1. It’s going to be a fun Saturday night. As good as last weekend’s win over USC was, this one trumps that win by a sizeable margin. To these eyes, TCU is a much better team than USC, and Texas had a much tougher task in winning this one than it faced last week. This game was close for a while, but Texas really just forced its will on a very good TCU team for four quarters and simply outclassed the Horned Frogs over the course of the game. This was an impressive win, ladies and gents. Enjoy it.
2. This job, especially as someone who covers recruiting, makes it impossible to be a fan. But I’m not going to lie, my job is a hell of a lot more enjoyable when Texas is winning. Like you all, I’ll enjoy tonight. No meltdowns allowed.
3. Someone call Uber Eats and have a plate of crow delivered to my doorstep. I thought Texas had a chance if it won the turnover battle and/or made a huge play in special teams, but I didn’t expect it to happen and thought TCU’s offense would make enough plays to get the win. It feels good to be wrong.
4. Collin freaking Johnson. He was great overall, but what a catch to put Texas up for good late in the third quarter. That was a hell of a throw by Ehlinger too as pressure was coming and he delivered a strike.
5. Caden freaking Sterns. If he’s not the best player on the Texas defense (team???), he’s definitely in the mix. Sterns just has a knack for making plays and he was at his best of his young career on Saturday.
6. Gary Johnson was good enough last week that he earned Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week. I’m not sure he’ll get that same honor this week, but he was terrific yet again. He finished with a team-high 11 tackles and was flying around early in the game. This is the Gary Johnson we all expected to see in 2018.
7. This can’t be bad. For the second straight week after committing to A&M, top national 2020 WR Demon Demas was back on the UT campus.
8. The first thing in my notebook: “One on one with Collin Johnson against a safety on the second play of the game? Yes please. Not sure what TCU was doing there. The Frogs might be the only team that does that, but that won’t last.” It turns out TCU tried to cover Johnson with one guy for much of the game, and Texas made Gary Patterson’s defense pay.
9. Kris Boyd finished the game strong, but Jalen Reagor was eating Boyd’s lunch early on. Boyd made a couple nice recoveries after getting beat to knock the ball away at the last minute, but he may want to keep the first half film out of NFL scouts’ hands if possible. Of course, it could just be that Reagor is that damn good.
10. Speaking of Boyd, he and Davante Davis better be ready for a lot of double moves in the coming weeks. TCU did a good job of capitalizing on UT’s aggressiveness for big gains.
11. Todd Orlando called an absolutely brilliant game. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision Texas holding TCU to 16 points. After a somewhat slow start to the season, Orlando has his side of the ball playing at a championship level yet again. If the Texas defense plays like it has the past two weeks, this team will be in contention for the Big 12 title come November.
12. Sam Ehlinger’s numbers aren’t going to dominate headlines, but considering the opponent and the stakes, this may have been the best game I’ve seen him play. Ehlinger was efficient, he played a clean game overall and the difference between him and Shawn Robinson was a huge reason why Texas won this game. Ehlinger hit on 68.8 percent of his passes in throwing for 255 yards and two touchdowns with no turnovers. That’ll work every single week.
13. That drive to essentially close out the game on Texas’ last touchdown was a thing of beauty. When the Longhorn offense took the field, I was thinking that if UT could just chew up four or five minutes of clock and kick a field goal, that would be damn near perfect. Instead, Texas chewed up a few minutes and ended the drive with a huge touchdown catch from Lil’Jordan Humphrey on third down.
14. That last TD to Humphrey was one of the best individual plays I’ve seen from Ehlinger. Ehlinger sometimes has been too quick to pull the ball down and take off, and he almost did it again on that play before realizing he still had solid protection, reset his footing and threw a strike to Humphrey. Dare I say that play was very Aaron Rodgers-esque with Ehlinger’s feel for what was going on around him.
15. It wasn’t a banner day for freshman kicker Cameron Dicker after what he did last week, but when you’re rolling out a true freshman kicker, days like today are to be expected.
16. Sterns reads on both of his interceptions were pretty incredible. TCU tried a double pass and Sterns read it perfectly for his first INT of the game. That was a veteran play from a mental aspect but he also made a great play to secure the catch and get his feet inbounds. On his second INT, he peeled off one receiver to undercut a route in the middle of the field. His feel for the game continues to impress.
17. I need to pay close attention to the interior of the defensive line when I re-watch the game, but I thought those guys played very well overall.
18. What was Gary Patterson doing punting with a little over two minutes left, down by two scores with two time outs remaining? Other than him throwing in the towel, there’s nothing about that decision that makes sense.
