Inside Texas October 10, 2022 | Texas vs Oklahoma

Texas dominated Oklahoma, putting up historic numbers.

Quick Thoughts

over Oklahoma gives Texas

Mortem |

Paul WadlIngton

On both sides of the ball, Texas dominated an overmatched OU squad.

Small Numbers, Big Influence |

A look at how the 2018 and 2019 recruiting classes have panned out. by erIC nahlIn

Iowa State Preview |

by Paul WadlIngton

Texas has fared very well in head-to-head recruiting match-ups with OU in 2023.

LONGHORNS STAMPEDE

Roschon Johnson

STAMPEDE SOONERS

BY JOE COOK

DALLAS, TX -- Looking for evidence to prove just how much of a beatdown the Texas Longhorns issued to the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday? Let's start with the scoreboard, which read 49-0 in Texas' favor.

It was the first time the Longhorns shutout the Sooners since 1965, and the tenth overall time in the series. Not only that, it was the first time Oklahoma was held scoreless by the Texas defense since 1984.

The 49 Longhorn points, all via seven touchdowns scored by the offense, created the largest final margin of victory in Texas’ favor in series history.

Not enough? Here are some more.

Without typical starting quarterback Dillon Gabriel, the Sooners looked to Davis Beville to lead the Oklaho ma offense. It’s safe to say Beville

didn’t resemble any of the other OU quarterbacks that have played in the Cotton Bowl in recent years, like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, or Caleb Williams.

In fact, Beville was split out wide more often than he was under center. The OU offensive brain trust led by Jeff Lebby didn’t have faith in him to run the offense against Pete Kwiatkowski’s Longhorn defense. So Lebby decided to run the Wildcat with various backs and receivers.

It wasn’t effective.

Not only did the Sooners not score,

they didn’t even break 200 total yards. Oklahoma only tallied 39 passing yards and 156 rushing yards on 42 carries.

Their only real scoring chance came in the first half, when OU drove to the Texas eight-yard-line.

Brent Venables’ team needed a fake field goal in order to even get inside the 10, and tried to make it 1st-and-goal instead of taking the points. T’Vondre Sweat and Moro Ojomo made sure no points were scored with a fourth-down stuff.

The Sooner offense recorded five first downs in the first quarter, but couldn’t get the one they needed to

Quinn Ewers

Jake Majors

get closer to the end zone.

They’d only move the chains six more times in the remaining 45 minutes. OU went three-and-out six times, including on five-straight drives in the second half.

Contributions came from all levels of the defense. Anthony Cook, Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey, Keon dre Coburn, and Justice Finkley each recorded half a sack. Two of Sweat’s four tackles were for loss, as were two of Coburn’s three tack les. Jahdae Barron and D’Shawn Jamison each recorded intercep tions in the first half.

No matter what OU ran, it wasn’t successful.

Meanwhile, the Texas offense stayed on the gas the entire game.

Quinn Ewers, playing for the first time since the Alabama contest, was magnificent. He was 21-of-31 for 289 yards and four touchdowns over one interception.

He spread the love to several targets. Jordan Whittington had five catches for 97 yards. Ja’Tavion Sanders hauled in five for 71 yards and two scores. Xavier Worthy was in on the scoring action, too. He had three for 29 yards to go with his touchdown. Several other receivers had two catches, with Keilan Robin son bringing in a Ewers’ touchdown pass, too.

The rushing game was productive for the Longhorns on Saturday, fall

ing four yards short of the 300-yard mark. Bijan Robinson had 22 car ries for 130 yards and two scores. Roschon Johnson had nine carries for 57 yards. Jonathon Brooks got in on the scoring action with seven carries for 39 yards and a score.

The only time the Longhorns erred was late in the game, when Bert Auburn missed a 42-yarder with just under six minutes left.

By that point, the game was at its final margin. Backups were playing. Venables had waived the white flag.

More stats tell the tale of just how dominant the Longhorn win was. 585 total yards to Oklahoma’s 195. Texas’ 36 first downs to OU’s 11. Texas was 10-of-15 on money

downs. OU was a combined 5-of-19 on third and fourth down.

Average yards per play? Texas dou bled up the Sooners, winning that battle 7.2 to 3.3. In the Red zone?

Texas was 6-of-7, Oklahoma 0-of-2. Of course, the all-important turnover margin went the Longhorns’ way too, like just about everything in the Cotton Bowl on Saturday.

The list of stats that reveal Long horn dominance goes on and on. It helped Texas improved to 4-2, and 2-1 in Big 12 play.

49-0 is nice, other stats are too.

But to be 1-0 versus Oklahoma on Saturday, October 8? That’s the stat Texas relishes most.

