Stats that matter following Texas' 38-7 win over San Jose State

Texas’ 38-7 win over San Jose State featured a lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of eh. If you want a rundown of all of those ideas, you should read Eric’s “Horns Up, Horns Down, Horns Neutral” released today. You probably already have.

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It’s hard to pull a lot of important information from stats in a game where Texas beat up on a Mountain West team whose entire game revolved around a 5’9″ slot receiver, but we can still extract some points of emphasis going forward.

Arch Manning against pressure

Ohio State succeeded against Texas by letting Manning make his own mistakes, whether that be poor decisions or purely missed throws.

Going forward, teams are going to try to bring the mistakes to him.

Manning’s numbers were far better on plays where the pocket was kept clean or when he was not blitzed. That’s what you anticipate, but his NFL passer rating jumped from 73.8 to 146.9 on plays when he was under pressure versus plays he was kept clean for. All three of his big-time throws came on plays he wasn’t blitzed on, and he completed 75% of his passes in clean pockets. Florida and Oklahoma both have strong edge rushers they’ll be able to test Texas’ inexperienced offensive line with in October. Look out for that.

Christian Clark and Jerrick Gibson

It was not the day you wanted from Texas’ No. 3 and 4 guys in the running back room.

With Quintrevion Wisner out for the game, facing an inferior rushing defense, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get Texas’ next options touches. The two players combined for 14 carries, 49 yards (3.5 YPA), and a fumble committed by Gibson.

Clark was very ineffective yesterday: 3 yards per carry, 1.86 yards after contact per attempt, and just one missed tackle forced. He did very little with his opportunity outside of a singular 13-yard run.

It looked much better for Gibson: seven rushes for 38 yards (5.4 YPC) and 3.29 yards after contact per attempt. He was decisive in his running, shed three tackles, and converted two first downs. Most of that came at the end of the game while SJSU was out of the game, but it looked really good.

Of course, as it has been with Gibson since his freshman year, that came with a fumble. He would’ve had a great day with high grades if not for him putting the ball on the ground to end the game. Frustrating day for both.

91.4

Was Ty’Anthony Smith’s PFF run defense grade. You don’t see grades that high often.

Smith had a fantastic game; you didn’t need a PFF grade to tell you that, but that is an elite grade. Just three P4 linebackers were better in the category last week. Smith forced two fumbles and made five tackles, though he did miss two in the game.

He’s someone that we knew would contribute to this Texas team, but it’s going to be hard to keep him off the field. He and Trey Moore being the No. 5 and 6 in the EDGE/LB rotation is absurd.

Snaps after the main group

Texas has a core group of about 17 guys on this defense—that’s how many players eclipsed 15 snaps against OSU. Sixteen of them played yesterday, all of whom played over 15 snaps. That group of 17 is the five DTs, three EDGEs, three LBs, and six DBs. Derek Williams will likely enter that group by Florida, though he’s been on a snap count.

Outside of that group, we saw the following snap counts:

EDGE Lance Jackson: 24 snaps, 72.1 PFF Grade
EDGE Brad Spence: 24 snaps, 78.9 PFF Grade
EDGE Zina Umeozulu: 22 snaps, 71.2 PFF Grade
EDGE Colton Vasek: 22 snaps, 60.1 PFF Grade
S Xavier Filsaime: 20 snaps, 68.2 PFF Grade
CB Warren Roberson: 11 snaps, 66.6 PFF Grade

It’s clear what Texas wants to get out of these weeks. They’re looking to find more players to add to the 16 starters or quasi-starters from yesterday, as well as Williams and the injured Alex January. While DBs Filsaime and Roberson are guys that can contribute in small doses in case of injury or rotational shift, the obvious focus is at edge.

Texas gave Colin Simmons and Ethan Burke a lot of snaps off. It also didn’t help that Simmons was committing penalties and was injured. They have four players they really want to get up to game speed in the future against Florida and Oklahoma, and a few really impressed. Spence was elite off the edge, registering four pressures. Jackson was a beast in the run game, Umeozulu registered a QB hit, and Vasek was lined up all over.

It’s funny—you wouldn’t have guessed it coming into the year, but Vasek may be the fourth option in that group. We could see Spence and Jackson specifically making a difference sooner rather than later.

Quick Graceson Littleton note

Texas threw him to the wind on Saturday. He played a team-high 65/75 snaps, shadowing San Jose’s star slot receiver Danny Scudero. He was targeted 15 times and held his own given the volume of pressure he saw. Nine receptions for 71 yards is under five yards per target and eight yards per reception. His 71.8 passer rating allowed was third out of five players targeted more than twice.

They’re testing him, and he’s proving his worth.