Five quick thoughts: Texas hangs on in Manhattan

When Steve Sarkisian has extra time to prepare Quinn Ewers for an opponent they can really cook up some offense. Of course that’s not really been the question for this team. Getting up 31-10 on Kansas State in the first half was impressive, but it wasn’t new for Texas.

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Watching the lead slowly evaporate in the second half wasn’t new either. However, for the second time under Steve Sarkisian, Texas hung on in the second half for a big road win. The Texas defensive line ultimately won the game for the team, whipping Kansas State’s protections in the second half and forcing fumbles against Adrian Martinez until they could finally recover one.

The Longhorns are now 4-2 in Big 12 play with another huge night game looming next week against TCU. They’re currently in a three-way tie for second place in the league with Kansas State (over whom they now hold a tiebreaker) and Baylor (against whom they finish the season in Austin).

Everything is set up for the Longhorns to make the Big 12 Championship Game if they can protect their home field and avoid another catastrophic loss against Kansas when they travel to Lawrence in a couple of weeks.

Quick thought no. 1: Physical win by Texas on the road

Defense and a run game should travel. When you have big men like Texas has on (now both) sides of the line of scrimmage, you need to bank on it when it comes time to win a game on the road. Texas succeeded here.

Texas out-rushed Kansas State 269 to 139. They got 40 carries in the game, ran for 6.7 ypc, had two rushing touchdowns, and were 5-5 in the red zone.

Bijan Robinson outshone his rival Deuce Vaughn. Bijan had 30 carries for 209 yards at 7.0 ypc with a scintillating early touchdown, and 243 total yards. Deuce had 19 carries for 73 yards but was also the no. 1 receiver for K-State with seven catches for 86 yards and a score, a total of 159 yards. Good but not enough and including a number of stuffed runs which put K-State behind the chains.

Early on things looked ominous. Kansas State’s GT counter game was getting some movement, Texas’ ends struggled to balance the need to hammer pullers with the challenge of containing Adrian Martinez option keepers, and the Wildcats were springing leaks in the Texas run defense for little Deuce to find.

Then the leaks got patched. Texas matched the physicality of the Wildcats and also benefitted from their own offense which forced K-State into a lot more passes than they could possibly have wanted to attempt.

At the end of the game, while Texas’ 4-minute offensive possession to potentially seal the game was blown up when the short-side toss play they’d pulled from the well a few times before was stuffed, they ran the ball effectively in the second half to protect the lead. The long field goal drive in the previous possession not only kept K-State at arm’s length on the scoreboard but it used four minutes of clock the Wildcats really needed for their own run-heavy approach to have time.

When you don’t let teams wear away at this Texas defense, they stay healthier and their D-line has a chance to make game-winning plays.

Quick thought no. 2: Great 1st half for Quinn Ewers and the passing game

They had some decent moments in the second half as well but Sark definitely leaned on the run game more in the second half, eager to avoid the mistakes which have plagued the Longhorns in similar circumstances.

Ewers’ first touchdown pass to Xavier Worthy when he threw the corner route with pressure bearing down on him while his target was still executing his break was a big time throw. He also hit Jordan Whittington on a long out route against man coverage on 3rd down in the second half to help keep possession and run precious clock.

The deep post route to Worthy remains an elusive goal for Texas but in this game they did well to hit him on routes which ask him to take more lateral cuts to get open. For whatever reason, the connection isn’t there very often on vertical throws but anything breaking a little sharper and Worthy can be absolutely devastating. He now has nine touchdown catches on the season.

Texas also worked in more throws to Ja’Tavion Sanders over the middle where he has been sensational this season. Five catches for 54 yards by Sanders hardly speaks to the impact he had on this game. If Texas needs to win a game this season throwing the ball late, expect Sanders to have a huge performance.

Quick thought no. 3: Texas won the game with the middle of their defense

In addition to the issues Texas had early on with K-State’s physicality in the run game, they also had major issues at the second level tracking Deuce Vaughn and all of the moving threats Wildcat offensive coordinator Collin Klein weaves through the middle of the field.