Jean Delance

Jaylan Ford

QUICK thoughts

By Ian Boyd

There were a lot of murmurs in the final day and moment be fore this game about what was coming. Oklahoma tweeted Dillon Gabriel in his “drip” for the bus ride to Dallas on Friday and dressed him out in full uniform to take first team reps in warm-ups.

It was a lot of visible steps to go through in order to try and con vince someone (Texas) their starting quarterback would actu ally be playing a week after being knocked unconscious on live television. The Sooners had some other subterfuge planned as well, including a fake field goal and a lot of different Wildcat formations and looks with multiple trigger-men.

A COMPLETE PERFORMANCE

When you get your fourth and fifth string running back reps in a rivalry game it’s a sign of a game gone really well or horribly wrong. In this case it was one of the biggest beatdowns this series has ever seen.

For all the vicious beatdowns Bob Stoops administered to Mack Brown teams over the years, they never managed to land the combination “big offensive score/shutout” double whammy.

Some standout stats:

- Oklahoma managed a single first down in the second half.

- Texas out-rushed the Sooners 296 to 156.

- This was only the second shutout in the series this century.

- Oklahoma averaged 3.7 yards per play to Texas’ 7.2.

All of their attempts yielded one of the most lopsided Red River Shootouts I can ever remember… and I’ve seen a lot of lop sided games in this contest. Texas played a complete game and didn’t fall for it.

Steve Sarkisian dialed up a million ways to carve up Brent Venables’ defense putting up 585 yards and the Longhorn de fense wasn’t fazed by any of the desperate attempts from the Sooner offensive staff (195 yards for the Sooners).

And here we are, at a likely inflection point in this series.

- Texas had 36 first downs to 11 for Okla homa.

- Oklahoma is now 0-3 in Big 12 play.

- It was the biggest margin of victory since the 2003 game.

Bijan Robinson had a nice game despite getting iced early in the contest. He turned 22 carries into 130 yards at 5.9 ypc with two rushing touchdowns and caught two balls (one spectacularly) for 15 yards.

Oklahoma did a pretty good job of keep ing Xavier Worthy under wraps but at the predictable expense of yielding a combined 10 catches for 168 yards and two (shoulda been three) touchdowns to Ja’Tavion Sand ers and Jordan Whittington.

Jaydon Blue

vs

#2: OKLAHOMA PLAYED NOT TO LOSE BIG, AND YET…

Despite their struggles in the package each of the last two weeks, Oklahoma stuck with their flyover defense for this game. Three deep safeties before the snap and three down linemen (two ends and a tackle) thus inviting a heavy dose of runs from the Long horns. This package helped them keep the Longhorns in front of them and made the game a question of whether Texas could run the ball and hit routes underneath with enough consistency to score.

Well, Quinn Ewers was 21-31 for 289 yards at 9.3 ypa with three touchdowns and a single interception. Texas ran the ball 50 times for 296 yards at 5.9 ypc with three more touchdowns and they were 10-15 on 3rd down.

The interception was indicative of the game. Quinn Ewers missed a wide open Jordan Whittington for what would have been a walkin touchdown then committed what Sark joked afterwards was “the worst interception of all time” when the ball slipped from his hand while Ewers was trying to throw it away. It was the only time they foiled a red zone opportunity, going 6-7 otherwise. In other words, it was a bad mistake which took points off the board for the Long horns and had zero impact whatsoever on the outcome.

The Sooner gambit Texas wouldn’t be able to consistently execute their way down the field, or at least not well enough to inflict an embarrassing loss, blew up in spectacular fashion. Instead Texas controlled the game from start to finish.

Ryan Watts

#3: THE SOONER OFFENSE IS BROKEN

What happens when you run an uptempo spread offense designed to use the pass to set up the run but then don’t have a functioning quarterback depth chart in a big rivalry game?

You get 9-17 passing for 39 yards at 2.3 ypa with zero touchdowns and two interceptions.

One interception came at the end of an otherwise solid drive by Oklahoma with the Wildcat where running back Eric Gray tried to throw it up for tight end Brayden Willis only for Jahdae Barron to find it. The other came on the only occasion where quarterback Davis Beville tried to push the ball down the field and was picked by D’Shawn Jamison on a post route where the throw was late and behind the receiver.

Texas’ safeties sat on the run game all day and limited the damage from the Wildcat until the Horns were able to adjust and completely shut down the package in the second half. The Sooners could or would not do anything to resolve the issue. They never tried General Booty at quarterback despite Beville looking completely over whelmed and turned to freshman Nick Evers only at the very end of the game with the outcome no longer in question.

The losing drive for Oklahoma was probably the second drive of the game. Venables, knowing they’d need points and that their Wildcat gimmick would eventually be solved, called in a fake field goal (suc cess) and went for it on 4th-and-2 from the Texas nine (stuffed). To have a 14-play, 67-yard drive and score zero points was brutal. To then surrender an eight-play, 92-yard drive touchdown drive from Texas to erase the field position edge was basically it.

