Details… details and more details.
On a day when a pretty damn good game broke out between Texas and West Virginia, the difference between the two teams that often appeared to be trying to steal defeat from the jaws of victory was minimal.
Like just a few seconds.
Yet, when the dust settled, the Longhorns made a few too many mistakes and had too few timeouts to pull out what would have been the best win of the season for Texas.
Instead … West Virginia 24, Texas 20.
Suddenly, in the aftermath of the 10th game of the season, the Longhorns are sitting at 5-5, still need a win to qualify for a bowl game and set up what could be the most pressure-packed game this program has seen to end the season since … well … 2013.
What happened at DKR today will likely set up a situation where Strong and the Longhorns will go into the final game of the season against TCU needing a win to get to 7-5. Assuming the Longhorns beat Kansas, we might be watching a game that defines the Strong era in Austin.
Today was some of the best football that Texas has played all season and yet its final reward might be a game on Thanksgving to save its coach’s job.
(other thoughts on the game).
1. I talk about Strong’s game management issues all the time and it proved to be a massive issue in this game. Twice in this game the Longhorns took wasted time outs on their first offensive possession of the half and the second time it did so meant that at the end of the fourth quarter when the Longhorns needed three time outs to have enough time to give themselves a chance to win the game, they didn’t have all three. They had two … and that proved costly.
2. On the time out in question in the third quarter, Texas wasted the entire play-clock hoping to get West Virginia to jump offsides on fourth down, but needed to call a timeout to kick a field goal, which it missed. Forget about the results of the field goal, the planning was just poor.
3. Meanwhile, in the first quarter, Texas took a time out on the first offensive series of the game on a basic third and eight play. This happens so much that it was bound to catch up with the Longhorns at some point.
4. I thought the Longhorns played one of their best games of the season. With so many opportunities to win this game, they just couldn’t close the deal, but there was a ton of effort, a ton of positives, just not a win. No, it’s not a moral victory, either. It just wasn’t a total abomination of a game like so many UT losses.
5. Strong needs to be the team’s defensive coordinator if he keeps his job. Once again, Texas watched a quarterback go crazy in the first quarter, only to do very little in the following three quarters. Texas played pretty damn good defense on Saturday.
6. It kind of seemed like D’Onta Foreman ran out of gas in the second half and was nursing some sort of an injury. All I know is that he was held to 53 rushing yards in the second half and played a small role in the fourth quarter when the team was mounting a comeback.
7. On a day when Armanti Foreman caught zero passes, Dorian Leonard stepped up with a monster performance, catching seven passes for 125 yards. The junior from Longview has really started to emerge as a difference-maker in the second half of the season.
8. There were times I thought Malcolm Roach was the second-best player on the field.
9. Breckyn Hager has been quiet the last two weeks, but that was a big tackle for loss in the fourth quarter with West Virginia inside it’s own 15-yard line and on the very next play he forced a holding penalty that wiped away a monster pass play for West Virginia.
10. Jason Hall is to safety blitzes what Dylan Haines is to errant passes being thrown into the air. Speaking of Haines, he now ranks fifth all-time in Longhorns history in career interceptions. Discuss.
11. Collin Johnson is a freshman who just happens to be a monster, but he’s still a freshman and he made a few costly freshman mistakes today, none bigger than not getting beyond the first down line on fourth down during UT’s second to last possession.
12. We had a John Burt sighting! Speaking of which, why did John Burt receive more targets than Armanti Foreman and Devin Duvernay for much of the game?
13. Where would this defense be without Malcolm Roach?
14. John Bonney and PJ Locke very quietly played very good games.
15. The omission of the 18 Wheeler package in every short yardage situation is an admission that last week's decision-making was a mistake, no?
16. Texas received a huge break when the officials hit West Virginia with an interference call on a fumbled punt by Jacorey Warrick. That could have easily gone the other way. That the Longhorns scored a touchdown five plays later made that a pretty important moment in the game.
17. The Texas punt coverage was outstanding.
18. We talked about this on the Orangebloods Podcast this week, but because the Mountaineers are such a good bend but don’t break defense, the one thing the Longhorns couldn't do in this game was lose the down and distance game with unneeded penalties. Down 17-3 and in the middle of a critical possession, Caleb Bluiett’s holding penalty stopped a budding offensive possession in its tracks and the Longhorns were forced to punt again.
19. Not that anyone is counting, but Devin Duvernay got his first touch in the game with 14 minutes to go in the second quarter and he immediately created a first down. He didn’t receive another target until three was 4:38 left in the second quarter. Not that anyone is counting ...
