State of the Program – Texas on the cusp of Big 12 championship after season of mostly met expectations

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’ journey to the Big 12 Championship game and how they’ve made the move up after improvement last season.

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“Here we are,” Burton said. “It’s 2023 and the Longhorns are in the Big 12 Championship game. A lot of hopes and dreams still on the line. But I gotta be honest, the Texas Longhorns have put it in front of themselves and made this a reality.”

Nahlin, the publisher of InsideTexas.com, said the steps taken in 2021 and 2022 have brought the Longhorns to the cusp of their goal of winning the Big 12 on their way out of the conference and to the Southeastern Conference.

“Texas has run the table on the Revenge Tour the way that we hoped they would last year but thought they would this year,” Nahlin explained. “I just thought that they were on a good roster cycle. The offensive line needed more time to mature. I think players needed even another year in the defensive scheme even though we saw a lot of improvement last year. I knew that would be improved. 

“You know they just have a lot more experienced team: physical maturity, mental maturity, better depth, it just seemed all pretty obvious to me. Last year fans just didn’t want to hear it because they felt like every year supposed to be ‘the’ year.”

Nahlin said Texas has had success this season by making its opponents one dimensional on offense. He opined that Oklahoma State, the Longhorns’ opponent in the Big 12 title game, is not a very talented team but is well coached. 

“I’m really bullish on the defense,” Nahlin said. “Texas has tightened up issues in recent weeks, and it’s gonna make for tough sledding for a pretty predictable Oklahoma State offense at least from a standpoint of what they want to do run game and RPO. 

“Now you know that (Oklahoma State coach) Mike Gundy is gonna pull out some clever stuff – he always does. He’s probably the best in the country that I’ve seen at least over a long period of time of doing more with less. But I do think that Texas has a monster matchup advantage pretty much across the board (against Oklahoma State). They’ll be able to stop the run and then you can really start unlocking the pass game with defending the quick pass.” 

On offense, Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers has to play better than he did in a loss in Stillwater last season.

“We have to see him play better than even he did last week even in the battle against Texas Tech,” Nahlin said. “I don’t think you see him the drop back in the passing game nearly as quickly as he should. He’s still money in RPO game. Texas is gonna be able to run the ball. As good as Oklahoma State’s run game is they give up more yards on the ground than what they actually get and that’s pretty surprising when you have a running back like Ollie Gordon.”

Burton said that it’s sounds like Texas should win. 

“Texas is favored by, what, two touchdowns in this game?” he said. “But we all know football has a strange way of doing things, especially in November when the teams have been beat up a little bit and teams are used to each other. They’ve seen everybody’s playbook so they can practice against that playbook.”

The duo gave grades to the different units of the team based on preseason expectations, which both say were perhaps unduly high. Texas has scored at least 30 points in all but two games this season and had the chance to produce even more except for its red-zone deficiencies.

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“I would give the offense an overall grade of B-plus,” Burton said. 

Go check out the video in its entirety for more information.