Quick Thoughts and Takeaways: Texas secures big win in Fort Worth

Let’s jump straight into it as the Longhorns moved to 4-1 on the season and 2-0 in conference play.

• Steve Sarkisian was the first person to admit after the game that Texas was very sloppy at times today. The Longhorns settled for field goals far too often in the red zone and struggled mightily to get the passing game going. Despite all that, Texas was able to beat a team they were 2-7 against the previous 9 years. TCU made their fair share of mistakes as well, but this certainly felt like a game Texas would have lost in previous seasons.
• Bijan Robinson put the Texas offense on his back. The sophomore carried the ball 35 times for 216 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He was the best player on the field and Steve Sarkisian showed no hesitation in putting the ball in his hands with the game on the line. If Robinson continues to build on what he’s done through the first 5 games of the season, he should be in New York in December. 
• The Texas receivers struggled today outside of Jordan Whittington. Xavier Worthy had several drops and was a non-factor for most of the afternoon and Joshua Moore was only able to catch 3 passes for 13 yards. Marcus Washington played a good amount and continues to show excellent effort as a blocker, but Texas will need more consistency from the position group moving forward to help out Casey Thompson.
• Speaking of Thompson, he experienced some struggles today for the first time in his career. He completed 12 of 22 passes for 142 yards and a touchdown along with a bad interception. The interception was a bad decision to throw into triple coverage down the field to Xavier Worthy. Worthy was being held on the play and it probably should have been a flag, but Thompson simply can not make that throw. He also forced several other throws into tight windows that could have been picked off. He did rebound nicely to throw a touchdown to Whittington on a RPO early in the 4th quarter.
• The Texas offensive line had an up and down day, but the biggest storyline was the injury to Denzel Okafor. Once Okafor went down, Kyle Flood opted to slide Derek Kerstetter inside to LG and insert Andrej Karic at RT. Karic had several nice blocks in the running game and appeared to play well off the bench.
• Pete Kwiatkowski and the Texas defense did enough to get the job done. The Longhorns forced 2 defensive turnovers (the 3rd turnover came on special teams) and should have had another when both DeMarvion Overshown and Luke Brockermeyer had their hands on a Max Duggan pass. Kwiatkowski appeared content with getting TCU to dink and dunk their way down the field while waiting for a mistake and limiting big plays. The plan worked for the most part as the Horned Frogs were unable to push the ball down the field through the air. 
• The lone sack for the defense came on a strip sack from Anthony Cook on a beautifully called nickel blitz. Cook had another outstanding game and might be the best player in the Texas secondary right now.
• The defensive line was asked to contain Duggan for much of the game and try to shut down the running game with Zach Evans. Duggan’s longest run of the day was 10 yards. Evans had a good game (15 carries for 113 yards) and probably should have received more touches.
• The one aspect the Texas defense is lacking right now is consistent pass rush from their edge players. It is not likely something that is going to change over the course of the season, so the coaching staff is going to have to make do and lean on their interior defensive line to try to get to the quarterback. 
• Outside of Bijan Robinson, the MVP for the game should go to Cameron Dicker. The senior was 4/4 on field goals and also averaged 46.5 yards on his two punts. Dicker had been inconsistent to start the year, but Texas needed him to come through today and he delivered.