Greg McElroy believes Texas still has work to do after tight win over Vanderbilt

Texas got back in the win column, albeit in close fashion, in a three-point win at Vanderbilt. Still, Greg McElroy still saw things that are causes of concern for him about the Longhorns.

Texas’ play against the Commodores was one of McElroy’s takeaways during ‘Always College Football’ on Monday. While he never felt the game was in doubt with a double-digit lead for a time, he saw plenty of improvements for the team in burnt orange to make.

“Texas? You need to go ahead and take that win and run but there’s a lot of work to do, alright,” said McElroy.

“Now, when you look at the final box score, it was 269 yards and three turnovers for Vanderbilt. So, a lot of people are saying, ‘Oh, Texas was fortunate!’. If you really watched the game, it never felt like there was a moment where Vanderbilt was going to win the game, okay,” McElroy continued. “Like, if they recovered the onside kick, they would have pulled the rabbit out of the hat. But, when you watch the game in substance, it was like, yeah, I don’t know. It felt like there was a team that was kind of in full control and Vanderbilt was opportunistic like Vanderbilt has a tendency of doing. But, three picks? Vandy is not winning that football game. It ain’t happening, okay.”

McElroy had two main issues for Texas with both being on the offensive side of the ball. For one, he watched another so-so outing from Quinn Ewers. For two, he saw more problems than he thinks there should be from the offensive line of the Longhorns.

“You look at Quinn Ewers? This is where a lot of the conversation is going to be centered around because there are some people that feel like he played great and there are some people that think he didn’t play very well. I probably lie at some point right in the middle,” said McElroy. “When I look at Quinn’s performance? He’s now in year three as a starting quarterback. Look, you can only run the plays that were called. I thought he was efficient…but at some point, man, the downfield passing attack is going to have to materialize.”

“One other area for Texas that they have to focus on? They’ve got to clean up these penalties, man. You have six offensive penalties. That includes four holding penalties, a false start, and an unsportsmanlike conduct – all of which were called against Texas’ offensive line. All in all, it was a 10-penalty performance for 108 yards – several of those plays wiping out what would have bee significant gains,” McElroy continued. “For the second straight game, Texas’ O-line got pushed around a little bit…So, yeah, I expect that group to be better.”

Ahead of their second bye week, Texas is still in a good position to be in contention in the SEC. With that said, their chances at it will be that much harder against their final four opponents if they don’t resolve some of these says McElroy.

“You better get this thing figured out and figured out quickly because guess what? It’s not going to get a lot easier,” said McElroy. “If there’s one thing I know for certain, Texas has a bunch of hurdles remaining on the schedule.