#5 ONWARD TO ARLINGTON!

The Longhorns are playing good defense this season, the offensive line is starting to gel with young players, they have a ton of NFL tal ent at the offensive skill positions, and now they have their starting quarterback back with a confidence-building win over the rival under his belt.

It should be well within the realm of possibility for Texas to run the table from here on out. They can afford to lose a game and still prob ably make the Big 12 Championship Game, which is good given their inexperience at quarterback and on the offensive line, but they will probably be favored in every remaining game.

The Longhorns get Iowa State in DKR next week, a tough road game to Stillwater against Oklahoma State, a bye week, and then the final four of at K-State, TCU, at Kansas, and Baylor.

Texas has a chance to flip the power dynamics in this conference on their way out, finally toppling the Sooners and taking their place as the perennial league champion just in time to retire with the belt and depart for the SEC. It’d be a terrific “revenge tour” style narrative to write, now to go act it out.

Moro Ojomo (98) and T’Vondre Sweat (93)

#4: RIVALRY GAME MOMENTS

Jordan Whittington came to make the most of his last chance in this game, throwing some spectacular blocks including one on the early score by Keilan Robinson on a swing screen which ended with a Sooner pancaked.

The highlight 3rd-and-6 catch by Bijan Robinson is when I knew there was no way the Longhorns were going to lose this game. They weren’t leaving the door open for another miraculous turnaround.

Ewers’ willingness and ability to push the ball down the field into tough windows, exemplified by the perfect throw to JT Sanders for a third quarter touchdown.

The Texas offensive line played a really clean game overall to clear the pocket. There were repeated plays where I noted down “Ewers has forever” as the Sooner pass rush completely failed to pressure him. It wasn’t long into the contest before they were getting real push in the run game as well.

It wasn’t a particularly hard game for Texas, honestly. That’s in part because they were undoubtedly super prepared and also because the Sooners were so decrepit on offense this week without Dillon Ga briel, but this was their easiest win of the year after the ULM contest. That said, it will surely help them build confidence heading into the meat of the conference schedule in a wide open league.

Jordan Whittington (4), Keilan Robinson (7) and Xavier Worthy (8)

POST-MORTEM | OFFENSE

by Paul Wadlington

As against West Virginia, Sark’s opening drive script for Texas vs. Oklahoma was a sputter followed by a series of easy laps around the track.

After an initial three and out, Texas had four touchdowns in the next five drives that went 90, 92, 80 and 79 yards, respectively. Tempo was a big factor in that early success as the Horns short circuited OU sideline adjustments.

That move against type (Texas plays slow) is exactly the kind of big game adjustment you want to see from a staff. They’re not

getting enough credit for aggressively attacking OU with pace when they had every reason to shy away from it due to offensive youth, Quinn’s return, “don’t lose it doing something different” impulses, and a big game environment.

Trusting the offense to execute pace grew that unit and it will pay dividends down the road. At any level of football, if you have four touchdown drives averaging 85.3 yards per drive with equal success running and throwing to every receiver on the field, that game is a wrap. Particularly when the defense has the opponent stuck on 0.

QUINN

Oklahoma largely attempted to run a flyover defense with a three man front, layered cover ages, and fourth man pressure from a variety of linebacker and defensive back blitzes. The idea was to prevent single shot big plays, take away Xavier Worthy, and force a young signal caller to march Texas methodically down the field while throwing to second and third options.

That was the theory. The Long horns shrugged and decided to take a bunch of 5-25 yard gains behind tough-minded and assignment sound offensive line play, outstanding misdirection, tough running, and a seem ingly bored freshman QB calmly surveying the field and throwing the ball where they ain’t.

49-0 is a thorough woodshedding, but it could have been worse. The Longhorns last attempted forward pass was a 18 yard Ew ers to Sanders touchdown at the 2:03 mark of the 3rd quarter. After that play, the Horns ran the ball 15 consecutive times with a cleared out bench (Keilan, Brooks, Blue) and still managed to add another touchdown and a field goal attempt.

Steve Sarkisian ended the game as Sark The Merciful, but for the first three quarters, he was Sark the Merciless, effectively putting on an offensive clinic which demonstrated every facet of the Longhorn offense.

We didn’t see the single play long scores that characterized the OU defeat at TCU. Instead, it was chunk gains and endless third down conversions (Texas was 10 of 15 on 3rd down) that ground the Sooner defense into dust.

