day with two sixes and several others—-he’s playing well.

Wingo (1) might not be having huge productive series but his hustle block on 13’s long TD pass is a meeting room atta boy for damn sure.

Who would have guessed that we have five TE’s that have solid roles in this offense and are producing to boot.

Townsend (81) is a killer.

Endries (88) is Gunnar part two.

I wish I had good reviews on the last five positions but after watching our guys at the LOS we just don’t measure up to a close-up.

Our best blocking attempts occur on moving counters and they are far from moving violations.

We did a decent job pass protection wise but seldom faced heavy blitz or stunts.

Nice rebound win. for sure. Keep improving—that’s the ticket.

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