STRONG START
Barryn Sorrell and the Texas defense showed signs that they will be much improved in 2022.
THIS WEEK: Publisher -- Eric Nahlin | InsideTexas.com Editor -- Justin Wells | Lead Writer -- Joe Cook | Contributors -- Ian Boyd, Paul Wadlington, Gerry Hamilton, Bobby Burton | Designer/Photographer -- Will Gallagher To Subscribe/Customer Service -- Phone: 512-659-8167 | Email: help@insidetexas.com 4Horns Off to Solid Start | by Joe Cook The win against ULM was a good team effort. Five Quick Thoughts | by Ian boyd 8 12Post Mortem | Paul evaluates offense, defense and special teams play. by SCIpIo Tex Texas made plays in all phases against the Warhawks 21Horns Up, Horns Down | There was a great deal to like about the win over ULM. by erIC nahlIn
Texas vs ULM | September 5, 2022
TAKING CARE
Quinn Ewers
OF BUSINESS
Austin, Texas — The day Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers had dreamed of arrived on Saturday. The mulletted redshirt freshman from Southlake took the field for Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns in a moment that was several years in the making. When he ran out of the tunnel before kickoff, it was the culmination of a unique process that saw him take a sabbatical in Columbus, Ohio before making his way to Austin..
BY JOE COOK
6 inside texas insidetexas com Ewers had to wait a bit longer than usual to take his first snap. The Longhorn defense and special teams gave him an early 7-0 lead to work with thanks to D’Shawn Jamison blocking a punt and Keilan Robinson scooping and Then,scoring.the moment arrived. Ewers, one of the highest-rated quarter back prospects in the recruiting era, took the field with the Longhorn offense. His first pass was an incompletion. His second pass was an intercep “Coachtion. Sark pulled me aside and said it’s all good, and sometimes we have to punt,” Ewers said. “Sometimes it’s a win for us. I just stayed calm and focused on the next Ewersdrive.”prides himself on his evenkeeled demeanor. It shone through in the rest of the game. He settled in after the two problem throws and completed 16 of his next 22 passes, tallying 225 yards and two touch downs in the Longhorns’ 52-10 rout of the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks. It took a small reset of sorts for Ew ers to play like the quarterback who won the starting job over Hudson Card in camp. It may have ap peared that Sarkisian was keeping things simple for a young quarter back against an overmatched War hawk team. According to Sarkisian, that wasn’t the case. “You can’t expect him to ride this bike and do it with training wheels on,” Sarkisian said. “I’ve got to let him go, and we did that tonight. I thought some guys made some nice plays around him.” Said Ewers: “I think that was pretty important. I don’t want to be halfway into anything. I want to have the full Thereexperience.”weresome nice throws to open receivers, like one to Ja’Tavion Sanders. The sophomore tight end was on the receiving end of Ewers’ first career touchdown. Ewers added another touchdown later on a 16-yard pass to Bijan Robinson early in the third. There were also throws indicative of his lofty prep ranking, like his last throw of the night. Ewers found Sanders over the middle despite a Warhawk defender draped all over No. 0 in the third quarter. Ewers’ throw on the run was placed where only his teammate could get it. Sanders gawked on the field after seeing the throw on the big screen.
The next play, Bijan Robinson found JaTavion Sanders
“Seeing the replay, I was like ‘oh my God,’” Sanders said. “I was like ‘Quinn, bro, that was a dime.’ He’s like, ‘I told you, I’m going to put it where it needs to be every time.’”
- TEXAS | ULM -
Ewers’ version of the story? “I stepped up into the pocket, saw a little bit of color, and tried to put it in the playmaker’s hands,” he said.
While Ewers did well on short to intermediate throws, including some on his third or fourth read, he admit ted there was room for improve ment on the long ball. “It’s going to get fixed this week, for sure,” Ewers said. “Just need to throw it to green grass when it comes down to it.” But overall, Ewers did well in his first start. He fought through early adversity to play at a good level and offer contributions to his team’s winning effort. Sarkisian thought “Isimilarly.didn’tfeel for a second where he got flustered or was out of whack by any means,” Sarkisian said. “I thought he was very composed. Even the throws that he missed, he almost signaled to me ‘I should have done this.’ That part was Sarkisianencouraging.”mentioned he wants Ew ers to rely on the talent around him instead of trying to do everything himself. He had plenty of team mates contribute to the Longhorns’ dominating season opening win. Sanders finished as the leading re ceiver, hauling in six catches for 85 yards and a score. Roschon John son and Jonathon Brooks got in on the scoring as part of a strong night for the Longhorn running backs.
