Three-count: Texas foils the flyover, an elite throw to Ja'Tavion Sanders, Jahdae Barron stays home
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian found success on Saturday against a style of defense that has given him fits in recent years. What that means for the Longhorns, plus the stories behind Quinn Ewers‘ 24-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Tavion Sanders and Jahdae Barron‘s second quarter interception.
[Get FOUR MONTHS of Inside Texas Plus for $1!]
Flyover Fracas
The Oklahoma defense has a lot of problems, more than the Sooner program could have ever imagined after hiring Brent Venables considering his elite defensive resume.
It wouldn’t be nice for me to say the OU defense, which employs the three-down lineman, three-safety “flyover defense,” offered the Longhorns a good tune-up for the Iowa State Cyclones’ visit to Austin.
But the OU defense offered the Longhorns a good tune-up for the Iowa State Cyclones’ visit to Austin.
What Venables is trying to install in Norman this year is what ISU defensive coordinator Jim Heacock has deployed over the past half-decade in Ames, Iowa. Since rolling out the “flyover” defense versus Texas on a Thursday night game in Ames in 2017, the Cyclones have revolutionized how to stop modern offensive attacks.
Also, since that game in 2017, the Longhorns are 1-3 versus Iowa State. Sarkisian himself is 0-1.
Sarkisian hasn’t found a lot of success against that look. In addition to the loss to ISU in 2021, the Arkansas Razorbacks used the system against the Longhorns in Fayetteville, Ark. and shut down the UT offense.
For Sarkisian and the rest of the offense to get a sense of what succeeding against the flyover defense feels like should help in the preparation for Iowa State in the coaches’ offices, the meeting rooms, and on the practice field.
Quinn Ewers continues to impress, as does Ja’Tavion Sanders
Gerry expressed the feeling Texas fans should have about the Quinn Ewers-to-Arch Manning pipeline, but let this view of Ewers’ second touchdown pass to Ja’Tavion Sanders from Saturday’s game serve as one extra reason for optimism.
The original TV angle doesn’t truly indicate how difficult that throw was. Sanders didn’t appear open in the view above, and that’s with the benefit of 20-ish feet of angle from the SkyCam. So think about what Ewers saw on that play, the throw he had to make, and how accurately it was thrown. He decides to throw before Sanders is even past his man. That’s a testament to Ewers’ arm ability.
“Precise throw, honestly,” Sanders said Saturday about the type of throw needed on that play. “We ran that play in practice multiple times. Coach Sark called it out. He know it was going to happen. He said he was hoping and praying it was going to happen. Quinn came out and just delivered a dart.”
Ewers’ throw also is a testament to Sanders. A week ago Eric wrote about how Sanders was coming into his own in the Longhorn offense. I posted this on Twitter, a look at what Sanders had offered through five games and how it compares to the entire Longhorn tight end position since 2014.
Sanders’ numbers now after a five-catch, 71-yard, two-touchdown outing against the Sooners?
25 catches for 283 yards and five touchdowns. He has already outproduced the entire 2021 tight end room in half the time. It makes sense for Sarkisian to design plays for Sanders since he provides such a mismatch. It makes sense for Ewers to look for Sanders on a consistent basis.
Sanders has to keep up his end of the deal for that last part, and in 2022, that’s what he’s done game after game. Of course, it helps to have a quarterback like Ewers who can find him in between the second and third levels, as he did Saturday versus Oklahoma.
Jahdae Barron stays home
As the second quarter was approaching its final stages and with the Longhorns up 21-0, the Sooner offense started to find a rhythm in the Wildcat. Runs of 24, 7, and 13 yards placed OU on the edge of the red zone, threatening to score to make it a two-possession game.
With 20 yards to go to the end zone, Eric Gray lined up in the Wildcat yet again. He took a couple of steps forward, but as he did, Brayden Willis began to leak out from his H-back position.
For Wildcat sets, this is a typical “caught you sleeping” play. But guess who wasn’t sleeping? Jahdae Barron.
Barron described the play after the game.
“It was just keeping my eyes on my key,” Barron said. “That was my man. I’m still fitting the run, so I was just being smart and being aware.”
It was Barron’s second interception of the season, which has him tied for the team lead with D’Shawn Jamison.
What resulted from that turnover? The Sanders’ touchdown shown above.
Barron plays one of the more difficult positions to master in Pete Kwiatkowski’s system. So far this year, with two picks to show for it, he’s done everything asked of him.
