Sarkisian: "...we weren't in sync enough with our pressure package and our coverage."
Box scores don’t often tell the story of a game, but the Texas vs Texas Tech box score does in part summarize how Texas lost. Beyond the absurd amount of 4th down attempts and conversions, Donovan Smith’s day tells quite the story.
[Get ONE MONTH of Inside Texas Plus for $1!]
Smith was only sacked twice on 58 pass attempts, neither coming from the defensive line. Though PFF states he was pressured 44 times on those 58 drop backs, he was still able to complete 68% of his passes. Further, his meager 5.9 yards per attempt adds finer detail — his completions were mostly short and made before pressure could truly disrupt the passing game.
During his weekly press conference, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said the following: “I felt like looking at the tape, we weren’t in sync enough with our pressure package and our coverage. For whatever reason, the way we had been playing pass defense early in the year, which was a lot tighter, a lot more aggressive, a lot more confident, it didn’t feel that way Saturday. Although we were getting home with some of our pressures and line games, the quarterback still had enough time to get the ball out because we weren’t tight enough on coverages. There were times that we did play it that way, and we had a lot of success. We’ve got to get those two things in sync, and we’ve got to trust our ability to cover people in tight coverage.”
Aside the 4th down conversions, some of which were converted in the fashion described above, that’s the ball game.
There are always tradeoffs in football. Had Texas switched to man coverage more often, some of Tech’s preferred routes would have been more difficult to cover. It’s also more difficult to receive timely help from the secondary versus a mobile quarterback. Indeed, Smith is a quality runner. However, this death by a thousand paper cuts — Tech had a whopping 40 more snaps than Texas on the day — looked eerily familiar to second halves a year ago.
The characteristics of losses last year were on display on Saturday. The defense couldn’t get off the field and the offense couldn’t stay on.
At this point it’s hard not to wonder if there’s an asymmetry between Sarkisian’s and Pete Kwiatkowski’s philosophies. Like last year, Sark could have helped out the defense by keeping them off the field, but also like last year, PK all but invited the opposition to control the ball.
Sark’s comments today demonstrate he identifies the main issue on defense but this season will be defined by his ability to address it on the field.
