Gut check: Where the Longhorns stand headed into Big 12 play

The Texas Longhorns begin their final Big 12 tour this Saturday at McLane Stadium in Waco and they do so by getting through non-conference play undefeated for the first time since 2012. This season appears to offer the most winnable Big 12 Conference in years and it would only be fitting that Texas wins it in their last season to compliment them winning the first ever Big 12 title in 1996.

Texas Has a Championship Level Defense

The Longhorns have shown through three games that the defense has taken yet another step forward. At the start of the season head coach Steve Sarkisian and defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski made forcing more turnovers a team emphasis. To this point the defense has forced a turnover in each game for a total of six over three games.

Against Alabama the offense gets most of the recognition, but the defense made several key plays to swing momentum. The biggest came with 13:54 left in the fourth quarter when safety Jerrin Thompson intercepted Jalen Milroe and returned it to the five yard line. That set up the 5 yard rushing touchdown by Jonathan Brooks. At this point in the game it was 20-16 in favor of Texas but Alabama had all the momentum. That key interception killed the crowd noise at Bryant-Denny Stadium and Texas never looked back on the way to their biggest road win in nearly 20 years.

The Offense Needs to Work on Consistency

The Texas offense has shown flashes of greatness through three games but the fireworks many anticipated in the offseason haven’t materialized yet. In the Alabama game, both quarterback Quinn Ewers and his wide receivers flashed their moments of greatness. In the Rice and Wyoming games they seemed to have a disconnect. If Ewers can maintain consistency with his mechanics and hone his timing with the wideout corps, the Texas passing game can be lethal. Tight end JT Sanders had zero catches against Wyoming following his five catch, 114 yard performance against Alabama. Sanders should not have a game with zero catches and hopefully Steve Sarkisian finds a way to use him more moving forward.

Coming into the season, it was known that losing Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson would impact the running game significantly. While the running game hasn’t been what Sark would like, the Longhorns did finish Alabama off by running the ball and taking the last 7:14 seconds off the clock. In Tuscaloosa the ground game only managed 105 yards on 37 carries for 2.8 yards per carry. That normally won’t get it done.

Five-star freshman Cedric Baxter was a large part of the equation in kickstarting the running game, but Baxter didn’t play against Wyoming and left the Rice and Alabama games with injury. Jonathan Brooks has done a solid job in Baxter’s absence, but in order to succeed Texas needs several backs to perform and add the depth the staff felt they had headed into the season. Brooks had over 160 yards last week against Wyoming and averaged over 7 yards per carry. 

The Coaching Staff has Clearly Improved

Arguably the biggest question of the Texas program headed into the season had nothing to do with the players. It had to do with the year-three coaching staff and their perceived inability to win big games. Sarkisian was roughly a .500 coach as a head coach and had never finished better than 9-4. While it is still early in the season, it appears they have turned the corner with the win in Tuscaloosa.  Sark handed Nick Saban his first home night loss since 2015 and won where Saban had notched a 52-1 record over the last 53 games.

The Longhorns under Sark and his staff have seemingly had trouble closing out games in the fourth quarter. In year one Texas had second-half leads in 4 of their 7 losses. In year two they had second half leads in 4 of their 5 losses. The fight the Longhorns showed in Alabama when they were down 16-13 to start the fourth quarter proved this year’s team is different.

As Texas heads to Waco this weekend to begin Big 12 play for the last time they can be confident that they are well-coached and have the talent to make a run into the College Football Playoff.