The only blemishes were Ewers’ in terception and a couple of bobbles from punter Isaac Pearson. Ewers’ debut behind a O-line that featured two to three freshmen was a confidence booster. Though UT parking might have tried to ding that confidence by towing his car after the game, Ewers is ready for the challenge that the Alabama Crimson Tide will bring to Austin next week. He plans to review and learn from his early mistakes before then, but overall he couldn’t have asked for a better first game. “It was a great experience, and I’m so glad to be on a great team like what we have,” Ewers said. Jean Delance
- TEXAS | ULMDeMarvion Overshown
7September 5, 2022 the end zone from nine yards out, his second score of the night, and Ewers’ outing was done. There were some missed oppor tunities for the young quarterback. Ewers targeted Xavier Worthy six times, several on throws deep downfield. The duo only made two connections for a total of 24 yards.
Texas’ defense kept quarterback Chandler Rogers, wideout Boogie Knight, and the rest of the War hawks out of the end zone for most of the contest, save for a rushing touchdown late in the fourth with backups in. Jamison returned an interception for a touchdown in the third quarter after blocking a punt on the game’s opening series. Other defensive standouts included senior DeMarvion Overshown, who had eight tackles including 2.0 for loss, and sophomore Barryn Sorrell, who had six tackles, 2.0 TFL, and 1.5 sacks off the edge.
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The game was most everything Texas wanted, sans the excit ing deep shots by Quinn Ewers to star receiver Xavier Worthy.
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#1: AN INAUSPICIOUS START ON OFFENSE Quinn
Much like in 2021, the Longhorns are seeing some delays in connecting down the field but the rest of the offense got hum ming and the defense smothered the Warhawks in this com manding win. Some initial impressions…
By Ian Boyd
The opening drive can’t have been how Ewers wanted to start his Texas career. First he missed a deep throw to Worthy which was nearly picked by the deep safety. Then on 3rd down he rolled out of the pocket and hurled another ball into coverage which was intercepted. From there Steve Sarkisian slowed things down and fed Ewers a man ageable diet of rollouts, screens, and a few RPOs. After the bad 0-2 start, he finished 16-24 for 225 yards at 9.4 ypa with two touchdown passes and the aforementioned interception. The start was really bad, but once he settled in and you saw Sark guiding him through the game with playaction underneath and easier reads like he did Casey Thompson early in 2021, you could also see the talent slowly start to bloom. The ball simply explodes out of his hand which makes it very easy to scheme up ways to spread the ball around the field and open up room for the run game. As he started to move around later in the game and make things happen on the move you could see some of his game-changing ability to deal damage off-schedule as well. He’s going to have growing pains like all the Horn quarterbacks before him, but the talent is evident. Some of Ewers’ connections to Sanders on the move were really eye-opening.
QUICK thoughts Ewers vs
The ULM Warhawks were 38.5 point underdogs in this game for a reason, but Texas still covered the spread in a dominant Week 1 win.
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#2: THEY’VE GOT A LOT OF DEFENSE INSTALLED
Texas is still a base 3-4 defense which plays most of the time in a 2-4-5 nickel package. Barryn Sorrell has emerged as the Jack linebacker who plays to the field and helps set the edge but they’d sub him out in base defense for another defensive tackle while sliding De Marvion Overshown out to Sam linebacker. It’s a good base defense which will be useful for games this season where opponents play with bigger personnel. The 2-4-5 made a lot of sense for this game on those snaps where ULM tried to spread the field only to run zone-option in the box. It was difficult for ULM to attack the edge against those Edge linebackers. On 3rd downs they’d play Overshown as an Edge OR they’d play with a 3-down line and have Overshown drift around into different gaps as a blitzer. On one of Sor rell’s sacks they had Overshown prowling around inside only to drop in coverage so they could blitz both of the inside linebackers. This left Sorrell some space on the edge to go 1-on-1 with the right tackle, a battle he won Texasdecisively.played well on defense, the safeties were pretty aggressive and Cook looked comfortable opening the game at field safety and closing ground on plays in front of him. The Warhawks had only 259 yards of total offense and were 6-16 on 3rd down. It appears Pete Kwiatkowski has a lot up his sleeve for this season and the players look comfortable in it.
