Twenty-four hours later, there's just so much to talk about.
Some good, some bad and some fugly.
After an opening six minutes that felt like the inmates in an insane asylum had escaped, one could hardly be surprised that the Texas-OU game descended into madness over the course of 60 minutes. Whether anyone in burnt orange will want to admit it, one of the best games in the history of the rivalry unfolded on Saturday and someone had to lose.
Ultimately, having a talent advantage kept the Longhorns in the game and constantly negating that edge with miscues took it away from them.
What I want to do in the opening section of this week's column is work our way through the major events of the game, while having a discussion about what happened in the game inside of those moments. Let's just start at the beginning and go from there.
Quinn Ewers' First Interception (14:23 First Quarter)
After a two-yard loss on the opening play of the game, the Longhorns were in 12 personnel and went empty back with a trips bunch to the left and twins to the right (with Xavier Worthy inside on the hash marks and Adonai Mitchel outside of him near the numbers).
It looks like the play was designed to hit Worthy who is running a crossing route over the middle of the field, but OU linebacker Jaren Kanak (who played very well) flashes in front of Worthy. Had Ewers been able to hold out for a fraction longer on Worthy, he would have had him running free in the middle of the field, but Kanak's aggressiveness forced Ewers to look backside to Mitchell, who is a total spectator on the play, as he allows Gentry Williams to run a better route than him, allowing him to not only have inside position, but he makes zero effort to keep the interception from happening.
A few things ...
a. If Mitchell competes at all on this play, we're looking at an incomplete pass. If this was a one-off with Mitchell, I'd be willing to give him a bit of a pass, but too often this season he hasn't given maximum effort on plays and that was certainly the case here.
b. Ewers made a bad throw. He was in a good setup in the pocket to deliver a good ball, but the hesitancy to throw to Worthy created a situation where Ewers tried to complete the pass with no lower body involvement and he threw it high and to the outside when relying on his arm to create the magic. If Mitchell gives full effort on his route, it's almost certainly an incomplete pass, but Ewers certainly has his fingerprints all over the mistake as well.
c. The play reminded me a lot of Chance Mock's opening interception to Derrick Strait in the 2003 game.
Oklahoma's Opening Touchdown Drive (14:14 First Quarter)
A few things to bring up from this 5-play drive that ended with Oklahoma taking a 7-0 lead.
a. The Longhorns had a chance to potentially get off the field with the Sooners scoring only a field goal, but on third and 1 from the Texas 13-yard line, Jalen Catalon met Marcus Major in the backfield for a potential tackle for loss, only to whiff on the tackle with a glancing blow, which allowed Major to pick up the first down. Sloppy tackling was an issue all day and this was the very first play where the issue popped up.
b. Texas didn't blitz much on Saturday, but it brought an extra man (David Gbenda) from the left and Gabriel was flushed to his right on a designed quarterback draw. Gabriel had a gap that only Jaylan Ford would be able to close, but Ford got blocked by an OU lineman at the second level and there was no one else around to clean up Ford's being picked off. I don't want to say that it was an awful call by Pete Kwiatkowski, but it was the perfect play-call by OU's Jeff Lebby against what turned out to be a wasted outside pressure attempt. The play design was fantastic, as the fear of Drake Stoops catching the ball in the flat took Catalon completely out of the play and there was only one player left (Ford) to stop what was happening.
Fourth Down Fake Punt and the Savion Red pass on 4th and 1
Ultimately, neither of these plays made a real difference in the game, but I want to single these moments out because they might have represented Sarkisian's best two moments of the game.
a. I loved the aggression. Running a fake punt from your own 32-yard line when you're down 7-0 and practically gifting OU points if you get it wrong was so ballsy. We hadn't really seen this kind of "All gas, no brakes" since the Alabama game and it definitely helped neutralize the momentum that OU had.
b. Speaking of ballsy, letting Red rip a ball down the seam to Gunnar Helm certainly qualifies. Clearly, the Longhorns were looking for that exact situation to run that play, but the timing of that call was ... well ... ballsy. Keep in mind that this play occurred moments after Jake Majors had left the game with an injury. It's no small thing that Sarkisian attempted this six plays after Conner Robertson entered the game. The Longhorns probably practiced this play 10 times last week, but I bet they never did it once with Robertson snapping the ball to Red.
Ewers' second interception (10:07 First Quarter)
a. It's a great play by OU's Billy Bowman. Sometimes the other team just makes a better play.
b. Ewers throws the ball a little high. With a better ball, it's almost certainly a touchdown.
c. Ja'Tavion Sanders has to make an outstretched attempt, but he gets both hands on the ball and I bet he'd tell you he should have made the play. Yes, Bowman delivers a big hit, but Sanders had already lost control of the ball before the hit. The hit didn't break up the catch, as much as it is what allowed the ball to go up into the air after Sanders had already lost control of it.
d. Both Ewers and Sanders are a little unlucky on the play. If they ran that same exact play 10 times, Sanders probably catches the ball on half of them and the ball probably hits the ground on another two or three. It feels like that's a 1 out of 5 likely outcome.
e. Ultimately, as far as red-zone turnovers are concerned, this one hurt less than most because of the blocked punt for a touchdown that occurs four plays later.