20. It didn’t matter because the Mountaineers scored on the very next play, but I hate it when Charlie turns down penalties that give the other team hidden yards. When West Virginia was called for a holding penalty on its second touchdown drive, Charlie turned down 1st and 20 for 2nd 13 … I hate that and he’s done it at least four times this season and I’m pretty sure it has backfired to some degree each time.
21. From the Department of Details Matter: Down 10-3, Texas punted inside the WVU 15, but Tim Cole received a 15-yard penalty for swinging at a player, which set West Virginia up at its 30-yard line. The Mountaineers scored a few minutes later.
22. West Virginia was 8 of 15 on third downs. A few more third downs stops and Texas wins this game.
23. That was a big moment in the game early on when Kris Boyd ripped the ball away from Justin Crawford near the Texas 10-yard line. Boyd is turning into quite the playmaker in the last month.
24. I wrote this in the first quarter: “Shane Buechele is going to be such a bigger run-game threat next season than he’s ever been this season. All he needs is to add a little more body mass and the coaches will take the kids gloves off with him in this regards. As a reference point, Colt McCoy rushed for 170 yards as a freshman and then totaled 1,053 yards in his next two seasons.”
As it turns out, today was a breakout day on the ground for Buechele, as he rushed for 44 yards (including sacks) on the day.
25. Overall, I thought Buechele played a pretty damn good game, but once West Virginia realized that bringing extra men would impact his play, the game changed forever more. The safety blitz has been a big weapon for the Texas defense all year, but West Virginia used it well down the stretch.
26. Edwin Freeman played a quality game in place of Malik Jefferson, who left the game early with what might have been a concussion. Where was he in the first half of the season? I think Freeman and Jefferson should be the starters at linebacker for the Longhorns.
27. Jeff McCulloch had a surprisingly quiet day.
28. Texas needs more out of its return game.
29. That 37-yard field goal that Texas had blocked … again … was a pretty big deal at the end, although it’s probably less than 50-50 that Trent Domingue would have hit a 40+ yard field goal to win it, assuming it had been 24-23 instead of 24-20.
30. Prayers are with the family of Tim Cole, whose father needed CPR and was considered to be in life-threatening shape before the game started. Nothing else even matters compared to that.
On a day when a pretty damn good game broke out between Texas and West Virginia, the difference between the two teams that often appeared to be trying to steal defeat from the jaws of victory was minimal.
Like just a few seconds.
Yet, when the dust settled, the Longhorns made a few too many mistakes and had too few timeouts to pull out what would have been the best win of the season for Texas.
Instead … West Virginia 24, Texas 20.
Suddenly, in the aftermath of the 10th game of the season, the Longhorns are sitting at 5-5, still need a win to qualify for a bowl game and set up what could be the most pressure-packed game this program has seen to end the season since … well … 2013.
What happened at DKR today will likely set up a situation where Strong and the Longhorns will go into the final game of the season against TCU needing a win to get to 7-5. Assuming the Longhorns beat Kansas, we might be watching a game that defines the Strong era in Austin.
Today was some of the best football that Texas has played all season and yet its final reward might be a game on Thanksgving to save its coach’s job.
(other thoughts on the game).
1. I talk about Strong’s game management issues all the time and it proved to be a massive issue in this game. Twice in this game the Longhorns took wasted time outs on their first offensive possession of the half and the second time it did so meant that at the end of the fourth quarter when the Longhorns needed three time outs to have enough time to give themselves a chance to win the game, they didn’t have all three. They had two … and that proved costly.
2. On the time out in question in the third quarter, Texas wasted the entire play-clock hoping to get West Virginia to jump offsides on fourth down, but needed to call a timeout to kick a field goal, which it missed. Forget about the results of the field goal, the planning was just poor.
3. Meanwhile, in the first quarter, Texas took a time out on the first offensive series of the game on a basic third and eight play. This happens so much that it was bound to catch up with the Longhorns at some point.
4. I thought the Longhorns played one of their best games of the season. With so many opportunities to win this game, they just couldn’t close the deal, but there was a ton of effort, a ton of positives, just not a win. No, it’s not a moral victory, either. It just wasn’t a total abomination of a game like so many UT losses.
5. Strong needs to be the team’s defensive coordinator if he keeps his job. Once again, Texas watched a quarterback go crazy in the first quarter, only to do very little in the following three quarters. Texas played pretty damn good defense on Saturday.
