THREE THINGS WE LEARNED
1. Texas is going to have to work to hold onto Javonne Shepherd’s commitment
It seems like it’s been a while since Texas landed its last pledge, a commitment from top offensive lineman Javonne Shepherd on July 29. In securing Shepherd’s commitment, Texas won a hotly-contested battle over in-state rival Texas A&M for an extremely talented player at a need position.
Bottom line, it was a huge win for the Longhorns, but not exactly one that was a surprise for anyone who had been paying attention.
Shepherd, out of Houston North Forest, had made multiple trips to the UT campus over the course of the summer and had consistently named Texas as his top school. The timing of the commitment announcement was a bit unexpected, but the fact that Shepherd chose the Longhorns wasn’t the biggest shock of the recruiting cycle.
Throughout Shepherd’s recruitment, it felt like even if he did make an early commitment to either Texas or Texas A&M, he would be a guy the coaches would have to continue recruit all the way until National Signing Day. Basically, other coaches probably weren’t going to go away, and Shepherd wasn’t the type that was going to slam the door on recruiting once he committed. Things changed in the month or two before he committed to Texas, and once Shepherd locked in his decision to be a Longhorn, it felt more and more like Texas wouldn’t have many issues holding into his commitment.
In talking to Shepherd this week, you can put him back in the category of players who will need to be monitored closely over the next few months. The four-star prospect told OB that he’s still very happy with his decision to commit to Texas, but he is planning to take all five of his official visits. Texas, Texas A&M, LSU, Georgia and Alabama were the schools he mentioned visiting, with Ole Miss possibly sneaking in there to grab one of his five trips.
Shepherd said he’s trying to get to College Station this weekend to see A&M host Clemson, but he isn’t sure yet if he’ll be able to make that trip. He does plan on being in Austin for the Longhorns’ game against USC next week.
“I’m still going to take all my official visits. If something changed with Texas and how they feel because I take my official visits, that would affect my decision. But as of right now, I’m 100 percent committed to Texas,” Shepherd said.
Texas is still in a good spot here and Herb Hand and staff have done a really good job in building a strong relationship with Shepherd, but any time a committed player is planning to take other visits, it’s a situation worth monitoring.
2. Texas recruiting in the wake of the Maryland loss should be fine
In talking to a few prospects around the state, in addition to out-of-state commitment De’Gabriel Floyd, the message from recruits was pretty consistent – Saturday’s loss to Maryland won’t move the needle much and everyone expects the Longhorns to bounce back.
We’ve heard similar thoughts from recruits for as long as I’ve been covering recruiting, and if I’m being honest, I can’t recall many times at all when one game turned the tide in a particular player’s recruitment. So if you isolate the Maryland game in a vacuum, Texas’ recruiting efforts for the 2019 class are still in good shape. There’s no need to panic just yet.
Where things could get dicey is if Texas doesn’t improve its play quickly. The Longhorns will almost certainly get back on track this week with a win over Tulsa in Austin, but Texas needs to do more than just win that game. The Longhorns could do themselves a lot of favors by dominating that game, and by turning in an offensive performance that they can showcase to prospects.
Projecting about a month into the future gets a little tougher. Texas is approaching a key stretch with tough games against USC, TCU and Oklahoma (not to mention a road tilt at Kansas State). If the Longhorns struggle in their four games following Tulsa and hit mid-October with only a couple wins, it may become tough sledding for the remainder of the 2019 class, it wouldn’t be a shock to see a couple current commitments waver on their pledges, and Texas will put itself in a big hole with the 2020 class.
There are counterarguments college coaches can use when they’re struggling on the field – mainly the opportunity to play early and be a key part of the rebuild – but make no mistake about it, kids want to play for winning teams first and foremost. Texas took a step back on Saturday, while its main rivals in the region (Oklahoma, Texas A&M, LSU, TCU) all took steps forward. Texas is standing on a slippery slope after the Maryland loss, and if the Longhorns want to reclaim the state of Texas on the recruiting front, the next five weeks are going to be hugely important.
3. Texas needs more speed on the roster
The Longhorns have some terrific athletes on the team – it would be silly to argue otherwise – but in watching Saturday’s game, I found myself thinking that the team just wasn’t as explosive as I would have expected. Truth be told, it looked like Maryland was the more athletic team with some real gamebreakers on offense.
It almost sounds silly typing those words about a team with legitimate track stars like Devin Duvernay and John Burt on the roster (although Burt is injured), but Texas has to find a way to get some more dynamic athletes on the field on offense, and has to find a way (through scheme and playcalling) to get those players the ball in space. For everything Collin Johnson and Lil’Jordan Humphrey do well, including Humphrey’s ability after the catch, neither is a quick-twitch player in short distances and neither excels at taking the top off a defense down the field.
The good news is that Texas does seem to have found a couple of those types in guys like freshmen Joshua Moore and D’Shawn Jamison – and the Longhorns have a couple others on the way in commitments from Jake Smith and Demariyon Houston – but the team just looked sluggish at times on Saturday, which is hard to understand compared to what we saw from Maryland.