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Heyden Conner (76) and Kelvin Banks (78)
Texas covered the point spread quite easily while playing virtually everyone on the roster. Special teams were a little mixed. They opened the game with special teams points obviously and Xavier Worthy had several long returns while ULM generally conceded decent field position on kickoffs with pooch kicks. Isaac Pearson mishandled a punt snap and a field goal hold so there were certainly some prob lem spots to be sorted out. You can see the upside though, Jeff Banks is aggressive with special teams opportunities.
Texas’ Edge positions are also clearly up graded. Ovie Oghoufo was solid, they got good snaps from multiple players including the fresh men, Overshown got into the mix, and Barryn Sorrell was a revelation. 1.5 sacks by the Jack with some really nice work with his hands.
You’ll recall from the preview that ULM is a zone-option team with a mobile quarterback who wanted to run zone-option plays in this game. Well, the Edges contained them and sent the ball inside to die. The Warhawks ran the ball 41 times for 91 yards on the day at 2.2 ypc with a late touchdown against the 3rd string defense. The Longhorns only ran the ball 29 times but picked up 134 yards (sack yardage included) and scored three touchdowns.
#5 A VERY STRONG TEAM
- 5 Q uick T hough T s | L ouisiana M onroe -
On both sides of the ball, Texas is better on the edges of the line of scrimmage than they were a year ago. Kelvin Banks is clearly a natural tackle and simply capable of more there than Texas got in 2021. Pairing him with Hayden Conner (who stepped in for Banks at left tackle for a play when he tweaked the ankle) on the left side gives Texas a ton of size, athleticism, and power in the tandem.
#3: THE EDGES ARE UPGRADED
D’Shawn Jamison scored 12 points in this game with the punt block return and pick-6. The defense smothered ULM all night until they emptied the bench late in the game. They were facing an over matched opponent, but Texas showed explosive play-making potential in all three phases Bijantonight.Robinson quietly had 111 total yards and two touchdowns on just 13 touches and the team has some NFL talent across the roster. They’ll need it next week.
#4: JA’TAVION SANDERS HAS A MASSIVE ROLE IN THIS OFFENSE - 5 Q uick T hough T s | L ouisiana M onroe -
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Quite a game for the sophomore, six catches for 85 yards and a touchdown, Ewers’ first. The touchdown play design was nice, Texas was giving that look from double tight end and double running back sets, releasing one back or tight end to the flat and bringing the other across to block on split Therezone. was a lot of intentional design within the offense geared around involving Sanders in the passing game. They flexed him out, they kept him on the field in 11 person nel, they played him off-ball in 12 personnel so he could motion around, and he ran routes. Beyond those factors though, Ewers also has a lot of comfort with him. The deadly gunslinger vision of Ewers appeared most real when he was freelancing and finding Sanders on the move. Especially on the connection up the seam when Ewers stepped up in the pocket.
Thus far in his development, Ewers is probably most comfort able throwing on the move and finding his running backs and tight ends underneath. As it happens, Texas has a lot of NFL talent at those posi tions. Many of the great Texas quarterbacks of yesteryear also had strong connections with great tight ends to guide them through their first seasons.
WIN
Ja’Tavion Sanders
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Pummeling teams you should pummel is good. However...in my preseason preview, I pointed out that ULM was a really terrible football team. In fact, I wrote: Nonetheless, if Texas struggles too much with the Warhawks in their season opener, turn this preview into a fireplace log and take up another hobby. and Breaking down the Warhawks player by player is not a particu larly useful exercise. This game will be determined more by Longhorn energy, focus, and effort than anything LouisianaMonroe does.
by Scipio
The Texas offense only ran 58 plays, but still managed 52 points on the strength of two non-offensive touchdowns, minimal pen alties and 6.6 yards per play. T exas left a lot in the tank. Bijan Robinson notched only three touches in the second half, Quinn Ewers ran a stripped down offense after two shaky opening throws and couldn’t connect deep with Worthy, and most of the starters were phased out in the mid 3rd quarter. Steve Sarkisian pulled Ewers a little early in my view. I’d have preferred Ewers have one more 3rd quarter drive with the starters, particularly after a couple of Sanders throws where he started to show comfort, but Sark saw enough.