Texas finished with 585 yards on 81 plays at 7.2 yards per play with only two offensive penalties. The Horns boasted a balanced attack: 296 yards rushing, 289 yards passing but that’s deceiv ing in that the Horns just attacked what they saw and went pass

heavy or run heavy in spurts. When it didn’t work, it was either bad luck (Worthy ran out of end zone on a vertical touchdown play) or human error (Ewers threw a bad fadeaway interception trying to throw a ball away). When your fifth string running back gets 5 carries in a football game, things are going exceedingly well or exceedingly poorly.

Before the season, I predicted that this would be the most for mation-diverse team in Longhorn history. Well, here it is. Texas is as comfortable in 21 as in 5 wide. That’s enabled by high IQ players at tight end, receiver, and in the running back room, but having a natural thrower at QB whose blood pressure doesn’t break 120/80 in front of 100,000 fans helps to unlock it all.

With Ewers at the helm, Texas has exploitable diversity. Steve Sarkisian remarked that no offense in the country is asking its players to learn what Texas requires and I think that’s probably true. That Texas is able to make it palatable for an offense start ing three freshmen and eight total underclassmen is impressive teaching. There are plenty of educators on campus who might benefit from auditing a Longhorn offensive meeting.

BIJAN ROBINSON

QUARTERBACK

A young quarterback with a shaggy mullet and a line beard suggests some “It don’t make a shit” to his personality and that can play really well or really poorly at his position. Quinn has the good kind. #3’s calm detachment while playing football is amus ing to me, but I don’t think the Sooners found him funny and I think his teammates actually find it incredibly comforting in the middle of the storm.

It’s also clear that he can see the game while others are expe riencing it. On Quinn’s first two drives, he went 9 of 10 for 121 yards and a touchdown. I wrote in my notes: Dunks at the rim. Sark scripting easy throws. As the game progressed, Quinn expanded his game. He started facing up 25 feet out and drilling step back 3s and mid range pull ups off of the drive.

Quinn effortlessly layered the ball all game and made it look easy. While his ability to throw accurately at weird angles is notable, the rewatch demonstrated how efficient his footwork is in helping his blockers create a pocket.

He tried to bail around the end twice while surrendering yardage and he’ll learn that’s not doable soon enough. Sark also set him up beautifully with some outstanding calls in the screen and play action game. He finished 21 of 31 for 289 yards, 4 touchdowns and with one interception.

RUNNING BACK

The most talented running back room in the country pummeled OU for nearly 300 yards rushing while adding a collective 6 catches for 79 yards and a touchdown. Bijan was the bell cow with 22 carries for 130 yards and two touchdowns. A game long run of 18 yards proved that his gains didn’t come cheap.

Roschon chipped in with 9-57 (with three 3rd down conversions and a 38 yard screen run) while Keilan showed his burst with a 26 yard run before Brooks and Blue came in to finish the Soon ers off. Brooks and Blue are good players and I liked what I saw from both.

WIDE RECEIVER/TIGHT END

Jordan Whittington was nails, making terrific catches all day and led the Longhorns with 97 yards on 5 catches. He also continues to be a beastly blocker on the edge, highlighted by his pancake block on Keilan Robinson’s touchdown.

Oklahoma was rightfully concerned about Xavier Worthy and that showed up in their drop heavy coverages. Worthy dropped a ball on the sideline, but was otherwise good giving high effort on double teams, allowing others to eat.

JT Sanders went 5-71 for 2 touchdowns, proving to be an outstanding finisher in the plus red zone area. He is the best tight end in the conference and the layered threat of Sanders/

QUINN EWERS (3) AND JA’TAVION SANDERS (0)

Whittington/Worthy/Texas RBs is going to be a bear for Big 12 defensive coordinators. Aside from his game impact as a receiver, Sanders also pass blocked extremely well when Texas went max protect. What a pleasure to watch his growth. Gunnar Helm (2 catches, 13 yards) got involved and Andrej Karic was very physical as a blocker.

OFFENSIVE LINE

Terrific performance overall, though the Texas running backs had to run their blocking better early. Ewers had very little pres sure and the running game opened up as they kept pounding away.

I pointed out last week, with some pushback, that Texas ran the ball much better in critical down and distance situations against West Virginia than is perceived by per carry averages or raw totals and that was something to note going forward.

Once again, Texas ran the ball for first downs on 3rd and short with great success, going 3 for 3 on short yardage conversions in the 1st half and then converting a 3rd and 4 with a 5 yard run on the opening touchdown drive of the second half and then converting a 3rd and 6 with a 8 yard run on the next possession. An offensive line going 5/5 on 3rd down runs and then jamming it in inside the 10 is winning.

The interior OL held up well and Christian Jones crushed as a run blocker while young Kelvin Banks remains our best pass protector. The Texas offensive line was chippy early – Banks drove safety Justin Broiles #25 ten yards to the echo of the whistle early in the 1st quarter on a play where plenty of young OL would’ve been content to screen and lean. Mr Banks under stood that this game is a fight.

