Taking stock of Texas' close road win over Arkansas

Written by Coach V., a long-time respected Texas High School Football Coach. He grades hard, he grades fair.

Whew! Talk about a 15-round heavyweight slugfest. There were a ton of collisions that were struck for football justice and to be honest both teams gave as good as they took. Texas measured up the last fourth of the fight (4th quarter) and came away with a brutal road win. Some always say winning on the road is extremely difficult whether it be a high scoring big play contest or a blood and guts last man standing in the trenches. You need one of these to clear out your newspaper clippings. Believe me, the practice field looks inviting after performances like this one. We have some ‘splaining to address on the issues.

There are a few suggestions that come to mind after my rewatch today. First, it’s only fair that I mention how much fun it was to see two teams block and tackle with vigor and attitude. Yes, there were way too many missed blocks and tackles but at least those missteps were of the 100 mph variety. I just wish whoever instructed the camera crew zoomed in on the LOS before the damn ball is snapped. The game is enjoyed more without crowd sweeps or charts on my screen with live action occurring on the field. 

You hear finish a bunch times now-a-days. Well, our defenders might entertain the thought of not allowing quite as many yards after contact in the future—those two grown a$$ men for the piggies (Green, Jackson) lowered our individual defender grades on about twenty or more plays yesterday. The same can be said about our individual blocking assignments except for actually maintaining blocking contact longer. Once again, I will volunteer that Wingo (5) is an eligible big play waiting to happen for those interested—twice a game would be minimum thank you.

Well, it seems Alfred Collins (95) and Jahdae Barron (7) were runaway defensive players of the game. They not only cause turnovers but they also step up as leaders with very difficult big play efforts several times a game. After careful consideration I feel the offensive player of the game was split three ways despite two of the accused splitting time/snaps. Matthew Golden (2) continues to find the alumni stripe with big play touchdown receptions. I felt the slashing RB’s (Trey Wisner (26) and Jaydon Blue (23) were very impressive getting the maximum out of their chances time after time.

I spent some quality time watching our OL and where we were falling short in our ground game success. There are often times where our TE’s are just overmatched physically. There are many occasions when just one of our interior five loses his block and we waste four excellent efforts to a single misstep. We also suffer a few plays where either a stunt or a blown assignment wrecks our play with penetration. There is certainly no doubt our five uglies are excellent pull blockers but we lack a edge presence to fully explore the pin/pull capabilities to the maximum. Our problems defensively mostly boil down to a lack of physicality especially after we read the correct gap we need to fill.

We won a big one so enough of my opinionated corrective criticism from the bleacher seats. Celebrate and dance to the music should be playing right now.

Here are a few comments as I saw them along the way:

Alfred Collins (95) is doing his best work in the SEC section of the schedule. Should win the trophy Sweat took last season. Fun to watch—-extremely talented. Fumble caused PBU.

Jahdae Barron (7) is on a mission from hell. You gotta love great cornering after last year’s version. Move of the year—Barron to corner from star.

Quinn Ewers (3) frustrates us weekly but then makes a tremendous play making us apologize for ever yelling at him or some such thing.

Matthew Golden (2) is the first option in the red zone and rightly so. Great hands.

Isaiah Bond (7) is not only fast but a really good player. Asking him to block is a bad strategy.

Kelvin Banks (78) had his toughest game at UT.

Gunnar Helm (85) had one catch, one drop, and several bad blocking efforts.

Juan Davis (81) had one catch and several bad blocking efforts.

Ant Hill Jr. (0) wasn’t as effective as an enforcer on the inside ground game as usual.

Jaylon Guilbeau (3) had a very rough outing with several missed tackles.

Andrew Mukuba (4) had one nice open field tackle in brief action.

Kobe Black (6) had terrific coverage but great reception by receiver. Good player coming on.

Jahdae Barron (7) had one oskie, two break-ups, and several nice tackles in an all conference outing.

Trey Moore (8) had his usual terrific game without the stats to back it up. One sack and many hustle efforts in this contest.

Colin Simmons (11) had two and one half sack and several tackles but found the QB keeper a tough assignment.

Michael Taaffe (16) had several tackles and a couple of misses plus a fumble recovery.

Liona Lefau (18) had a very rough outing. He read correctly and played proper technique but wasn’t able to finish the play. Missed several tackles.

Jelani McDonald (25) misjudged the QB speed on keeper but is definitely improving as we speak.

Barryn Sorrell (88) had a decent game, good plays outnumbered mistakes.

Ethan Burke (91) had a rough game—QB option ate our collective lunch.

I’m just glad Petrino was calling their plays yesterday. We were so much better off with Green throwing than trying to slow down and consequently get Green/Jackson down it wasn’t even funny.

It’s my opinion that our ground game needs not only adjusting but possibly starting all over till we find a series that doesn’t get shipwrecked behind the LOS half the time. Am I the only one that cringes when we don’t throw in the red zone?

We are 9-1 and I’m being way too critical. Let’s get Kentucky this week and not look ahead to you know who.