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POSTTex-MORTEM OFFENSE
QUINN EWERS
I’m still seeing a lot of “Yeah, yeah, but we won big so...IT’S HAPPENING!” Fan is short for fanatic after all. I get it. Telling folks to cool their jets never goes over well. That second point from my preseason preview does have some applicability. Texas did show energy, focus, and effort. That’s a base expec tation. That’s doesn’t earn a letter grade or an Attaboy. It’s Pass/Fail. Texas Passed. On to the real season now. QB Quinn Ewers had a shaky start, but eventually got it together. On his first throw, he hung up a go route to Xavier Worthy that could have been picked by a better single high safety, then threw a nonsense interception on 3rd and 7 into coverage. On that second attempt, which was from empty set, he had a clean pocket and a wide open Jordan Whittington four yards past the sticks, but chose to leave the pocket and halve the field to make something happen. You’ll hear the Longhorn play by play guy say he was flushed. He wasn’t. Bad QB play. What should have been an easy 14 yard gain and a new set of downs became a turnover. Sark had a nice little chat with Quinn on the sideline and then pulled back the reins on the offense for the next three quarters, which is a correct gauge of where the freshman is right now. A lot of simplistic single reads, check downs and a staple RPO. He overthrew Worthy in the end zone twice and also threw behind Keilan Robinson on a swing pass. When he finally nailed the lead on a little swing pass to Bijan, Robinson did the rest for a 16 yard touchdown. That’s stuff he’ll see in the film room and understand that if he can just distribute cleanly on time, Texas has good enough athletes to make him look good. In the 3rd quarter, Ewers also had a couple of nice connections with Sanders.
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Ewers is on a developmental trajectory and Sark will dial up the offense based on what he sees Ewers can handle. The fresh man will grow in fits and starts and it won’t be a straight line.
BIJAN ROBINSON
The first, a little flip out improv where he felt Sanders trailing him and flipped it to him while pretending to look downfield.
Quinn threw that ball effortlessly and the zip on it from a pure arm throw is good stuff. His final stat line of 16 of 24 for 225 yards and two touchdowns with one pick is largely a tribute to YAC (190 of 249 passing yards were gained after the catch) and a couple of Sark set piece gimmes (see Sanders TD throw).
I echoed the same sentiments in my weekly preview. A lot of potential for egg on the face with that kind of talk, but I watched their film. It doesn’t take many reels to understand bad athletes + head coach padding his retirement accounts.
Fortunately, Texas has some weapons and a very good play caller to help him along.
The second, a veteran instinctive step up in the pocket to find a streaking Sanders between two defenders (3rd Q, 9:57 mark).
Casey Cain even contributed a pancake on Bijan Robinson’s touchdown run. Cain had the best play of the day as a pass catcher, breaking a tackle near the line of scrimmage and then sprinting for another 40+ yards of YAC. Right now, he’s WR #3 over WorthyMilton.was quiet with 2 catches, but hopefully he and Ewers get on the same deep ball page soon. Savion Red intrigued me in very limited action. Moves easy for a thickly built 205 pound freshman.
The QB position is limited right now. But not by physical con straints. It will be fascinating to see various facets of the O open up as Ewers gains confidence, experience, sees the field better and starts tossing it around like the natural thrower he is.
The Texas receivers didn’t put up numbers as the game flow, a couple of missed balls, and some of the constraints on the offense disallowed it, but I was pleased with the blocking effort I saw from Jordan Whittington and Casey Cain.
Jake Majors was alright but he’s no stronger now on the field than he was as a true freshman. 3rd year player. There’s no shock at contact. Cole Hutson showed good aggression, though he did give up the primary pressure that flushed Ewers int sack.
