1. Unreal. After all the talk from the coaches and players in the off-season, including just last week Tom Herman talking up how his team is in a good place, Texas lays an egg once again to a team that was near two-touchdown favorites. I cautioned everyone to not overlook Maryland, but never did I seriously consider the possibility that the Longhorns could actually lose this game, on a neutral field, to a team in turmoil. There’s no way to spin it … this was a disastrous performance and outcome.
2. Last year’s loss to Maryland felt a little flukey, but this one does not, and it feels like Herman is dangerously close to losing a good portion of the fan base already. Fans usually want to run a coach out of town any time Texas loses, but this one’s different … looking unprepared and losing to a bottom-feeder Big 10 program for the second consecutive year raises some legitimate concerns about the long-term outlook for this program.
3. Even when Texas rallied to take the lead, I found myself thinking that nothing I had watched in this game made me think Texas will be in a position to challenge for the Big 12 title late in the season. The offense was once again stagnant for long stretches, the defense looked vulnerable and the special teams were more down than up.
4. On a day when Texas couldn’t handle Maryland, both Oklahoma and TCU were racing up and down the field with first-year quarterbacks. How do those teams, on offense in particular, just seem to reload when Texas can’t establish any real offensive success? Salt in the wound.
5. Tom Herman has had tremendous success with this offense in the past, but I’m not sure he doesn’t need to reconsider his entire offensive philosophy. His offense works when you have a dynamic athlete at quarterback, but when you don’t, it appears you get what we’ve seen in his 14 games in Austin, and that’s not near good enough.
6. This game looked like trouble from the start, with Maryland making it look very easy in marching down the field for a score. There were several times, including on that drive, where Maryland flat out outclassed Texas in terms of athleticism and execution.
7. I did a radio show on Friday and the host said something to the effect of “Texas can’t lose to Maryland two years in a row, right?” My response was that Texas should never lose to Maryland once, but to do it twice would be completely unacceptable. I cannot wrap my head around what has now happened in Tom Herman’s two season openers.
8. One of the highlights of the day … Devin Duvernay made what might be as good of a catch as you’ll see all year from Texas in getting the Longhorns on the board with their first score of the year. When the ball left Ehlinger’s hand, it looked like it was going to be five-yards out of Duvernay’s reach, but Duvernay kicked it into another gear, dove and fully extended for an incredible catch.
9. Collin Johnson … 3 catches for 59 yards and 1 touchdown. He needs about a dozen more targets than he got on Saturday.
10. Johnson didn’t get his first catch until there were 17 seconds left in the first half. Again, get the guy more targets, defensive schemes be damned.
11. Solid day by Lil’Jordan Humphrey in a losing effort.
12. Ryan Bujcevski’s first punt went 56 yards and had me thinking, “That’ll work. Maybe Texas has something here.” The next one was nearly a disastrous block and it was pretty much all downhill from there. Lots of work to be done from the true freshman and the punt team as a whole.
13. I’m not shocked Maryland was able to move the ball with some success, but I expected the Terps to test the middle of Texas’ defense way more than they did. Instead, Maryland lit Texas up on runs to the outside and through the air.
14. This game was no fluke. Far from it. Maryland looked better prepared, more athletic and looked like the better team overall. How does that happen?
15. For the most part, the pass protection appeared to be pretty solid, although Maryland was able to get occasional pressure when rushing only three or four defenders.
16. I liked what I saw from Tre Watson and Keaontay Ingram, but overall, the Texas ground game is still very much a work in progress. Texas will face much better front sevens than it faced against Maryland, and if the Longhorns couldn’t impose their will on the ground in this one, that doesn’t bode very well for future games against tougher defenses.
17. Not a great start to the season for Sam Ehlinger. He made a couple nice throws, including a beautiful third-down pass to Johnson that set up Kyle Porter touchdown, but he also missed on some big throws. And like last year, Ehlinger made a couple costly mistakes late in the game to seal the win for Maryland. It was a hideous déjà vu.
18. Do we officially have a quarterback controversy after week one? Sure feels like it.
19. Losing Gary Johnson was a big blow, but if we’re being honest, him being on the field probably doesn’t change the outcome of this one. Maryland was just better, as difficult as that is to accept.
20. The only time the Texas offense seemed to find a spark is when the Longhorns fell behind 24-7 and picked up its tempo. Maybe go to that earlier and actually put more pressure on the defense instead of running the playclock down and then running a bunch of slow-developing plays?
21. One of the team’s mottos this year was finish. The Longhorns turned the ball over on their last three possessions.
22. Texas showed last year that it can bounce back from slow starts to the season, but there’s really no way to sugarcoat this one … this was a disastrous outcome for the Texas program, especially when you look around at what other schools in the conference (and in the state) did in their openers. Texas desperately needs some on-field momentum to carry over into in-state recruiting, and today’s performance was a huge step back.
