Five quick thoughts: Sark catches the Roadrunner
Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns appeared for a moment to be unprepared for the sort of upset special Jeff Traylor and the UTSA Roadrunners had cooked up in this game.
[Get ONE MONTH of Inside Texas Plus for $1!]
The crowd sounded very quiet for a moment there when UTSA was up 17-7 after dropping two touchdowns in only a few minutes of game action. From then on out the Horns outscored their guests from down south 34-3 and pulled away with a spread-covering win.
Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense bottled up the Roadrunners after the 17-7 margin was established there and made a few big plays and Texas started to get the ground game rolling with a blend of Wildcat (Ro-cat with Roschon Johnson), unbalanced formations, and pure hard running from Bijan Robinson and Roschon.
Quick thought no. 1: Nightmare start for Texas
UTSA was hitting all the upset notes early. First a 21-play, 74-yard drive which ate 8:27 of game clock and put them up early 3-0 when it ended in a field goal. Playing keep away from a strong offense on the road is a great way to avoid allowing a crowd to affect a game.
Then they had a successful scoring drive with some Frank Harris magic which made it 10-7. Jeff Traylor followed this up with a surprise onside kick converted successfully and a double pass touchdown. 17-7 Roadrunners.
Holding possession to play keep away from the Longhorns and landing the classic, two-pronged special teams big play and trick play touchdown were both typical upset maneuvers.
The one final piece to their formula was to turn over the Texas offense. But it didn’t happen, and then Jahdae Barron erased a promising UTSA drive when the Roadrunners were down 24-20 with a pick-6 on an overthrown screen by Harris. Now it was 31-20 Texas and it all slipped away.
Quick thought no. 2: Great adjustments after the early surge
Texas struggled to ever fully corral Frank Harris, even if they didn’t let him deal any back-breaking damage. He finished with 35 passes for 222 yards at 6.3 ypa with zero touchdowns and the aforementioned pick-6, then 10 carries for 38 yards. Nothing explosive but they struggled to get him off the field.
The Longhorns tightened up their coverage some in the second half to eliminate some of the easy throws underneath, mixing in man coverage and also bringing the safeties in tighter. They also spied some and started involving DeMarvion Overshown in the blitz package more until he was (unjustly) removed from the game for targeting. Overshown’s speed was invaluable in handling Harris’ quicks.
Offensively, Sark solved the UTSA gameplan by the second quarter. UTSA was crashing against the run early as Texas used a lot of bigger sets with Andrej Karic on the field as a jumbo tight end paired with Ja’Tavion Sanders. The Longhorns mixed in more spread sets and opened up the game with a few bubble screens for easy first downs and sustained a few scoring drives before ultimately wearing out the Roadrunners.
Quick thought no. 3: Texas won the game on the ground
Texas continues to play the zone-read by having their Edges contain the quarterback and making teams earn it the hard way downhill with zone running against the defensive tackles and linebackers.
UTSA ran the ball 44 times for 139 yards at 3.2 ypc for the night. They were able to pick up some steady gains with their power run game to avoid getting in bad spots against the Texas defense, yet they were inefficient running the ball.
Texas was more sporadic but the big plays made all the difference. 36 carries yielded 298 rushing yards at 8.3 ypc with a pair of long scoring runs by Bijan Robinson which gave him 183 yards on the day. Even Hudson Card got in on the action with a 32-yard scramble to convert a 2nd-and-22 on the last touchdown drive by the Horns.
They ran some unbalanced sets, Wildcat, unbalanced Wildcat, and even a fair amount of Texas’ passing game production on the day was in the RPO game, on bubble screens or flat routes underneath to Roschon and Sanders.
Quick thought no.4: Good game management by Hudson Card
Hudson Card wasn’t stealing the starting job with his performance today but he did a terrific job of keeping Texas on schedule, avoiding bad plays, and making the throws (or runs) they needed to secure the win.
Texas tested some shots deep and the Card to Xavier Worthy connection came up a little short with a few incompletions, then they ultimately settled on just methodically working the ball down the field with quick throws and runs. They’ll need to land shots to make the most of this season but the “spread em out and torch them on the perimeter with quick throws or inside with Bijan/Roschon” formula really works quite well with this roster. Worthy is dangerous with the ball in his hands, Whittington is terrific both as a blocker or breaking tackles out wide, and obviously Texas’ running backs are lethal.
Card executes this strategy well. He finished 15-23 for 161 yards at seven ypa with a touchdown and zero picks and two carries for 35 rushing yards. Nothing remarkable but reliable play of the sort you want from a back-up for the second straight week.
If Card were healthy enough to mix in more zone-option, he could be a very effective spread quarterback as he continues to develop. Texas has a great fallback plan behind Quinn Ewers.
Quick thought no. 5: Defensive pressure won the day
Texas had a lot of trouble corralling Frank Harris and it’s the main reason this game was ever in question, aside from the success of Traylor’s onside kick/trick play gambit.
UTSA was 9-16 on 3rd down as Harris made play after play with his legs and throwing on quick shots or scramble drill throws to his talented group of receivers. The Longhorns had trouble figuring it out. They tried to contain him with a 4-man rush but lost him a few times, tried some cover 1 man on 3rd downs with Jaylan Ford spying but Harris was too quick. They tried spying with their Buck Edges with mixed results as well.
Ultimately what did the trick was pressure and landing some good hits.
This was the boundary corner blitz with Ryan Watts which has already been so good (or nearly so good) for the defense this season and Harris got a little rushed. Notice also how hard the Star (nickel) and free safety are driving on this as well. They knew by this point in the game UTSA was going to throw it underneath all night and were playing faster against the Roadrunner gameplan.
Great hands by Jahdae Barron here and the game was flipped as “defensive score” went to the wrong participant in the incomplete upset attempt.
Overall this was a strong team win by Texas despite the bad start. Whereas UTSA missed a few boxes on their “upset special” bingo card, the Longhorns connected with “big plays on defense,” “overpowering run game,” and “efficient game management by the back-up quarterback.”