CASEY CAIN
In the two back set featuring Keilan and Bijan, I wouldn’t exactly describe Keilan as a blocker (see 5:05 mark in Q1). More of a I-got-in-your-way-er. WR/TE Ja’Tavion Sanders had a coming out party, suggesting that my prediction that the Texas TE who had not yet caught a collegiate pass would be on All Big 12 teams by year end could come to fruition. Sanders looked good as a receiver (6-85-1) and above average-ish as a blocker. A dual description we haven’t seen here in a while. Let’s see how it plays out. Gunnar Helm got the TE #2 snaps and was fine in about a dozen snaps.
RB Bijan touched the ball 13 times for 111 yards and two touch downs. He looked very good. No reason to take tread off of his tire, even if he could put up 100 yards in the second half running against the ULM defense.
Roschon, Brooks and Keilan combined for 12 carries for 73 yards and two rushing touchdowns while Blue handled closing time. The backs are what we think they are and frankly, our quarterbacks needed the work.
Whittington earned his Lambo like he was trying to eventually play at Lambeau with some absolutely outstanding blocks. He’s just stronger than the average corner or nickel across from him, particularly the 170 pound variety.
14 inside texas insidetexas com Hudson Card got a lot of action in the second half. He was sacked twice. One of them suggesting that his internal clock is still too often a sundial. Sark adjusted to his QB and the protec tion he was getting from the #2 OL and Card was successful on a series of sprint and roll outs, completing 4 of 5 short passes.
OL Kelvin Banks has special feet for a 18 year old big guy and you can tell he takes football seriously. I only imagine what he can be once he gets strong and 20 starts under his belt. He and Hayden Conner did a nice job passing off stunts and slants to each other, albeit against weak competition.
Hutson did a good job of sealing defenders on double teams a couple of times. A lot of guards want to drive the defender, but that often allows disengagement. Blocking him off and turning him is more valuable and an easy visual cue for the RB. HEY, CUT ChristianHERE.Jones had some good run blocks and held up as a Big 12 average right tackle. He may be overplaying the inside move given his struggles there and gave up some pressure on a couple of pass rushes that he should have driven past the
QB by five yards. He also surrendered a sack on Card while in a double team with Gunnar Helm. That’s a weird deal that hap pens more often than you’d think as both blockers essentially get in each other’s way and neither declares definitively who has inside/outside. All in all, this group looked decently cohesive and focused, but ULM lacks the athletes to test much outside of gross incompe tence. Final ULM is a bad football team. Have I made that sufficiently clear? The Texas offense will im prove as the year goes on and Sark left plenty in the playbook for future opponents. Nothing is static when a team is starting three freshmen at the most developmentally intensive positions in the game. Alabama looms, but it’s a mirage as a measur ing stick. How the offense performs and grows against UTSA, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Oklahoma will set the season’s upside..
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SPECIAL TEAMS
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Worthy got 21 yards out of 65 yards of running, but it’s a good example of a disciplined return unit doing their job and allowing a great athlete to try to make a play. Worthy was also very ag gressive later in the game, scooping up a rolling punt in a crowd.
Let’s start with the good. The Longhorns got on the board early after a 3 and out by the Texas defense: Jeff Banks clearly saw some coaching neglect in ULM’s shield protections (as in, blocking priority begins with proximity to the football) and D’shawn Jamison sprinted through untouched for the block while Keilan Robinson got the scoop and score.
POST-MORTEM
If I had to guess, his aggression in those returns may have stemmed from regret at the 10:16 mark in Q1. ULM was at tempting their second punt, Texas had return on, and Worthy fair caught with a good amount of green around him. Now for darker news. The Texas kicking game - specifically as it pertain to the kickers - showed some cracks. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: Isaac Pearson is said to have a kangaroo leg, but expect the typical Year 1 Aussie growing pains that come with their first live action, complete with fumbled snaps and occasional shanks. It KEILAN ROBINSON
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Apparently, based on their film study, Texas expected to block a punt going into the game and they expected to do it early. Not a bad tone setter. Some Texas fans are such maniacs that they were irritated that the block and score delayed our first look at Quinn Ewers. That wasn’t the only Longhorn special teams highlight. Later in the game, Xavier Worthy defied one of the cardinal rules in the return game by giving ground while reversing field to line up his return with the Return Right blocking scheme. This is behavior that might be punished by a better opponent, but in this case the great decision-making by Texas blockers to pull up or get their pads in front of their men, allowing Worhty to find open field.
