On Texas Football: Texas looks to leverage a talent advantage over Oklahoma
On the latest video episode of On Texas Football’s State of the Program, Inside Texas’s Bobby Burton and Eric Nahlin discuss the Longhorns’ progress through the first five games of the 2023 season in advance of the titanic dustup with No. 12 Oklahoma on Saturday.
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Both teams are ranked and 5-0 heading into this game for the first time since 2008.
Burton said the Texas offense is “blossoming before our eyes.”
“(Running back) Jonathon Brooks has been a revelation of sorts,” Burton said. “The offensive line at times has been dominating and the receiving corps is as deep as it has ever been. Everything we talked about in the preseason that we said would be a best case has come to fruition at some level.”
Nahlin, the publisher of InsideTexas.com, said in some aspects the Longhorns’ are playing better than experts predicted they would after a solid preseason.
“You know, we’re kind of in charge of getting people excited and in the preseason you want to temper that a little bit,” Nahlin said. “But the way things are playing out Texas is better than what we wrote in August. Actually the biggest thing right now is the run game is getting going. Jonathan Brooks with the offensive line that is really starting to gel.
“This kind of happened in the same way that we thought, but I think that’s really making life easier for the wide receivers, making life a lot easier for Quinn (Ewers). It’s making life a lot easier for Steve Sarkisian as a play caller who has been more excited about calling run plays than he has been in the past.”
Nahlin expects the Longhorns to beat Oklahoma, which is a better team than it was last year when Texas posted a 49-0 win.
“I’m not really buying into the whole ‘anything that can happen, can happen at the Texas-OU game’ – anything can happen in any game,” Nahlin said. “I expect Texas to show up and play a good game. They’ve showed up for every game this season – maybe off to uneven start at times with the offense but the defense has shown up every game.
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“I’m not really worried about the rivalry game or being too big for Sarkisian. His first two years Texas certainly showed up – didn’t go their way in the first game but they sure came out hot.”
Nahlin opines that Texas just has more talent than the Sooners. The Longhorns are favored by seven points in the showdown in some books.
“The biggest issue is that OU just doesn’t have enough talent – they don’t have nearly as much talent as Texas right now,” he said. “But they are a flawed team. They have they lack talent in places that Texas has talent and depth of talent. To me, that’s bad news for OU and why I think this spread is a little low.”
You have to go check out the video for the specifics behind the offensive grades and entire defensive report card. There’s plenty more to glean, so go check it out in its entirety.
