There are a lot of rhinos in the room coming out of this game, none of which should be ignored. Let's walk our way through them.
a. Texas is headed back to the Big 12 Championship game for the first time in nine years, which is a pretty monumental three-game regular-season improvement from a season ago and the totality of the last half-decade.
No matter what, don't lose sight of that crucial truth from today because nothing about this 9-3 regular season finish for the Longhorns is cheap or unearned. Texas beat Oklahoma. It ended the TCU "daddy" thing. It went on the road and beat Kansas State. It survived Lubbock. Nothing about the place Texas is heading into next week was of the back-door nature.
With several more steps still needing to take place before Texas is truly "back," you can't run before you learn to walk and Texas is striding at the end of Tom Herman's second season.
b. The overall quality of the offensive performance was good enough for a win today, but it won't be good enough next week in Arlington. Herman and his coaches simply need to put this game in the rear-view mirror and find a counter-punch for some of the moves that Kansas made today on defense that next week's opponent would be smart to copy. What did they do? They dropped a lot of guys into passing lanes and made sure that Lil'Jordan Humphrey wasn't going to be the X-factor in this game.
c. After wondering how close to 100 percent Sam Ehlinger would be in this game, he played the worst game of his season and there will be questions about just how effective he will/can be next week in the Big 12 Championship. Outside of the opening drive of the game, Ehlinger never seemed right throwing the football and the truth that everyone knows is that Texas almost certainly won't beat Oklahoma or West Virginia next week without Ehlinger playing at a very high level, with all due respect to a Texas defense that has played really well the last two weeks.
d. Speaking of the Texas defense, it took a team that scored 40 points against Oklahoma a week ago and completely suffocated it for three quarters to the point that the Longhorns could survive a brutal statistical performance from their quarterback. There's no way of knowing what this resurgence on defense will mean against a Heisman-level quarterback next week, but progress is progress, and today marked another step forward for this unit.
Those are my four biggest takeaways.
(Other thoughts on the game)
* Sam Ehlinger on the first drive of the game: 6 of 7 for 81 yards and a touchdown (230.1 rating)
* Sam Ehlinger for the rest of the game: 10 of 21 for for 73 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions (73.6 rating)
* Ehlinger's interception streak ending in the second quarter was definitely coming, but I thought it might come on a tipped pass or something fluky. I didn't see him throwing it right to a defender in the red zone of a critical game. It had been 10 games since we'd seen one of those, but when it came crashing down, it came crashing down hard.
* If you had told me before the game that Ehlinger would have played this poorly, whether directly impacted by his injury or not, I would have thought the Longhorns would have lost. It says a lot about the Texas defense that it kept this game in complete control because of its effort.
* Every guy on the Texas defense deserves a game ball. On a day when the unit was without Gary Johnson and (for much of the game) Brandon Jones, it played as well as it has all season.
* Texas did that thing again in the fourth quarter when its defense started allowing yards and points that it hadn't been allowing for the first 45 minutes of the game.
* If I had to choose one player and one player only for a game ball, I'm giving it to Jeffery McCulloch, who followed up the play of his career in the fourth quarter (a game-clinching interception as Kansas was driving inside Texas territory to potentially make it a one-score game) with a strip sack moments later. Where has this guy been all season? Welcome to the party.
* True freshman Joseph Ossai was also really good for the second week in a row. That guy is going to be a player.
* Other defensive players who warrant special recognition: Malcolm Roach, Anthony Wheeler, Charles Omenihu, Caden Sterns, P.J. Locke, BJ Foster and Kris Boyd.
* Tre Watson was excellent today and probably deserving of offensive MVP honors.
* Lil'Jordan Humphrey caught one pass for five yards in the first half and one pass for 20 yards in the second half. Kansas did as good of a job defending Humphrey as anyone has done all season.
* The Big 12 officiating crew decided before it ever knew who actually had possession of Kansas' first onside kick before it actually knew who recovered the ball.
* I still can't quite figure out why that Pooka Williams run in the second quarter wasn't reviewed. Come on, Big 12, the Jayhawks didn't even hurry up with the offense, which left a lot of time to stop the game at any point to look at a play that was very, very close. On another note, Williams is really good and he delivered a Caden Sterns level-shot to Caden Sterns in the second half. That kid should transfer.
* I kind of resisted the early Robert Killebrew comparisons for true freshman linebacker Ayodele Adeoye, but yeah, he looks like a walking, talking, hitting 15-yard penalty waiting to happen when he's on the field. So Killebrew 2.0 it is.
* The Longhorns had a perfect start to this game with two three and outs on defense and a 98-yard touchdown drive on offense. You could have never convinced me that the Longhorns would basically tread water for the next 20 minutes or so of game clock and go to the half leading by only seven points.
* With every game that passes, I feel like I'm watching Devin Duvernay evolve into a mini-Quan Cosby.
* The hit on Brandon Jones that knocked him out of the game was a clear helmet to helmet hit, complete with a ducking of the head upon contact, so (of course!) a terrible Fox crew (led by a meat-head ex-player) thought it wasn't a penalty. Is it too much to ask of Fox to have announcing crews that aren't shitty? There's literally thousands of people that would shank someone for a shot at that gig and Fox just rolls out its spare parts and ill-equipped rookies because... YOLO!!!!