Jerrin Thompson's dropped interception (14:19 Second Quarter)
Man, you want to talk about slim margins determining games ... Thompson's dropped interception on 3rd and 8 from the Texas 9-yard line cost the team three points.
Yes, there is a reason he plays defensive back instead of wide receiver, but a senior has to make that play. It was one of the few big mistakes Gabriel made, but unlike what happened to Ewers twice in the previous quarter, the OU quarterback catches a huge break.
Thompson committing a 15-yard penalty on OU's next drive, which put OU into the red zone was yet another sloppy play that set the defense back.
Sark's CJ Baxter Infatuation (Second/Third Quarters)
I think we all get that Sarkisian is desperate to get Baxter going this season. He can barely talk about Jonathan Brooks without going out of his way to mention that Baxter is the toy he really wants to play with.
Down 17-14 late in the second quarter, the Longhorns were driving when Sarkisian took out his best running back, who was averaging more than 6 yards per carry at this point in the game, in favor of a player who was averaging less than 3 yards per carry.
On a drive that stalled out short of a touchdown, Sarkisian gave the ball to Baxter twice, as the freshman running back picked up ... 2 yard per carry ... combined on the two plays.
Sark never takes his best skill players off the field for rotation and it didn't make sense to do it in this situation when you needed to both score a touchdown and keep the ball away from the Sooners before halftime. Not having the nation's second-leading rusher on the field was a mistake. Period.
Yet, Sark didn't learn his lesson, as he inserted Baxter into the game in the third quarter with his team trailing by 10 and close to entering the red zone. As soon as Baxter entered the game, Oklahoma absolutely sold out against the run game that it knew was coming, as it stuffed back-to-back Baxter carries for a total of -1 yards. That led to a 4th and 3 situation that ended with Texas needing to kick a field goal after Robertson was called for a false start. Texas stopped itself on this drive more than the Sooners stopped them and it all pointed to Sark going back to his lesser back at the wrong time.
In addition to having to settle for three points on its last drive of the first half, it left enough time on the clock for the Sooners to get one last drive in the half, which was notable because it meant that OU had a chance to have the last drive of the first half and the first drive of the second half.
After tying the game at 17-17, the Texas offense didn't get back on the field until the Longhorns were trailing 27-17.
Again ... fine details and slim margins.
Four plays from the OU 1-yard line ... nada (4th Quarter)
I'm not even sure what to say about what happened here other than Sarkisian was hell-bent on forcing that formation to work and the pride can be one of those seven deadly sins.
The Longhorns wanted to be a smash-mouth team in a game that had routinely seen its offensive line (with a back-up center) get pushed around the field. It just didn't make sense to go to the well three straight times when it seemed clear that a different approach was needed after the first play ... or at least the second play. To run it three times and then follow it up with a pass short of the goal line felt questionable at best.
More points left on the field.
Late Game/Clock Management (4th Quarter)
With the Longhorns getting the ball back after the defense forced a rare three and out, the offense took over on its own 13-yard line with 4:49 left in the game.
The objectives of the drive should have looked like this:
a. Pick up a couple of first downs at a minimum in an effort to flip the field position.
b. Score points.
c. Leave no time left for the Sooners to respond.
After achieving the goal of getting the ball away from their end zone and getting it near midfield, the Longhorns were in a perfect position to achieve the last two objectives of the drive.
Yet, with a chance to run down the clock and either get a chance at points or (at worst) push the game into overtime, the Longhorns ran four straight plays that left a combined 1:41 worth of game time on the game clock, which obviously became critical when the Longhorns gave the ball back to the Sooners with 1:17 left in the game.
If Sarkisian had his offense do anything other than rush its tempo on its final offensive drive, the Sooners wouldn't have time to get the ball down the field for the winning touchdown. On top of that, the play-calling in the final few plays of the drive was very questionable. If you're going to run the ball on third and long in the name of motivating the Sooners to use its final timeout/getting the ball closer for a field goal, maybe you run less uptempo earlier in the drive once the clock is under 3 minutes.
Sarkisian's game management skills have been questioned since he arrived at Texas and nothing happened in this game to change that.
Ultimately, the Longhorns just left too many points on the field, made too many little errors that added up and didn't get a performance in the way of game management from its head coach to help offset all of the banana peels the team kept slipping on.
No. 2 - Let's talk about Dillon Gabriel ...
Give Gabriel credit. With the game on the line in the final 1:17, he made the plays needed to win the game.
