Film Room: What's not working for Texas on shot plays

Deep shots down the field in the passing game are a staple of Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s offense. In what he describes as a run-first offense, Sarkisian relies on play-action passing with downfield targets to punish safeties and other defenders who might creep forward in order to better defend the run.

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In recent weeks, however, the shot plays have dished out little punishment to opposing defenses. Most times they have fallen incomplete, as they did on Saturday for the Longhorns versus TCU. Those plays have ended up being little more than a wasted down. Sometimes, they even result in turnovers.

Considering deep throws are a key component of Sarkisian’s offense, the plan isn’t to scrap them for shorter throws. Rather, the plan is to continue to work at it with quarterback Quinn Ewers and the rest of the Texas offense.

“If that’s his throw, (Ewers) has got to cut it loose,” Sarkisian said Monday. “A lot of that is designed. If that’s the first read, that’s the shot that we’re going to take. Ultimately, we’ve got to keep working that so we can hit those shots down the field to loosen up things in the run game.”

Sarkisian said players in all parts of the process — quarterbacks, receivers, and tight ends — have plenty of room for improvement in the deep passing game. Ewers himself identified one area he could improve before Texas heads to Kansas on Saturday for another Big 12 matchup.

“I think the past couple of games, I’ve just gotten too lazy with my feet,” Ewers said Monday. “Plain and simple, I just need to get better at that.”

Things haven’t been easy for Ewers recently. Since the Oklahoma game, Ewers is 61-for-145 for 859 yards. He’s thrown seven touchdowns and three interceptions during the stretch, including one pick versus the Horned Frogs.

He has to do more to live up to his Five-Star Plus+ billing, but coaches and players alike have contributed to the lack of success in the deep passing game.

Here’s a look at how the process fared versus TCU.

Q2 – 1st and 10 – (-30)

Target: Xavier Worthy
Result: Incomplete

Worthy has been the favorite target down the field for Ewers, likely because many of the deep plays Sarkisian calls seek to utilize Worthy’s elite speed.

The clip for this play is only what is seen above, but that’s enough to showcase the issue Ewers identified in himself. He looks to hop up as he delivers the throw from a clean pocket, missing Worthy by a few yards. It’s a situation where Worthy did his job, but Ewers was unable to hold up his end of the deal.

Q2 – 2nd and 15 – (-26)

Target: Xavier Worthy
Result: Incomplete

Credit to TCU cornerback Josh Newton here for manning up Worthy from the slot and staying with him step for step. Worthy is tracking this ball from his own 40 but doesn’t make much of an effort to jump over Newton here.

Things look fine for Ewers on this play, but sometimes defenders influence the play enough to make passes fall incomplete.

Q2 – 2nd and 2 – (-18)

Target: Xavier Worthy
Result: Interception

The play prior, Texas gained eight yards via Bijan Robinson. That was the largest Longhorn gain of the night so far, so Texas looked to take advantage of TCU potentially trying to key in on the run game.

Ewers decides to throw it deep to Worthy, one of the two pass options past the line of scrimmage on this play. There wasn’t a lot this play was going to do from the start as a result of the call.

Tre’vius Hodges-Tomlinson makes the play and takes possession for TCU.

Q3 – 1st and 10 – 50

Target: Xavier Worthy
Result: Incompletion

Texas finally got something moving via Jordan Whittington the play before when he took a screen play 25 yards to midfield. Sarkisian dialed up another shot play for Worthy, who was the No. 2 receiver here.

He successfully gets past coverage, and at first glance seems like he is running toward the near pylon. Ewers’ throw looks like it’s to a post, and Worthy tries to adjust. It lands a few yards away from him but he doesn’t make an attempt at it.

This incompletion makes Ewers 8-for-22 on the evening. He would finish 17-for-39.

Q4 – 4th and 17 – (-38)

Target: Ja’Tavion Sanders
Result: Incomplete

This is more a desperation heave than a shot play, but Texas has run this style of play a decent number of times. Call it the “Gronk Fade,” or the “Denton Ryan Fade,” but the 3×1 look sets up Sanders for a 1-on-1 situation. The long throw gives the safety on the hash time he typically wouldn’t have in a goal line or red zone situation, but Hodges-Tomlinson again makes a good play to break this one up.

Five shot plays resulted in zero completions and one interception. It didn’t do anything other than to burn a down versus TCU.

For the Sarkisian offense to improve from its recent cold streak, better play in this key part of Sarkisian’s offense is necessary. It’ll result in points and yards, for sure, but it will also give Texas room to operate the rest of its offense.

As the stats and scoreboard show, that room was non-existent versus the Horned Frogs.