* Tom Herman claims that he loves his senior class, but it sure seems like has had to suspend a lot of them this year. Gary Johnson went from being celebrated upon the news of his new baby girl to suspended in a matter of minutes if felt like.
a. Texas is headed back to the Big 12 Championship game for the first time in nine years, which is a pretty monumental three-game regular-season improvement from a season ago and the totality of the last half-decade.
No matter what, don't lose sight of that crucial truth from today because nothing about this 9-3 regular season finish for the Longhorns is cheap or unearned. Texas beat Oklahoma. It ended the TCU "daddy" thing. It went on the road and beat Kansas State. It survived Lubbock. Nothing about the place Texas is heading into next week was of the back-door nature.
With several more steps still needing to take place before Texas is truly "back," you can't run before you learn to walk and Texas is striding at the end of Tom Herman's second season.
b. The overall quality of the offensive performance was good enough for a win today, but it won't be good enough next week in Arlington. Herman and his coaches simply need to put this game in the rear-view mirror and find a counter-punch for some of the moves that Kansas made today on defense that next week's opponent would be smart to copy. What did they do? They dropped a lot of guys into passing lanes and made sure that Lil'Jordan Humphrey wasn't going to be the X-factor in this game.
c. After wondering how close to 100 percent Sam Ehlinger would be in this game, he played the worst game of his season and there will be questions about just how effective he will/can be next week in the Big 12 Championship. Outside of the opening drive of the game, Ehlinger never seemed right throwing the football and the truth that everyone knows is that Texas almost certainly won't beat Oklahoma or West Virginia next week without Ehlinger playing at a very high level, with all due respect to a Texas defense that has played really well the last two weeks.
d. Speaking of the Texas defense, it took a team that scored 40 points against Oklahoma a week ago and completely suffocated it for three quarters to the point that the Longhorns could survive a brutal statistical performance from their quarterback. There's no way of knowing what this resurgence on defense will mean against a Heisman-level quarterback next week, but progress is progress, and today marked another step forward for this unit.
Those are my four biggest takeaways.
(Other thoughts on the game)
* Sam Ehlinger on the first drive of the game: 6 of 7 for 81 yards and a touchdown (230.1 rating)
* Sam Ehlinger for the rest of the game: 10 of 21 for for 73 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions (73.6 rating)
* Ehlinger's interception streak ending in the second quarter was definitely coming, but I thought it might come on a tipped pass or something fluky. I didn't see him throwing it right to a defender in the red zone of a critical game. It had been 10 games since we'd seen one of those, but when it came crashing down, it came crashing down hard.
* If you had told me before the game that Ehlinger would have played this poorly, whether directly impacted by his injury or not, I would have thought the Longhorns would have lost. It says a lot about the Texas defense that it kept this game in complete control because of its effort.
* Every guy on the Texas defense deserves a game ball. On a day when the unit was without Gary Johnson and (for much of the game) Brandon Jones, it played as well as it has all season.
* Texas did that thing again in the fourth quarter when its defense started allowing yards and points that it hadn't been allowing for the first 45 minutes of the game.
* If I had to choose one player and one player only for a game ball, I'm giving it to Jeffery McCulloch, who followed up the play of his career in the fourth quarter (a game-clinching interception as Kansas was driving inside Texas territory to potentially make it a one-score game) with a strip sack moments later. Where has this guy been all season? Welcome to the party.
* True freshman Joseph Ossai was also really good for the second week in a row. That guy is going to be a player.
* Other defensive players who warrant special recognition: Malcolm Roach, Anthony Wheeler, Charles Omenihu, Caden Sterns, P.J. Locke, BJ Foster and Kris Boyd.
* Tre Watson was excellent today and probably deserving of offensive MVP honors.
* Lil'Jordan Humphrey caught one pass for five yards in the first half and one pass for 20 yards in the second half. Kansas did as good of a job defending Humphrey as anyone has done all season.
* The Big 12 officiating crew decided before it ever knew who actually had possession of Kansas' first onside kick before it actually knew who recovered the ball.
* I still can't quite figure out why that Pooka Williams run in the second quarter wasn't reviewed. Come on, Big 12, the Jayhawks didn't even hurry up with the offense, which left a lot of time to stop the game at any point to look at a play that was very, very close. On another note, Williams is really good and he delivered a Caden Sterns level-shot to Caden Sterns in the second half. That kid should transfer.
* I kind of resisted the early Robert Killebrew comparisons for true freshman linebacker Ayodele Adeoye, but yeah, he looks like a walking, talking, hitting 15-yard penalty waiting to happen when he's on the field. So Killebrew 2.0 it is.
* The Longhorns had a perfect start to this game with two three and outs on defense and a 98-yard touchdown drive on offense. You could have never convinced me that the Longhorns would basically tread water for the next 20 minutes or so of game clock and go to the half leading by only seven points.
* With every game that passes, I feel like I'm watching Devin Duvernay evolve into a mini-Quan Cosby.
* The hit on Brandon Jones that knocked him out of the game was a clear helmet to helmet hit, complete with a ducking of the head upon contact, so (of course!) a terrible Fox crew (led by a meat-head ex-player) thought it wasn't a penalty. Is it too much to ask of Fox to have announcing crews that aren't shitty? There's literally thousands of people that would shank someone for a shot at that gig and Fox just rolls out its spare parts and ill-equipped rookies because... YOLO!!!!
* Tom Herman claims that he loves his senior class, but it sure seems like has had to suspend a lot of them this year. Gary Johnson went from being celebrated upon the news of his new baby girl to suspended in a matter of minutes if felt like.