Special teams gets its own write up because there’s a heck of a lot of good and bad to sort through.
17September 5, 2022 happened to Dickson, it happened to Bujcevski, it will happen to Pearson.
Pearson mishandled a field goal snap costing Texas 3 points be fore the half and then dropped a perfect snap in punt formation, leading to a booming 15 yard kick. The latter is part of the ex pected growing pains predicted above. The former is the coach ing staff probably not thinking this through particularly well. Yes, I get that you want a special teams guy holding kicks because of how practice breaks out. But execution in-game is more important than the inconvenience of losing your backup QB to some holding drills. Hudson Card needs to be holding those kicks. Not the guy who has never been in a college football game and thinks an Ameri can football is an Aussie Rules Football on a diet. Let’s limit his nerves and make Pearson’s world as small as possible.
As for kickoffs, Will Stone had nine kick offs and only three made it to the end zone for a touchback. Half of his short kicks didn’t have much air or hang time either. If you can’t consistently get a touchback, you want a pinned kick inside the opponent 5 yard line with plenty of hang time where the returner catches it two yards from the sideline and not much field to work with.
Texas needs dramatic improvement here. On the positive side, Sideshow Bert Auburn made a 41 yard field goal when the hold went smoothly.
Danny Trejo came in to punt and Machete’s 40 yard average belied line drive punts that were almost blocked, begging to be housed by anyone who can set up a punt return. Both Texas punters had saucers for eyeballs. Texas needs to get Pearson up to speed as the punter quickly and exile him from holding.
Texas made huge plays in special teams against ULM, but don’t let that cloud the fact that the unit showed several major issues with respect to unforced errors that showed future opponents with better coaching and more talent that there are opportunities available for game-changing plays in a bad way.
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I hope I’ve offered sufficient ULM is terrible caveats for all of you by now. Despite that, I also know that some of you will still reply,”I saw the 2013 Seattle Seahawks out there. Might Saban sensibly forfeit to prevent exposing his Heisman hopeful QB to our withering pass rush?” Don’t stop believin! Opponent weaknesses aside, Texas looked like a defense that had received an offseason of coaching attempting to impart the basics of the game. ULM did very little to test the Horns by assignment, conflict or pure talent, but the 2021 Texas defense earned failing grades in some pretty basic criteria of defensive aptitude, so even competent team play where defenders look like they’re honoring assignments is salutary.
Despite Texas emptying the defensive bench early in the 3rd quarter, ULM’s two primary runners combined for 36 yards on 19 carries and Chandler Rogers finished an ineffectual 14 of 19 for 108 yards and a pick six. The Warhawks last 10 plays went for 100 yards and while that’s irritating if you want to see Texas youngsters play their assign ments and value their opportunities, it means ULM’s modest final output of 64 plays for 259 yards was also deceptively inflated. They couldn’t do much on offense. JAMISON
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POST-MORTEM DEFENSE
D’SHAWN
DEMARVION OVERSHOWN
I was also really pleased to see Texas understand pursuit and gang tackling better. That’s largely effort, but doing it correctly is also a skill. If a DB or LB is getting off of a block, they shouldn’t run to where the ball is, but to where it’s going. I saw several instances where Texas defensive backs played this properly in stead of cutting off a fellow teammate pursuing. College running backs are good athletes. Don’t give them a two way go.
The most striking thing about the larger Texas philosophy was how Kwiatkowski deployed personnel when the game mattered.
DEFENSIVE LINE
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No Texas defender in the front 7 played more than 30 snaps (safety and nickel also alternated heavily) and the 1s and 2s (such as they are - I prefer the #2 interior DL group) were more or less played interchangeably throughout. Will this approach hold over the course of the season? Is Texas trying to figure out who will play in games after being fooled by practice All-Stars last season? Is this the solution to developing depth and guar anteeing effort? When does Texas shorten the bench? We’ll find out as the season plays out.