They came into this game planning to run a lot of what you could call “big nickel” defense with Morice Blackwell as the “Star.” Results were mixed, his tendency at this point to spot drop and then have to look around for the ball was a poor fit for matching the complicated route patterns K-State ran, often involving Vaughn. Ultimately Jahdae Barron ended up getting a ton of snaps and helping to limit some of the damage K-State inflicted early in the passing game.

Once Texas sorted out out their plan there, they won this game with the defenders up the middle of the defense. Keondre Coburn keeps building a case for an early round draft grade and was in Martinez’s face for much of the night. He finished with a sack and two forced fumbles, including the game winner.

Behind him Jaylan Ford lead the team with 10 tackles, picked off a pass which helped build the big first half lead, forced a fumble K-State managed to recover, and then recovered the fumble Coburn forced to ice the game. DeMarvion Overshown had a solid game but Jaylan Ford should be getting more credit for his play this season at linebacker.

At safety it was mostly Michael Taaffe and Jerrin Thompson for Texas and they held down the middle well and inflicted several physical tackles on the Wildcats to help set the tone. Aside from the long throw to Kade Warner for the touchdown which made it 31-24, they forced K-State to drive the length of the field.

Quick thought no. 4: Not a perfect performance

While Texas’ overall execution was strong, there were hiccups in the second half which seemed liable to ruin the Longhorns’ day again.

Both teams were heavily penalized. For their own part Texas had a number of false starts which frustrated their attempts to hold onto the ball and run clock in the second half. They also had some helpful penalties which nearly killed a K-State drive with a 1st-and-35 only to bail them out with an automatic first down penalty amidst a chippier portion of the game.

Martinez gave Texas a lot of trouble, which wasn’t shocking. He was definitely healthy enough to be his normal elusive self and he evaded several of what would have been sacks against most other quarterbacks, including his back-up. He finished 24-36 for 329 yards at 9.1 ypa with two touchdowns and a pick. On the ground he couldn’t make enough lemonade of the lemons of the Wildcat protections (which also included a number of false start penalties and a dozen uncalled holds) running it 14 times for 52 yards at 3.7 ypc with a score and two fumbles.

Texas’ 3rd-and-4 play-call with the chance to put the game on ice, along with an earlier 3rd down call, were a bit iffy. The earlier call which went awry was a tackle-wrap scheme of the sort Bill Snyder used to run regularly in the same stadium on the other sideline. Texas ran it a few times but on this occasion they pulled Christian Jones, lost several defensive linemen, and took a tackle for loss on 3rd-and-2 for the only 3’n’out of the game. The second came on the attempted toss play where they asked Jones to lead block on the perimeter against a safety who was racing off the edge with zero hesitation. This went poorly.

Two fumbles by Texas blew what could have been a safe win. Roschon Johnson didn’t seem to hear the defender coming whereas Xavier Worthy simply got lit up by one of K-State’s senior safeties.

Finally, Texas’ defense of K-State’s passing game was pretty flawed. The dagger concepts K-State torched previous opponents with (inside receiver goes up the seam, outside receiver runs a deep in under the cleared out safety) yielded some more wide open gains for them in this game as well. They at least kept receivers in front of them (save for the Warner score) to force sustained drives, but there was definitely some slippage.

Quick thought no. 5: Dress rehearsal for the final stretch

TCU is a very similar team to Kansas State. They have big, physical interior O-line and do their damage with a power-option run game, a dual-threat quarterback, and play-action on conflicted pass defenders. Their overall talent level on offense is even greater than K-State’s, although their defense is inferior and they won’t have a home crowd to help them.

Texas will have learned some valuable lessons this week, and avoided another gut-wrenching loss which would have put them in a tough spot in the standings and possibly killed their confidence.

Now the Longhorns won’t have to hear about how they can’t protect a lead, how they can’t win on the road, how they can’t run the ball in the second half, etc. Instead they’ll know they can play winning football against the best teams in the league, they know they have some players who can dominate games, and they know they can run the football on the best defenses in the Big 12.

The remaining defenses in between Sark’s squad and their goal of winning the Big 12 Championship are not as formidable. They need to build on this win and take it home.