Warrick, Williams on offensive focus, Baylor

Warrick talks distribution, visiting Bears

Senior wide receiver Jacorey Warrick continues to enjoy a renaissance season under first year offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert’s offense and under the guidance of Jeff Traylor, whose responsibilities include coaching the inside receivers. With 19 catches for 207 yards and two touchdowns, Warrick is now one of the more efficient receivers in the Longhorn offense, an offense that gets the ball to several receivers.

“Shane [Buechele], he does a great job dealing the ball around to all of us,” Warrick said. “We just have to stand warm and be ready to go and being locked into the game, really.”

No receiver on the team has more than 23 catches, but eight different receivers have at least 10 catches. While this could be the sign of a team lacking a go to receiver, Warrick sees it differently.

“You could say that, but I also think that makes us a little harder to gameplan against because we have so many guys who could take off,” Warrick said. “It could be Dorian [Leonard], it could be [Devin] Duvernay, myself, Armanti [Foreman]. If you try to gameplan for just one, we’ll beat you with the other guys.”

One of those receivers, freshman Devin Duvernay, was one of the “other guys” who got free against Kansas State. Duvernay hauled in an 80 yard touchdown pass from Buechele, the longest of the season.

“I think he’s a superstar in the making,” Warrick said. “He’s fast. He’s not the tallest receiver but he’s incredibly strong. Comes in, works hard. Even when he first got here he was picking up on things right away, and it’s all paying off for him.”

Warrick noted how easy Duvernay makes it look as well. “I don’t think anybody can run with him, but it doesn’t look like he’s running that fast, but he’s steady running away from people,” Warrick said.

With one of the top ranked teams in the country visiting this Saturday in the Baylor Bears, Warrick was asked if they felt like an underdog against his closest Big 12 neighbor.

“No,” Warrick said. “They’ve have had a lot of recent success as far as recruiting and stuff like that. Recently in years, Baylor has been up there because of the things they’ve been doing. They’ve been having success.”

The goal remains the same for the Longhorns. After sophomore fox Breckyn Hager chastised himself last week for saying the word “dominate,” Warrick did not have the same reservations.

“We go into the game still thinking we’re going to dominate,” Warrick said. “Even this week.”

Williams talks Baylor match-up, turnovers, road woes

Sophomore offensive lineman Connor Williams consistently grades out as one of Texas’ best linemen, if not one of their best players. Last season against Baylor, Williams had to face one of the country’s most hyped players in Shawn Oakman. While Oakman’s imposing physical presence is not lining up in green, gold, black and white, Williams still respects the opponent across from him.

“We’ve had a very long history with Baylor and they’re a really good team,” Williams said. “Every year we give them our best and they give us their best. It’s a good game.”

Coming into the game as underdogs does not bother Williams. He says the team has their own problems to fix before they focus on creating some problems for the Bears.

“We’re not focused on thinking about the underdog,” Williams said. “We’re just focused on ourselves and we’re confident in ourselves and our abilities still.”

Although Texas’ offense puts up more than 470 yards per game, there are plenty problems Williams says Texas needs to work on.

“We’re just getting started slow,” Williams said. “There’s just a few mistakes here and there that are killing our drives. We just need to keep focused on those and getting those better.”

Over the past several weeks, one of Texas’ biggest struggles on the offensive side of the ball is producing points off of turnovers. Rather than calling plays aggressively post-turnover, the offense sputters.

“It’s an issue like if a defense is scoring and we need to reaffirm that we’ll be able to score off turnovers to give them confidence,” Williams said. “It’s an issue we need to work on. We definitely need to score after turnovers. It’s a problem.”

Texas next game is at home, but the issues away from DKR continue to cost the Horns.

“We enjoy playing at home,” Williams said. “We enjoy having a home crowd and everything.”

Williams maintained that the energy level at home is the same as it is on the road, and it is the same for a 7 p.m. kick as it is for an 11 a.m. kick. Crowds help, but the problems will continue until Williams and his team figures out what is wrong away from Austin.

“It’s game by game,” Williams said. “It’s not like we’re not having juice on the road. It seems to be a correlation. The home crowd gives us an advantage.”