What I’m looking for against Rice

Beyond a clean, focused game leading to utter domination, I’ll be looking for this tonight.

1. OL unit cohesion: The good thing about the Rice defense is they change up fronts and looks quite a bit so Kyle Flood’s unit will have to show the ability to adjust on the fly and block the kitchen sink. They’ll bring pressure from different angles. What Rice lacks in talent they attempt to make up for by creating mistakes. Despite the amount of career starts going into the Arkansas game last week, confusion was a very big issue on the UT offensive line.

2. Conduct the orchestra from the pocket: This ties into the o-line playing decently well. We know Casey Thompson can make throws and we know he can find daylight with his legs. For him to truly impress in this game, he’s going to need to make conventional quarterback plays from inside the tackle box. He can do it, but we need to see it become a consistent component of his game. This is a great opportunity for live reps. The same will go for Hudson Card when he gets in.

3. Staying out of 3rd and long: This ties into #1, team execution, and play calling. In each of the first two games Texas found itself in far too many 3rd and longs, even after quality 1st down plays. Third and short is how you either convert consistently or take shots.

4. Wide running game: This is also attached to OL play (noticing a theme?) but also game planning and play calling.

For anyone curious, Texas ran outside zone 4x against Arkansas for 15 yards. 3.8 ypc.

— Asst to the Minister of Culture (@Ian_A_Boyd) September 16, 2021

Against ULL it was 15 carries for 110 yards.

You can easily attach a QB run and RPO game to OZ, but most importantly it’s the run scheme that best fits both the offensive line and Bijan Robinson. Robinson is great regardless, but with his patience and ability to find a crease, not to mention his plant and go, he should be devastating running outside. Besides all his other qualities, he is incredibly strong running through contact. His best trait is probably how he barely loses speed running through off-balance tackle attempts. Contact on the outside is easier to break for big gains because Bijan is far too powerful for players his size and smaller plus defenders usually aren’t square when they try to tackle him like they are on inside zone.

To me this is the season defining scheme and I’d love to see the coaches lean into it.

5. DL and LB run game dominance: It’s pretty self-explanatory. The first team did much better than the second team (who played all too often in Fayetteville) but leverage still isn’t good up front. Frankly, the d-line should be living in the back field this game. If they don’t, it is officially time to recalibrate expectations for the d-line, if you haven’t done so already.

6. The X-factor: Let’s get a breakout game from Xavier Worthy. It matters not that he’s a freshman, he needs to become a big part of the offense, ideally working in tandem with an effective run game. Not to remove any blame for errant throws last week, but he’s the receiver quarterbacks will want on the field going after the ball in the air down field. Jordan Whittington, while quite talented, is an on-the-ground playmaker. This team needs Worthy, but as you know with receivers, their productivity is heavily affected by scheme, game plan, play calling, offensive line, quarterback, and run game. They love to eat but they’re often reliant on the rest of the food pyramid being healthy.

7. Clean play from the youths: This is a game to get the youngsters in and ducking bullets, even if they are rubber. There’s a ton of time for younger players to emerge as viable depth if not outright starters at positions that are underperforming. I’m looking forward to seeing second teamers on o-line individually assimilated within the first team.

And you, what are you watching for? Let us know on Inside Texas Members Only.