The Sooner defense, whatever their faults, had shown the ability to inflict negative plays on an offense, but had only 4 tackles for loss, 0 sacks, single digit pressures. Hat tip to the big boys up front. It’s only going to get better as they develop physically and learn their craft.

Join the Conversation

The Texas offense dominated physically, schematically and in every game context that matters and their upside has still not yet been realized.

POST-MORTEM | DEFENSE

Total dOUmination. There is no substitute.

Texas blanked the Oklahoma Sooners 49-0 in the Red River Shutout for the first time since 1965. As once-in-every-57-year occurrences go, it was pretty enjoyable. There are many levels to this win to consider, but seeing Texas play four complete quarters on defense in dominating fashion with no mental let up while the Sooners opened up a giant can of quit tells you a lot about the current trajectories of both programs.

Last year, this Texas defense would’ve leaked 17 points to this Sooner team on utter nonsense. This defense dialed in like they wanted to crush a hated rival and leave absolutely no doubt. In a game dominated by emotional swings and adrenaline, it’s not easy to leave a game unmarked. That’s what the Longhorn defense did.

A shutout doesn’t happen without everyone doing their jobs, but the Texas interior defensive line rotation was completely domi

JAYLAN FORD (41), ALFRED COLLINS (95) AND OVIE OGHOUFO (18)

nant while the Longhorn secondary got increasingly comfortable running downhill in their run fits and populating the ball. Gang tackling was abundant.

The Texas defense dominated the run-focused Sooners up front, holding them to 195 total yards on 59 plays while allow ing only 3 of 15 conversions on 3rd down. Brent Venables did his non-competitive best to try to minimize a terrific Longhorn performance by running clock down 28-0 (“It’s not a real shutout if we don’t try to run an offense!”) seemingly content to keep the score on one side of the scoreboard the same while hoping somehow that the Texas digits would stop growing, but that worked out about as well as Oklahoma’s game week prepara tion for their 2nd team QB.

The Sooners did get early traction running different varieties of Wildcat and some direct snap looks, those plays compris ing their only two meaningful, though ultimately fruitless, drives of the contest. Their second series of the game went 14 plays for 67 yards, extended by a fake field goal conversion and an earlier 4th down conversion, but Texas rocked up in the red zone. The next successful wildcat series was in the 2nd quarter, that drive ending with the head’s up Barron pick on an Eric Gray pop pass. After that, Texas fully adjusted, perhaps not yet totally believing that this was going to be Oklahoma’s best effort game plan. Texas won the war and nearly every skirmish, but OU won the Keep-Texas-Under-50 points battle. Tip of the golden hat to you, Sooners.

Oklahoma’s last 8 posses sions of the game after the Barron pick?

1-0 INT Jamison

5-18 DOWNS

3-3 PUNT

3-(-18) PUNT

3-(-9) PUNT

3- (-11) PUNT

3-6

3-14

Oklahoma earned two first downs over those eight possessions. That’s 24 plays for 3 total yards. Ex actly 8 of those plays were passing attempts. Leave

it all out on the field, Sooners. Would Texas have feasted with an interception and sack festival if Oklahoma had tried a more ambitious offense? Probably. But what message is Venables sending his football team?

Just the right one if you’re a Texas fan.

DEFENSIVE LINE

The best game from the Longhorn interior all season. A- to A+ level performances across the board. This was Keondre Co burn’s best football game at Texas. The huge senior was power ful, frisky and disruptive with two tackles for loss. He played like the hype. Sweat was his equal with two tackles for loss, but my favorite defensive highlight of the game was his 4th and 1 jacking up of Sooner guard Chris Murray at the point of attack to stonewall an early Sooner drive. Murray felt that shock from Sweat in his central nervous system. Byron Murphy had a sack and was extremely energetic. Speaking of energy, Ojomo led all of the defensive line with 5 tackles, playing like a senior with his last shot at OU. Collins had some strong snaps as well.

The exterior edge players were physical and disciplined after some early confusion caused by the Sooner wildcat. Ovie Oghoufo even violently stuffed a counter by refusing to be lured up field.

BYRON MURPHY

The Longhorns finished the game with 11 tackles for loss and 3 sacks. The bulk of that came from the Big Nasties, whether they actually got the box score credit or not. They have now set a standard of play. If they meet it each week, look out.

LINEBACKER

Overshown had a terrific play on a key Sooner 4th and 2 in the second half where he stayed disciplined in coverage and al lowed pursuit to take down Beville on the roll instead of chasing the ball. Maverick didn’t leave his wingman! Those are the plays that make me proud of Overshown, when the cat ignores the yarn.