It was the high moment of his career and he deserves attaboys for delivering on a big stage.
Yet, inside of the performance, Gabriel was mostly who we thought he was going into the game. Before going 4 of 4 for 58 yards on the final drive, here's how Gabriel's passing numbers looked:
19 of 34 for 227 yards, zero touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 111.96 passer rating.
Even with the final drive, his passing numbers were just ... meh .... 23 of 38 for 285 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT and a 132.2 rating. If these two teams play again in a couple of months, you'll take that from Gabriel all day long.
What you won't take is allowing him to channel his inner Vince Young in completely throwing Texas off balance to the tune of 113 yards, an 8.1 YPG and a touchdown on the ground. He entered the game with 95 yards rushing and a 3.3 YPC in five combined games of production.
Not only did Texas not respect Gabriel as a runner, but it was often abysmal in so much as getting a hand on him once he got to the second level. In a rematch, the defense has to take him seriously and tackle better.
It's kind of unreal what did the defense in against the Sooners.
No. 3 - About Quinn Ewers...
Ok, my initial diagnosis of Ewers being "exceptional" went a little too far. It was a little much.
While he didn't receive an ounce of luck on the two interceptions, his fingerprints were certainly left at the scene of the crimes. There was also some decision-making outside of those plays that could have been better.
Yet, I have to be honest ... outside of the three turnovers and some nitpicking on a few decisions throughout the game, I thought Ewers was as good or better than we've seen from him. Consider the following:
a. None of the mistakes that Ewers made really impacted him. We've seen really, really good quarterbacks at Texas meltdown in high-pressure situations in the past following an early turnover and I'll admit to being worried about how he would respond. Well, he responded like a bad ass time and time again when the pressure of delivering was on is shoulders.
b. He led the Longhorns down the field for what should have been an 11-play. game-winning drive.
c. Even with two interceptions, he finished the day with a 160.4 efficiency rating, which was much better than Gabriel's numbers.
d. In the final three quarters, Ewers completed 25 of 27 passes for 308 yards, 1 touchdown, 0 interceptions and a 200.6 game rating, which is nearly 20 points better than his 182.2 rating in this game a year ago. At one point, he completed 19 consecutive passes.
In the end, he was exceptional... in the final 45 minutes. Obviously, he was less than that in the first 15 minutes.
No. 4 - Final OU Game Impressions ...
... Someone make sure Sarkisian has this taped on his fridge in the bye week.
... Consider me still shocked at how poorly the Texas defensive line performed in this game. The play at defensive end with Barryn Sorrell, Ethan Burke and all the rest was mostly non-existent. Those dudes stayed blocked. To see Byron Murphy turned into a total non-factor was the most surprising component of the entire game... even more so than Gabriel's rushing yards. If there's a rematch, this group needs to take what happened in this game very personal because they got punked as a unit.
... If you had told me that Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap had taken over Jaylan Ford's body right before kickoff, it would make more sense than whatever actually happened in that game with the Texas All-American. His play left me speechless at times.
... All off-season long, I wondered aloud about the lack of playmaking on the defense when Ford isn't making game-changing plays. For the first time all season, the things that were worried became problems.
... Dear Jordan Whittington ... MOAR of that, por favor.
... Xavier Worthy's drop rate this season is down to 2.9%. It's almost as if a bunch of you made a mountain out of a molehill because of drops that happened with a broken hand.
... Why did Baxter get run in this game, while Johntay Cook couldn't get on the field in a game when Mitchell was just a guy?
... Texas punted once all day ... and lost.
... Terrence Brooks had a really good day.
... More Anthony Hill, please. The game wasn't close to being too big for him.
... Jake Majors was never as appreciated as much as the moment when he was no longer in the line-up.
No. 5 - If I had a vote that mattered ...
1. Georgia
2. Michigan
3. Washington
4. Oklahoma
5. Ohio State
6. Florida State
7. Oregon
8. Texas
9. USC
10. Penn State
(Heisman Trophy)
1. Michael Penix - QB - Washington
2. Caleb Williams - QB - USC
3. Brock Bowers - TE - Georgia
No. 6 - A few Big 12 thoughts ...
... Is Kansas the third-best team in the conference? Who is the competition ... West Virginia?
... Texas Tech might be starting to figure it out if Saturday is any indication. Tahj Brooks is fifth in the nation and carrying an offense that needs him to take pressure of Behren Morton.
... Baylor is not getting better.
... Kansas State was not impressive on Friday night in Stillwater. That team does not look threatening at all.
.... TCU looked even less impressive than Kansas State. This close to the Texas schedule is s-o-f-t.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) While there were some adjustments that needed to be made, I thought the player execution at all three levels of the defense hampered the defense more than anything else. Not winning the battle at the line of scrimmage, not tackling well and not making plays when they presented themselves was the biggest problem on that side of the ball, although not the only ones.