Maybe it was a one-game anomaly. Maybe it had something to do with the field. Maybe I’m crazy and my eyes deceived me. But based off one week of action, the staff has to find a way to get more speed and athleticism on the field, and find a way to get its most explosive players the ball in space with a chance to use their quickness and elusiveness.
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TWO QUESTIONS
1. What questions were answered in the Maryland game?
While the final outcome of the season-opener wasn’t what anyone expected, there were some positives that could be taken from the Longhorns’ performance. A few of the bright spots …
Keaontay Ingram performed very well in his first action – True freshman running back Ingram rushed for 37-yards and a touchdown in his first ever collegiate game, and an argument could be made that he looked like Texas’ best back overall. Tom Herman mentioned that they have some things they need to clean up in practice, but Ingram looked pretty damn good when the ball was in his hands with his patience and vision. His role should increase significantly.
Tre Watson held up well in his first game back from his knee injury – Watson was cleared to resume full practices only about a month ago after suffering an ACL tear while at Cal last year, but he didn’t show any rust and looked more than capable of helping this team on the ground. Somewhat surprisingly, Watson wasn’t much of a factor at all as a receiver, but he and Ingram showed enough that they should be the top two in the rotation, with someone like Daniel Young coming in when both players need a breather.
The pass protection was solid – There were a few times when Maryland got pressure while only rushing three or four, but some of that was due to good coverage downfield. Overall, the pass protection from the group up front was very solid, and you would think this unit will only get better as it has more time to gel.
The freshmen DBs looked the part – Caden Sterns got the start at safety and B.J. Foster saw significant time as well. Both players looked the part and their athleticism and striking look like they could help the Texas defense.
Brandon Jones was very good on punt returns – I’ve been in the camp that has said D’Shawn Jamison should be the team’s return guy, but the coaches (understandably) went with the more experienced Jones, and he turned in some nice returns.
Lil’Jordan Humphrey is exactly what everyone thought he was – Most people expected Humphrey to be a top weapon for the offense – possibly the top weapon – and he didn’t disappoint. He wasn’t flawless, but when Texas needs a play to be made, it feels like Humphrey is the guy the team can rely on the most.
The team can battle back through adversity – Texas didn’t close well, but the Longhorns did a terrific job of battling back from an early 24-7 deficit. If I’m being honest, when Maryland took a 17-point advantage (and made it pretty easy building that lead), I didn’t think there was any chance Texas would come back. But the Longhorns showed a lot of fight to claw their way back to an eventual lead.
2. What questions still remain after the Maryland game?
The play-calling issues still seem to be unresolved – Texas started off slowly on offense and had no rhythm. Throwing to non-playmakers out in the flat was a head-scratcher. Very little creativity. The reasoning for those issues is certainly more detailed and intricate than those of us watching from a distance realize, but it felt like more of the same struggles from last year.
The player rotations made little sense – Tom Herman explained on Monday that they went with more experience at running back towards the end of the game, but I still can’t wrap my head around some of the personnel decisions that were made at running back.
Can Collin Johnson be a consistently dominant player? – Johnson made three nice catches, including a beautiful touchdown grab, but it feels like more the same with him as well. I get it that defenses are doing things to try to take him out of the game, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue for most other teams – be it high school, college or NFL – to get their top receivers more targets.
The defense overall was uninspiring – Todd Orlando has earned the benefit of the doubt during his time in Austin so I wouldn’t panic just yet, but the Texas defense had some real troubles with Maryland’s passing game and outside runs. Like last year, Orlando is faced with the task of making some quick corrections.
The quarterback situation is still a major concern – Sam Ehlinger made a couple really nice throws, but he had several that were not on point and the offense overall just didn’t have much of a spark for most of the day. Is Ehlinger the guy? If things don’t get better in a hurry, when does Shane Buechele get a look? Or maybe one of the freshmen?
Ehlinger’s decision making in crucial situations is still a problem – We heard all fall camp that Ehlinger was more accurate and doing a much better of job protecting the football, only to have him throw two fourth-quarter interceptions, including a disastrous decision on his last throw to drive the final nail into the coffin. How do we know that won’t happen again if Texas is in a similar position?
The kicking and punting game are still unproven – Cameron Dicker was fine as a kick-off guy and in hitting his three PATs, but he still hasn’t been tested. Ryan Bujcevski started off great but had some real struggles as the game wore on.
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ONE PREDICTION – Shane Buechele will continue to be a pro until his number is called
In all the hand-wringing over Tom Herman’s Monday press conference and picking his comments apart, I thought his words on Shane Buechele were overlooked by most people. In a weekend when pretty much everything about the team seemed to resemble a bit of a train wreck, Buechele deserves a ton of credit for the way he’s handled his role in the quarterback room.
“By the way, and I told him privately yesterday, and I will tell anybody that wants to listen, you want to talk about a mature, grown man, on the sideline, you should have been on the headset with Shane Buechele coaching the heck out of Sam Ehlinger, talking to us coaches about what he was seeing out there, very engaged in the game and very supportive of Sam, and I can't thank him enough,” Herman said.
“I don't know many guys that would approach that role with as much class and maturity as he did and it was really cool to see, and really, again, one of the shining examples of the embodiment of our culture and taking some roots here.”