Tucker-Dorsey and Ford certainly had good moments, but after correcting some poor angles on the Wildcat, they cleaned up the DL’s dirty work repeatedly. Nice to see both Ford and Overshown with pass break ups as OU attempted some ultra conservative screens and passes underneath. Jett Bush got a lot of snaps and had one poor missed diving tackle on first half Wildcat possession, but notched 4 tackles total. A productive game from this bunch, particularly in the second half.

DEFENSIVE BACK

When the other team can’t throw the ball, punish them. When the running game is telegraphed, fly up with abandon. The Texas defensive backs chose violence. Oklahoma was a miser able 9 of 17 for 39 yards passing with two picks.

Barron’s heady interception stopped a likely Sooner scoring

drive. Jamison’s ended the half with a pick and disabused the Sooner staff of any notion of flinging it up and hoping for a PI or misplayed ball for a TD. Ryan Watts was avoided all game like a hunting dog who rolled in bear scat. They wouldn’t even run at him.

This unit was abso lutely locked in and they supported the run with passion for most of the game. Cook and Thompson repeatedly closed well on Sooner skill players with clean hard tackling and kept the Sooners bottled up for four quarters. Nothing went by them, nothing went over them.

FINAL THOUGHTS

That was a terrific team effort, as demonstrative of discipline as physicality. While OU’s QB woes certainly limited their offense massively,

Texas fans won’t cry anyone a river about losing a starting QB. Texas was the more physical, prepared and violent football team. That team leaves Dallas with the headware.

Maybe they’ll circle back in December for some hardware.

D’’SHAWN JAMISON

SMALL NUMBERS...BIG

BY ERIC NAHLIN

NUMBERS...BIG INFLUENCE

BETWEEN THE 2018 AND 2019 CLASSES TEXAS SIGNED 53 PLAYERS. TODAY, JUST 11 REMAIN WITH THE TEAM. SURPRISINGLY, 7 OF THOSE PLAYERS ARE FROM THE 2018 CLASS, MEANING ONLY FOUR REMAIN FROM 2019. THAT’S A WHOLE OTHER STORY, BUT 2019 WAS HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY OUT OF STATE RECRUITING AND THAT WILL FACTOR IN DEPARTURES WHEN THINGS AREN’T GOING WELL.

Not every player has been a bust, of course. From the 2018 class, Caden Sterns and Joseph Ossai are in the NFL and Cameron Rising is starring at Utah. From 2019, former five-star Bru McCoy successfully transferred twice more and is now playing a key role at resurgent Tennessee. That’s about it from that class.

Steve Sarkisian’s major offseason job was to revamp the roster as quickly as possible. To do that he needed mini

basics. He’s great in space and a good leader. Between position changes and injuries throughout his career, he’s playing well.

DB Anthony Cook: Lack of long speed would be a killer for many corners but because Cook has so many compensatory traits he was able to move to Star last year and field safety this season. He has been incred ibly consistent, a great leader, and a sound tackler. Cook has proven tough, smart, and dependable. Along with Jerrin Thompson, he has turned a severe program weakness into a strength.

DT Keondre Coburn: “Snacks” has been feasting up front and not just as a run stopper. Getting in better shape has added quickness and helped his ability to get in the back field. Play-strength might even be improved. Sure, he’s aided by a deep bench keeping him fresh, but he’s a big part of that too. Coburn’s draft stock is way up.

mal dead weight in order to bring in as many new players as allowable who fit his schemes and culture.

The list below highlights Sark’s stellar roster manage ment and also his staff’s ability to develop. Just as it’s supposed to be, each of these players are playing the best football of their career as seniors.

2018 CLASS

LB DeMarvion Overshown: Second on the team in tackles (44, 4 tfl, 1.5 sacks), first on the team in drawing erroneous flags that removed big plays. Still not the most natural at “linebacking things” but he is improved on the

OL Junior Angilau: Judging by the amount of devel opment by everyone else in the class we can assume Angilau’s season ending injury in August was a big loss. Hopefully he returns to compete in the interior. If so, I bet he finishes his career strong like every other remaining member of his recruiting class.

CB D’Shawn Jamison: Jamison has always had electric athleticism and playmaking ability. The question has always been, can he do the little things that yield consistency? That answer this season has been YES. Tempering his innate aggressiveness to stick with his route on Saturday kept OU from making a big play on the would-be Drake Stoops pass. It also encapsulated

ANTHONY COOK (11) AND DEMARVION OVERSHOWN (0)

Jamison’s growth.

Texas Midseason Defensive Grades (PFF):

Jamison: #1 CB in B12

Thompson: #1 S in B12

Overshown: #3 LB in B12

Coburn & Murphy: #6, #7 interior defenders in all of Power 5

DL Moro Ojomo: Ojomo was pretty good last year and suffered some guilt by association with the overall de fense, but he has improved this season. He was surely missed against Texas Tech. He’s great with his hands and using his body mechanics to defeat defenders. I’ve always likened him to Ta’Quon Graham, and Graham is becoming quite the player for the Atlanta Falcons.

