On Texas Football: Which offenses will be the most difficult for Texas to handle in 2023?
In the latest video episode of On Texas Football, Inside Texas’ Bobby Burton and Ian Boyd give us a look at the toughest offenses the Longhorns will play in the 2023 season, take a deep dive into the X’s and O’s of those of the attacks and opine about what Texas has to do on defense to be successful against those opponents.
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Boyd said he was originally down on Alabama’s offense, which the Longhorns will face in week 2 of the season but understands now that the Crimson Tides’ coaches are smart enough to attack Texas’ weaknesses, which will be at the edge and stopping the quarterback from running.
“If Texas has any weaknesses at all it’s on weak side edge, diagnosing at linebacker and at safety if (Jalen) Catalon gets hurt or he can’t go and they have to play another safety,” Boyd outlined. “Any deficiencies in the run defense might show up in Tuscaloosa In week 2, and that may be the first time they show up in the season before the staff has really worked out solutions. So that game will be a very good just overall stress test of the Texas run defense and what kind of shape there’ll be in.”
Boyd said he doesn’t expect Oklahoma, who the Longhorns smashed 49-0 last October in Dallas, to be better on offense this year even with quarterback Dillon Gabriel (who didn’t play against Texas) behind center.
“Normally you get such a nice bump in year 2 of a system,” Boyd opined. “But Oklahoma had five guys drafted from that offense that they inherited. Well, they brought in Gabriel, who was experienced in that system. I think Gabriel is actually not that good or that imposing of a quarterback to be honest. But they knew what he was. He knew how to run the system. He’s not terrible for sure.
“I don’t think Oklahoma is gonna be bad, and I think they will be better than they were against Texas last year, but I don’t know if that will be enough. I think they might be like, treading water overall to what they were last year.”
Boyd also thinks TCU, which played for the national championship last season, will take a step back.
Both experts say that one of the Longhorns’ toughest tests in Big 12 play will the regular season finale at home against surging Texas Tech on the day after Thanksgiving.
“Texas Tech is very dangerous and they will be better this year than they were in 2022 when they beat Texas,” Boyd said. “I think they still may have that sort of fourth down aggression. That was kind of their patent last year. And I think they’re also going to be much more explosive and dangerous with deep shot passing.
“Tech is just a really tough team. It seems like Longhorn fans don’t want to hear that and there’s been a lot of pushback on the idea of that Tech will be good.”
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There’s plenty of additional info on the video so go check it out in its entirety.