19. Is it too early to proclaim some sort of Chris Del Conte curse over TCU? How much is that guy enjoying this win?
20. What a huge swing in momentum for the program over the last two weeks. The wins on the field have built some much-needed confidence, but they’ve also helped establish some recruiting juice that should pay dividends over the next few weeks.
2. This job, especially as someone who covers recruiting, makes it impossible to be a fan. But I’m not going to lie, my job is a hell of a lot more enjoyable when Texas is winning. Like you all, I’ll enjoy tonight. No meltdowns allowed.
3. Someone call Uber Eats and have a plate of crow delivered to my doorstep. I thought Texas had a chance if it won the turnover battle and/or made a huge play in special teams, but I didn’t expect it to happen and thought TCU’s offense would make enough plays to get the win. It feels good to be wrong.
4. Collin freaking Johnson. He was great overall, but what a catch to put Texas up for good late in the third quarter. That was a hell of a throw by Ehlinger too as pressure was coming and he delivered a strike.
5. Caden freaking Sterns. If he’s not the best player on the Texas defense (team???), he’s definitely in the mix. Sterns just has a knack for making plays and he was at his best of his young career on Saturday.
6. Gary Johnson was good enough last week that he earned Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week. I’m not sure he’ll get that same honor this week, but he was terrific yet again. He finished with a team-high 11 tackles and was flying around early in the game. This is the Gary Johnson we all expected to see in 2018.
7. This can’t be bad. For the second straight week after committing to A&M, top national 2020 WR Demon Demas was back on the UT campus.
8. The first thing in my notebook: “One on one with Collin Johnson against a safety on the second play of the game? Yes please. Not sure what TCU was doing there. The Frogs might be the only team that does that, but that won’t last.” It turns out TCU tried to cover Johnson with one guy for much of the game, and Texas made Gary Patterson’s defense pay.
9. Kris Boyd finished the game strong, but Jalen Reagor was eating Boyd’s lunch early on. Boyd made a couple nice recoveries after getting beat to knock the ball away at the last minute, but he may want to keep the first half film out of NFL scouts’ hands if possible. Of course, it could just be that Reagor is that damn good.
10. Speaking of Boyd, he and Davante Davis better be ready for a lot of double moves in the coming weeks. TCU did a good job of capitalizing on UT’s aggressiveness for big gains.
11. Todd Orlando called an absolutely brilliant game. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision Texas holding TCU to 16 points. After a somewhat slow start to the season, Orlando has his side of the ball playing at a championship level yet again. If the Texas defense plays like it has the past two weeks, this team will be in contention for the Big 12 title come November.
12. Sam Ehlinger’s numbers aren’t going to dominate headlines, but considering the opponent and the stakes, this may have been the best game I’ve seen him play. Ehlinger was efficient, he played a clean game overall and the difference between him and Shawn Robinson was a huge reason why Texas won this game. Ehlinger hit on 68.8 percent of his passes in throwing for 255 yards and two touchdowns with no turnovers. That’ll work every single week.
13. That drive to essentially close out the game on Texas’ last touchdown was a thing of beauty. When the Longhorn offense took the field, I was thinking that if UT could just chew up four or five minutes of clock and kick a field goal, that would be damn near perfect. Instead, Texas chewed up a few minutes and ended the drive with a huge touchdown catch from Lil’Jordan Humphrey on third down.
14. That last TD to Humphrey was one of the best individual plays I’ve seen from Ehlinger. Ehlinger sometimes has been too quick to pull the ball down and take off, and he almost did it again on that play before realizing he still had solid protection, reset his footing and threw a strike to Humphrey. Dare I say that play was very Aaron Rodgers-esque with Ehlinger’s feel for what was going on around him.
15. It wasn’t a banner day for freshman kicker Cameron Dicker after what he did last week, but when you’re rolling out a true freshman kicker, days like today are to be expected.
16. Sterns reads on both of his interceptions were pretty incredible. TCU tried a double pass and Sterns read it perfectly for his first INT of the game. That was a veteran play from a mental aspect but he also made a great play to secure the catch and get his feet inbounds. On his second INT, he peeled off one receiver to undercut a route in the middle of the field. His feel for the game continues to impress.
17. I need to pay close attention to the interior of the defensive line when I re-watch the game, but I thought those guys played very well overall.
18. What was Gary Patterson doing punting with a little over two minutes left, down by two scores with two time outs remaining? Other than him throwing in the towel, there’s nothing about that decision that makes sense.
19. Is it too early to proclaim some sort of Chris Del Conte curse over TCU? How much is that guy enjoying this win?
20. What a huge swing in momentum for the program over the last two weeks. The wins on the field have built some much-needed confidence, but they’ve also helped establish some recruiting juice that should pay dividends over the next few weeks.