OT Christian Jones: In my eyes he’s easily the most improved player in the program and this year that is say ing something. Jones always possessed the raw tools, and has been a solid run blocker in his career, but this season he’s put it all together and is on pace to earn AllConference and a nice draft grade.

2019 CLASS

WR Jordan Whittington: J-Whit leads the team in receptions but he’s so much more than that. His physical, selfless play is on par with Roschon Johnson’s. He’s also pretty clutch and has played an integral role in Sark’s early play calling scripts. Whether against Alabama, West Virginia, or OU, Whittington has done a lot of work to soften up defenses and extend drives. When not making big catches over the middle and down the sideline, he’s beating up would-be tacklers. Love it when talented WRs are willing to block too!

RB Roschon Johnson: He’s up for the Paul Hornung award which you can vote for if you like. He would vote for you. He’s the leader of the team with a play-style similar to Whittington’s. They do the little things and they do the big things and they do them with their hair on fire.

DT T’Vondre Sweat: A problem with interior linemen is

they don’t always get the credit they deserve. Many of their great plays are obscured by mass humanity and don’t even show up in the boxscore. That’s been Sweat this year and you can bet NFL scouts will notice. Here is one play we all saw on Saturday.

CLOSING

The proof is in the pudding, this staff can develop, even players who were further along and seemingly have less ’new tricks’ to learn. There are no finished products in this program.

Sark also understands roster management because the upperclassmen at Texas are all contributing if not outright balling.

MORO OJOMO (98) AND T’VONDRE SWEAT (93)

NEXT WEEK | PREVIEW

by Paul Wadlington

The 3-3 Cyclones are 0-3 in conference play, losing three league games in a row by a grand total of 11 points. Close losses and tough breaks (their FG kicker missed three against Kansas) are one of the reasons they’re still considered a Top 25 team nationally by FEI, suggesting that the scoreboard or record doesn’t adequately reflect their overall quality. Take that, Bill Parcells!

Their problem is a distinct asymmetry between their offense and defense. Averaging 14.7 offensive points per game over three Big 12 contests will help a team find their way to the loss

column, even as they held Kansas and Kansas State to 14 and 10 points, respectively. Baylor, with the help of some Big 12 of ficiating, was surprisingly effective on offense and we’ll explore their relative success later in the preview.

This is a very good Cyclone defense paired with a moribund offense, but unlike the Oklahoma Sooners, who showed up to the Cotton Bowl with a big ‘ol can of quit that they couldn’t wait to pop the top on, the Cyclones understand that this game is their season inflection point and they will play extremely hard for 60 minutes.

OFFENSE

They average only 106.3 yards per game rushing on the season and QB Hunter Dekkers has been erratic as the Iowa State passing game averages less than 10 yards per comple tion. Their inability to run on early downs has turned them into a very average passing offense that struggles to protect the passer and that’s not where Iowa State has had historical success under Campbell.

The ISU offensive line has struggled in pass protec tion all year, but they could be adequate with better skill personnel around them and the ability to play action effectively. In short, Iowa State’s problem is their complete lack of big play capability and that constricts everything they try to do.

WIDE RECEIVER | Xavier Hutchison is their best skill player, but he’s a big bodied possession receiver. The other wide outs are carbon based life forms who put little pressure on the defense down the field. Hutchison already has an amazing 57 catches, but the rest of the ISU receiving corps in aggregate has only 60.

Historically, Iowa State has always had the one designated fast guy who could murder a defense deep (pre injury Tarique Milton, Hakeem Butler) but that individual isn’t in Ames this year. That deep speed was also complemented by outstanding tight end play attacking the middle of the field, but the 6’6″ chain movers like Kolar and company are long gone.

RUNNING BACK | Jirehl Brock is a 220 pound FBS average starter. Block it for four, he’ll give you four and a quarter. The drop off from Breece Hall to Brock has been profound. Hall dropped 30-70 yard runs on the regular. Brock isn’t that guy.

QUARTERBACK | Hunter Dekkers struggles to get the ball downfield, in no small part due to his protection. However, despite his solid athleticism, he has poor pocket feel and will try to make lemonade out of a lemon play call that usually ends in a sack, turnover, or ugly incompletion. His best chance at playmaking is the short passing game and getting outside of the pocket.

GAMEPLAN FOR TEXAS OFFENSE | The biggest mistake that Texas can make in game planning Iowa State is to respect them too much and concede much of anything. Play it straight on early downs, but on on critical downs, bring some bad intentions and an interesting wrinkle and dare the Cyclones to make a play.