The interior DL was a constant rotation of Ojomo/Coburn and Sweat/Murphy with Vernon Broughton brought in as the 5th interior DL. ULM’s offensive line was completely outmatched but I was encouraged that Kwiatkowksi
let his guys do more than just stack blockers and he allowed some attacking upfield. That certainly plays well to the DL’s strengths and depth. As you’d anticipate, that varied with down and distance and whether they were in a 3-3-5 or 2-4-5. The five big boys combined for 12 tackles, 1.5 sacks and generally did what they wanted against a young, outmatched ULM group that had to abandon its running game and had to throw everything on timing or on the roll or risk a sack. The edges had a very good game. Barryn Sorrell was my clear Defensive MVP, showing up well against run and pass equally. I had him with three pressures and two sacks in limited pass rush opportunities. He also had a great QB hit in the early 1Q after humiliating the Monroe tight end assigned to speed bump him. Earlier, Sorrell notched another sack with an inside move where he once again did a nice job of playing through the OL’s hands. Sorrell is really interesting to me in that he has no single outstanding physical trait but appears to be above average in almost everything. He’s football smart, skilled and coachable. That counts for a lot. Ovie Oghoufo is showing better discipline in not sprinting wildly upfield and he’s certainly quick. He set the edge against ULM nicely, but I want to see him set the edge against a real team.
DEFENSIVE BACK D’shawn Jamison housed an errant Rodgers throw, caused by an overload blitz from Guilbeau and Finkley that affected the ULM QB’s accuracy and timing.
I thought Anthony Cook looked decisive all game. Good PBU hit early forcing a ULM drop. Thompson was decisive in run support, including one hard decisive fill early in the game. Kitan Crawford isn’t as dialed in as they are yet, but the staff is going to keep playing him to speed his football IQ..
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Diamonte Tucker Dorsey earned the start and he has nose for the ball. He took a bad step on a Chandler Rogers scramble run up the middle, but that’s coachable. Interested to see how he handles the upgrade in competition coming soon. Jaylan Ford looked bigger and more athletic, but he needs more reps on run fits. My guess is that the varied fronts and looks as well as diminishing Demarvion’s responsibilities means Jaylen has a little more to think through. It’ll come in time.
Thelinebacking.commonality
FINAL THOUGHTS Everyone played early and late and that’s good for morale and for the coaches to construct real depth Seeingcharts.Texas pursue, deploy assets correctly, occasionally take on blocks with the correct shoulder, and demonstrate some un derstanding of football geometry is good. That these things need to be praised gives you some notion of how lost Texas was in the final days of Orlando and the early days of Pete K in 2021.
(11)COOKANTHONYAND(23)BARRONJAHDAE
LINEBACKER
One caveat for a fine defensive performance is that this was accomplished against comparatively poor athletes who didn’t exactly have a visionary offensive coordinator trying to force Level 2 assignment comprehension on the Longhorn D. Texas got to play pretty free and loose. We’ll see in the coming weeks how Texas responds to conflict and if this defense really gets first principles or if they just scouted out a bad program that was in Austin to collect a check.
David Gbenda backs up DTD and Jett Bush was the backup Mike, earning snaps as early as the 1st quarter. He’s certainly a much better fit at inside linebacker than edge, but I would expect his snaps to lessen as competition ramps up..
Finkley’s straight path push on the blocking back was a good job of understanding football geometry. Next time get your hands up, young fella. Ryan Watts didn’t get to score twice like Jamison did, but he played well. He offered good run support and had a nice cover in the end zone. When he pressed, receivers had real trouble getting into the route. Big ol’ corner and that wingspan is real. How will he handle a 4.3 40 guy next week? Young Guilbeau Baggins was a treat to watch. Instinctive. He and Jahdae Barron split snaps 50/50 and Boogie Knight’s quiet stat line (4 catches, 26 yards, long of 9...haha) was a product of their efforts and the Longhorn base pass rush.
We have a lot of games left to determine whether this D’s up side is Top 30 or Top 50. I’m eager to find out.
I’ll call Overshown a linebacker because that’s what the media guide says, but he’s basically a weak side edge rusher against passing sets, a hero safety walked up to the line of scrimmage against standard offense and an off-ball lineback er protected by big fronts who gets to peer into the backfield and chase after the guy with the ball. He’s not doing much real of all of his deployments is that his assignment consists of a single task: chase and pursue. #0 excels at doing that and it showed up on the field and in the box score with 8 tackles and 2 tackles for loss. I don’t even think he played more than 20 snaps but still made an impact.