(Buy) It's hard for me to find a loss in these final six games.
(Sell) Not everyone can run uptempo as well as OU and I think the tempo of OU's offense was far from the the biggest issue with the defense (see above).
(Buy) Clearly, it's not as dominant as we thought, given what happened on Saturday. I'm willing to give this group a mulligan going into the final six games.
(Sell) Both the coaches and players share a huge amount of blame. I don't view this particular loss as one thing more than the other.
(Sell) Not having plus-safety play hurt the defense. Jalan Catalon and Jerrin Thompson were JAGs on Saturday. I can't blame the coaches for fishing for better play.
(Sell) Never.
(Buy) Absolutely. Maybe not by 35, though.
(Buy) If you can find someone in the Portal, I would bring them in, but don't be shocked if they don't try and lean on incoming freshman Collin Simmons.
(Sell) He's always going to be sketchy as a game manager IMO.
(Sell) I don't think Sark's "niceness" has anything to do with anything.
(Sell) I'm not willing to say all that.
No. 8 - 3 Quick Texas Volleyball Notes ...
a. The Longhorns just keep dishing out Ls to any team in the Big 12 that wants some, as the defending national champions beat No. 17 Kansas in back-to-back games in just 7 sets. In their last 4 matches against ranked teams BYU and Kansas, the Longhorns have won 12 sets and lost three.
b. The Longhorns (6-0) are one of two undefeated teams in conference play. Central Florida is 5-0.
c. Up next is what looks like a very road test against average Houston team on paper. The Longhorns won't return home until October 26th when they take on Baylor.
No. 9 – Scattershooting on anything and everything …
... With the Longhorns losing, the Aggies missed a real chance on Saturday to gain some momentum.
... Georgia looks like a team that is starting to find itself. Not playing anyone for six games will give a team time to figure it out.
... Blake Bowers probably won the Mackey Award in the last two weeks, while Ja'Tavion Sanders has been limited.
... It feels like USC flirts with fire each week. Gonna get burned, eventually.
... lulz @ the Miami Hurricanes.
... Rest in peace, Dick Butkus. Moe than one of the greatest linebackers of all-time, he was football's first touchdown scoring troll.
... Keep it up, Phils! Keep it up!
... You can feel that Rangers/Astros series coming from a mile away. Buckle up.
... Clayton Kershaw's performance on Saturday was worse than my Texas/OU prediction.
... New York and Las Vegas are in the WNBA Finals. I know you were wondering.
... I've been saying it all season, but this isn't the same Man City team of the last half-decade. Arsenal helped prove that on Sunday. Buckle up, everyone. It's going to be a wild race at the top this year.
... Austin FC's season is almost over... thank God.
... Sometimes life finds fascinating ways to humble you.
... Overall, I thought Ahsoka was solid, not completely forgettable. Too much of it didn't make a lot of sense. There were a couple of really good episodes, a lot of meh and a storyline that seemed to be made up as the show went along. It was a B-/C+ show.
... Loki is trying to pick up where it left off, but I'm not sure it's possible after the emotional peak of the season one finale. Episode 1 was missing the dynamic that made season one so good.
No. 10 - The List: Top 10 Most Overrated Bands ...
I know I'm asking for trouble in doing this list 24 hours after the OU game. I'm going to push a lot of buttons this week.
Forgive me.
All gas, no breaks, amiright?
Let's get to it.
10. Nirvana
Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of Kurt and Co., but the band only made three albums and Nevermind is truly the all-time album that the group made. In Utero and Bleach are just ok albums.
9. The Greatful Dead
Sorry, @DustinMcComas. They bore me.
8. Coldplay
Not a group I have ever really had any desire to dive into. I find Chris Martin's cooky vagaina-candle selling wife more interesting than the band's music.
7. The Ramones
If you take away I Wanna Be Sedated and Blitzkrieg Bop, what exactly is left?
6. Oasis
A good, solid band that thinks they belong on the marquee with The Beatles. Give me a break. That being said, All Around the World is a banger.
5. The Doors
Yes, they have a few absolute bangers, but it's all the other stuff that came with Jim Morrison and not the music that has them remembered.
4. Green Day
It's not that Green Day sucks, as much as they aren't better than so many of the band's peers during the same time.
3. Velvet Underground
Outside of Walk on the Wild Side, there's not much from Velvet that does a lot for me. Meh.
2. Dave Matthews Band
If you're a jam band that can only be enjoyed when catching the band live, you're o-v-e-r-r-a-t-e-d. I will admit to digging the Live at Luther College album that Dave Matthews made with Tim reynolds, but that's not even a DMB collab.
1. Kiss
Hey, I used to have a Gene Simmons poster in my room when I was 4 years old, but it had everything to do with the face paint and not the jams.
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