It’s also important that the Longhorn edges set the edge against the running game and Dekkers on the move in their passing attack. The interior Longhorn DL is going to win. Let those wins result in sacks, QB hits, pressures, tackles for loss. Texas can not consent to being ball controlled by an inferior offense.

HUNTER DEKKERS | PHOTO COURTESY IOWA STATE ATHLETICS

DEFENSE

The Cyclones are masters of the flyover three safety deep defense. This is the defense that confounded Sarkisian against Arkansas and Iowa State last year, but this game will reveal whether that was a Sark problem or a Jimmy/Joe issue. I have my suspicions, but we’ll see.

Oklahoma tried to run that scheme last week and it’s useful that Ewers and the Texas OL got the scouting look, but the Soon ers aren’t proficient at anything defensively and Iowa State has much better, smarter, and physically tougher personnel.

Why did Baylor’s very average offense have some success against them? They attacked their scheme effectively in a variety of ways. Blake Shapen is a poised, accurate QB and he went 19 of 26 for 238 yards and 3 touchdowns throwing to a Baylor receiving corps I consider one of the worst in the league. They got open running to the right spots (and hitting a wide open flea flicker), not winning 1 on 1. If Texas can duplicate that execution with much better skill talent, they’ll be just fine.

Iowa State’s defense gives the illusion that they’re covering the whole field and keeping everything in front of them. In fact, a good play caller, an accurate, composed QB who can make his

second or third read, and personnel who know what holes to attack can take big chunks.

Once that happens and the safeties and linebackers stop flying to the ball in run support, you can run on an honest box. There’s a big executional element to beating Iowa State’s D that isn’t about just beating the man in front of you. In basketball terms, they’re a “help” defense that does a good job of disguising where the help is coming from. But there are open threes and dunks at the rim for a good offense that knows where to throw the ball.

DEFENSIVE LINE | Will McDon

ald is a problem up front and if ISU can get pressure with a three man rush, your offense is in for an ugly day. The explosive pass rusher has accumulated 33.5 career sacks while adding 30 pounds to his rangy frame over his time in Ames. Good first step, long, gives good effort, excellent at attacking a tackle’s inside shoulder after setting him up with his speed.

The rest of the Iowa State front is physical, though not neces sarily gifted. Blake Peterson is a big physical bull rusher outside, but not that versatile. Their interior guys are a lot like Texas Tech – short thick guys with motors who bounce around and try to create havoc to keep the next level clean. Not the 340 pound knock back your center space eaters of years past.

Majors, Conner and Hutson need to do their jobs and coordinate well and this is a big game for the offensive line overall. If Iowa State can dictate running game and pass protection with light or honest numbers, that’s not optimal for passing game success.

LINEBACKER | O’Rien Vance is their best and most experienced linebacker. The middle linebacker is every bit of 260 pounds and he hits like a ton of bricks, with three forced fumbles on the year. They like to bring him on interior stunts and he’s very physical. I’ve seen him stone 310 pound pulling guards in the hole like they were wide receivers. Gerry Vaughn

JAKE MAJORS

and transfer Colby Reeder have been solid and they have the ruggedness to hold up against the running game when they play seemingly honest or light fronts.

I question their foot speed, not their physicality or intensity. Texas running backs and the tight end(s) have an opportunity to hurt them in space, particularly outside of the hashes. Make them cover ground and make an open field tackle. Iowa State is going to have to find a tackling solution to various Longhorn RPOs, wheel routes and play action that happen outside.

DEFENSIVE BACK | Iowa State is big on the back end, with several guys well over 6’0. Their three safeties go 6-4, 6-2 and

6-0 and they have a 6-2 cornerback. They can cover ground, but Texas will be quicker than they are. Safety Anthony Johnson has been really good and he’s a high effort, high IQ defender.

They all tackle well and they’re big physical dudes. Corner TJ Tampa (#2. Yes, Tampa 2) has a NFL body and he can carry a receiver up the sideline when ISU puts him on an island. If the Texas offensive line can deliver a great pocket when ISU rushes three and drops eight, there are throws available against their bigger safeties.

GAMEPLAN FOR TEXAS OFFENSE | Quinn Ewers may get suckered into an interception or miscue, but Texas just needs to block up front and attack the scheme with skill person nel quality that Iowa State has yet to see this year. The more possessions the Texas offense gets, the better off they’ll be. Ew ers just needs to see the defense and get comfortable with his read progressions. A little tempo and some good early defense will help the case in cracking the Cyclone code.

FINAL

A great test for Texas. Particularly on offense. Want to level up and put some naysayers to rest? Cut up the best performing defense in the conference running the scheme that humiliated the Horns last year.

JAKE MAJORS

Texas

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