6. It kind of seemed like D’Onta Foreman ran out of gas in the second half and was nursing some sort of an injury. All I know is that he was held to 53 rushing yards in the second half and played a small role in the fourth quarter when the team was mounting a comeback.
7. On a day when Armanti Foreman caught zero passes, Dorian Leonard stepped up with a monster performance, catching seven passes for 125 yards. The junior from Longview has really started to emerge as a difference-maker in the second half of the season.
8. There were times I thought Malcolm Roach was the second-best player on the field.
9. Breckyn Hager has been quiet the last two weeks, but that was a big tackle for loss in the fourth quarter with West Virginia inside it’s own 15-yard line and on the very next play he forced a holding penalty that wiped away a monster pass play for West Virginia.
10. Jason Hall is to safety blitzes what Dylan Haines is to errant passes being thrown into the air. Speaking of Haines, he now ranks fifth all-time in Longhorns history in career interceptions. Discuss.
11. Collin Johnson is a freshman who just happens to be a monster, but he’s still a freshman and he made a few costly freshman mistakes today, none bigger than not getting beyond the first down line on fourth down during UT’s second to last possession.
12. We had a John Burt sighting! Speaking of which, why did John Burt receive more targets than Armanti Foreman and Devin Duvernay for much of the game?
13. Where would this defense be without Malcolm Roach?
14. John Bonney and PJ Locke very quietly played very good games.
15. The omission of the 18 Wheeler package in every short yardage situation is an admission that last week's decision-making was a mistake, no?
16. Texas received a huge break when the officials hit West Virginia with an interference call on a fumbled punt by Jacorey Warrick. That could have easily gone the other way. That the Longhorns scored a touchdown five plays later made that a pretty important moment in the game.
17. The Texas punt coverage was outstanding.
18. We talked about this on the Orangebloods Podcast this week, but because the Mountaineers are such a good bend but don’t break defense, the one thing the Longhorns couldn't do in this game was lose the down and distance game with unneeded penalties. Down 17-3 and in the middle of a critical possession, Caleb Bluiett’s holding penalty stopped a budding offensive possession in its tracks and the Longhorns were forced to punt again.
19. Not that anyone is counting, but Devin Duvernay got his first touch in the game with 14 minutes to go in the second quarter and he immediately created a first down. He didn’t receive another target until three was 4:38 left in the second quarter. Not that anyone is counting ...
20. It didn’t matter because the Mountaineers scored on the very next play, but I hate it when Charlie turns down penalties that give the other team hidden yards. When West Virginia was called for a holding penalty on its second touchdown drive, Charlie turned down 1st and 20 for 2nd 13 … I hate that and he’s done it at least four times this season and I’m pretty sure it has backfired to some degree each time.
21. From the Department of Details Matter: Down 10-3, Texas punted inside the WVU 15, but Tim Cole received a 15-yard penalty for swinging at a player, which set West Virginia up at its 30-yard line. The Mountaineers scored a few minutes later.
22. West Virginia was 8 of 15 on third downs. A few more third downs stops and Texas wins this game.
23. That was a big moment in the game early on when Kris Boyd ripped the ball away from Justin Crawford near the Texas 10-yard line. Boyd is turning into quite the playmaker in the last month.
24. I wrote this in the first quarter: “Shane Buechele is going to be such a bigger run-game threat next season than he’s ever been this season. All he needs is to add a little more body mass and the coaches will take the kids gloves off with him in this regards. As a reference point, Colt McCoy rushed for 170 yards as a freshman and then totaled 1,053 yards in his next two seasons.”
As it turns out, today was a breakout day on the ground for Buechele, as he rushed for 44 yards (including sacks) on the day.
25. Overall, I thought Buechele played a pretty damn good game, but once West Virginia realized that bringing extra men would impact his play, the game changed forever more. The safety blitz has been a big weapon for the Texas defense all year, but West Virginia used it well down the stretch.
26. Edwin Freeman played a quality game in place of Malik Jefferson, who left the game early with what might have been a concussion. Where was he in the first half of the season? I think Freeman and Jefferson should be the starters at linebacker for the Longhorns.
27. Jeff McCulloch had a surprisingly quiet day.
28. Texas needs more out of its return game.
29. That 37-yard field goal that Texas had blocked … again … was a pretty big deal at the end, although it’s probably less than 50-50 that Trent Domingue would have hit a 40+ yard field goal to win it, assuming it had been 24-23 instead of 24-20.
30. Prayers are with the family of Tim Cole, whose father needed CPR and was considered to be in life-threatening shape before the game started. Nothing else even matters compared to that.
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