In his first appearance as play-caller for the Texas offense, Jay Norvell shook up the norm, giving redshirt freshman Jerrod Heard the start at quarterback against the Rice Owls on Saturday.
After a lackluster performance in South Bend last week against the Irish, it was imperative that the Longhorns show better against a Rice team that hasn’t won in Austin since 1965.
By all accounts, they did.
The Texas offense struck first, marching downfield 80 yards on 9 plays to cap an opening drive in which Jerrod Heard found Armanti Foreman on a 32 yard touchdown pass. Texas took an early 7-0 lead over Rice and would add to the lead on the next possession. Daje Johnson fielded a James Farrimond punt at the Texas 15 yard line, and would elude several Rice defenders before breaking into the open field. Johnson would return the punt 85 yards into the Rice end zone, giving the Longhorns a 14-0 lead late in the first quarter.
The Texas special teams play wasn’t done yet.
Rice would punt on its next possession, this time to Duke Thomas. Thomas would get the better of Farrimond and the Owls, returning the punt 56 yards to the Rice six yard line. Senior running back Johnathan Gray would handle the rest, punching it in from a yard out giving Texas a 21-0 lead with only seconds left in the first quarter.
Rice running back Sam Stewart would add a pair of rushing touchdowns in the second quarter, pulling the Owls within a touchdown of Texas. The Longhorns would fail to put points up in the quarter and the Texas would take a 21-14 lead into the locker room.
While the score was on the Longhorns’ side, the halftime statistics weren’t. Rice nearly tripled the Texas time of possession and doubled the Longhorns’ number of first downs. Rice had 223 total yards compared to 157 for Texas.
Heard would open the third quarter with a 69 yard strike to true freshman John Burt, increasing the Texas lead to 28-14. The rest of the quarter would belong to Texas, who would put up two more touchdowns – one on a fumbled Driphus Jackson pitch that Malik Jefferson recovered and took into the end zone, and another on D’Onta Foreman’s 2-yard rush.
After three quarters it was Texas 42, Rice 14.
Much like the second quarter, the fourth would belong to the Rice Owls. Driphus Jackson would hit Temi Alka for a four yard touchdown pass with 9:24 left in the quarter to cut the Texas lead to 42-21. Rice would pull Jackson and replace him with junior quarterback Tyler Stehling. Stehling would find Luke Turner and the end zone with 3:48 left in the game, cutting the Texas lead to 42-28, which is where it would stay.
The Longhorns won a must-win game in front of their home crowd fans tonight.
“We needed a victory, we needed to get our confidence going,†Strong said after the win.
Jerrod Heard finished with 120 yards passing and 96 yards rushing.
Tyrone Swoopes entered the game in relief of Heard with 6:33 left in the fourth quarter, and finished with sixteen total yards.
The Texas defense intercepted Driphus Jackson three times and recovered 2 fumbles from the Owls. Those are things Charlie Strong can point out as positives.
On the more concerning side is the overall play of the Texas defense, which gave up 462 yards of total offense to the Owls, a week after they gave up 527 to Notre Dame. It’s a unit that has to find a way to play better football.
“We still have a long ways to go. We’re not near where we should be.†It’s all about effort, it’s all about passion.†said Strong.
Texas (1-1) welcomes the Cal Golden Bears (2-0) to Austin next weekend.
