Another offensively challenged game in the books for the 2017 Texas Longhorns. Gary Patterson’s Horned Frogs once again came out on top over the Longhorns in Fort Worth, as TCU extended their winning streak over Texas with a score of 24-7.
I predicted a relatively low scoring affair that had the Longhorns coming up just short due to their offensive struggles, but that didn’t make how things played out any less frustrating to watch.
I feel like I am going to be repeating myself for the most part on some of my talking points, but here we go anyway.
7 Offensive Points
Doesn’t matter who you play, seven points from the offense is not going to get it done. I’m racking my brain for some positive takeaways from the offense, but the only things that come to mind are LJ Humphrey clearing the 100-yard mark with a nice catch and run and Shane Buechele somehow walking away from this game in one piece.
Buechele was under fire from the moment he took the first snap tonight and his offensive line allowed 7 sacks and several more hits and pressures. Texas is incredibly thin at quarterback and with the offensive line being one big turnstile; I will be impressed if the quarterbacks on the roster make it through this season in one piece. I know they are battered and bruised up front, but this is as bad of an offensive line that I’ve seen at Texas in my time following the program.
TCU’s defense has been relatively solid this year, but Texas has to find a way to be better than 7 points and 263 yards of total offense. Texas still lacks a run game, which allows TCU and others to flood the secondary with defenders, which makes it significantly harder for receivers to get open. Is 3.8 yards per play bad? It seems bad.
The defense continues to give winning effort, but has nothing to show for it
The group brings their hard hat and lunch pail to the yard every week. TCU is good offensive football team, and they held Kenny Hill under 150 yards passing, didn’t allow a 100 yard rusher (Darius Anderson came up just shy), and didn’t allow a receiver to have over 50 yards. In total Texas only allowed 343 yards of offense, and considering who they were playing that is pretty darn impressive and good enough to win the game if your offense has a pulse.
This group is playing sub-.500 football. Even when they get stuck on the field for long periods of time due to the offense not producing they still bow their necks and get stops time and time again. They may have spotted TCU some early points before getting their feet underneath them and also surrendered a short field TD late to Anderson, but this group shouldn’t hang their heads at all.
Dump the Wildcat package
This package has been ineffective regardless of who has been the trigger man under center. I honestly can’t remember a positive play out of this package since LJ Humphrey hit a nice run out of at against Maryland. It’s a very vanilla package and it’s not fooling anybody whatsoever. Either learn to throw out of it add some wrinkles or dump it and put something else in.
Texas needs to reopen their kicker competition
Josh Rowland short hopped a field goal tonight that a college kicker needs to be able to make. I know he has never been touted as having a big leg, but that was really ugly and is exactly why Tom Herman doesn’t have much confidence trotting him out there with confidence.
A better option may not exist on campus right now, but it is time to start holding Rowland’s feet to the fire like everyone else on scholarship in Austin.
The present is ugly, but the future is bright at running back
Texas has struggled to run the football all year long, but it’s hard not like what you see early from guys like Daniel Young and Toneil Carter. Both have looked like upgrades over Chris Warren and Kyle Porter and it continues to beg the question why we haven’t seen the sooner. If you add a guy like Keaontay Ingram to the mix with those two young backs, then I feel very optimistic about the ability to get production out of that group down the line.
Of course they will only go as far as the offensive line allows them to go, but there is no doubt in my mind a good amount of talent in that threesome.
The Kansas Jayhawks roll into DKR next week. Lets hope the Texas offense is better than 7 points next week. It’s a game Texas SHOULD win every single year, but we all saw how things went down last year in Lawrence.