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BARRYN SORRELL
HORNS UP..... .....HORNS
The return of Texas football didn’t disappoint from the fan or critic angle. This looks like a team that will be fun to grow old with, even through trials and tribulations. Or maybe especially because of them. If Steve Sarkisian is the right coach for Texas, you’ll want to sit back and enjoy week to week growth. As mighty Alabama comes to town we’ll likely see more trials this Saturday, but for now I think the program had a success ful opener. If last night was a leading indicator, Sark and Pete Kwiatkowski seem to have had a useful offseason.
DOWNByEricNahlin
TEAM PURSUIT: Team pursuit tells you a lot about where a program is. Throughout August we heard the defense was exemplifying more effort and team speed. That consistently showed up last night with gang tackling from all three levels. Guys were showing up and guys were finishing tackles through the whistle. Texas was clearly the more athletic team, but they also seemed to want it more. That will become increasingly important as talent disparity dissipates. Effort level travels well. If it’s consistent, it raises the program’s
DEFENSIVE COHESION: There were a couple of times where the players were not on the same page. This became evident through their animated communication. But overall, the defense played fast. That stems from confidence in their understanding of assign Asments.Ian wrote, there is a lot already in the defensive playbook. If PK knows what he’s doing, that is a good sign of where he thinks his defense is. We heard about improved football IQ but last night appeared to be evidence of it. This appears to be another big improvement over last season.
22 inside texas insidetexas com floor. Last night was illustrative of program buy-in from the play ers. The big caveat is the level of competition, but last night was promising and a big improvement over last year.
EDGE: I know Barryn Sorrell is going to be good (he’s one of the best mental evals on the entire team), but against the Warhawks he was fantastic. He won’t always hold a stark talent advantage, but even when he doesn’t he has complementary traits that will make him good, namely strong hands, good leverage, and old school effort. He may be a bit ahead of where I expected him to be. From a wide alignment he can gain steam and press the pocket. He also plays with low pads against the run. He’s going to be a player. If Edge is improved over last year, the whole defense will be better for it. Let’s give it some more time but there seems to be a theme developing on the defensive side of the ball.
DEMARVION OVERSHOWN AND D’SHAWN JAMISON: Sourcing extolled the virtues of these two elder statesman throughout August but we were some what tepid. Their talent has always tantalized but we’ve yet to see consis tent output from them. UL-M doesn’t make for a great sample size but these two undoubtedly talented players balled tf out. You know Jamison is not happy about losing punt return to Xavier Worthy. So what does he do? Eliminate the first punt return of the season with a block that was returned for six by Keilan Robinson. That’s buy-in. Later he did what has apparently become muscle memory to him and pick sixed the quarterback. Overshown looked by far the most comfortable he’s ever been on the field. While I still don’t have a great understanding of how improved he is as an off-ball linebacker, PK seems to know how WATTS
RYAN
There’scompetitive.notalottoput here and I’m not including a freshman quarterback in his first start. I thought he showed growth throughout the game. He’ll take some lumps next week and come back better for it. He is Horns Neutral as far as I’m concerned.
DEMARVION OVERSHOWN
JA’TAVION SANDERS: When Isaiah Neyor went down, Sanders’ ability as a receiver became that much more important to the season. We know he has elite ability as a receiver and last night showed Sark thinks the same. Has Sark ever had a TE who will be this produc tive? I don’t know, but I do know last night was just the tip of the iceberg for what they have planned for Sanders. He will be a feature receiver this year and I bet he plays a prominent role in trying to slow down the Bama pass rush.
Good job, Sark. That was the start you needed and apparently deserved.
I’m not going to nitpick just to make the title work, but the offense could have operated at a higher level. They didn’t run a lot of plays, they missed some opportunities, etc. Last year the defense being better than the of fense in August was pyrite. This year appears different. There will be plenty to discuss this time next week, but based on this win I expect a spirited Texas to show up and fight.
CLEANLINESS: There were not a lot of penalties or assignment busts. Generally speaking, this was a clean effort that inspires confidence in coaching and player buy-in. If this same teams shows up versus Bama they’ll keep it
23September 5, 2022 to play to his strengths. Overshown coming from different angles is going to be a real thing this year. Him knowing where to direct his immense talent could become one of the storylines for the year.
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