Sight and memory are two fickle things. Sometimes they’re spot on, and other times it’s as if you weren’t even watching. A 21-24 loss looks close on paper, but it felt a lot worse as it unfolded.
In my other article “Shooting for Perfection,†I take a look at the one deficiency on the offense and dive into the numbers. Well, I took it a step up and decided to look at every deficiency on the defense. But I calculated it and that journey projected out a few years. So, instead I went through the Texas vs Kansas State game and all the games that both teams played before that, to see if it was as bad as it felt.
Let’s start with the defense. What I remember as I watched that game was the excruciating long drives and the Texas defense’s inability to get off the field.
Let’s look at the stats before this game.
Before the game Kansas State was very good at converting drive ending plays (3rd and 4th downs) with a 3rd/4th down conversion percentage around 40%. But the biggest bright spot from the Texas perspective was that the Kansas State offense was not potent. They had scored just 7 touchdowns all season against Power-5 opponents and had lost yardage on more plays than the Longhorns despite having run fewer plays. Even better for the Longhorns, when they lost yardage, they weren’t good at making it back up. On top of all this Jesse Ertz had completed around 49% of his passes. So, Texas knew this team could not throw and would be useless without the run game.
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Before Kansas State, Texas was holding teams to about 40% on 3rd and 4th down conversions. Now I say holding, but if you were within 5 yards of the first on 3rd down you had a better chance of getting a 1st against this defense than getting heads on a coin flip…and just under a coin flip for from around 6-10 yards… 30% of conversions of 3rd and long isn’t good either.
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And beyond just 3rd and 4th down conversions, the opposing team has a 73% chance of getting a new set of downs or a touchdown when given a set of downs.
Not only this, but these conversions wouldn’t only make the 1st down marker, they routinely doubled, tripled, or embarrassed what the previous to-go yardage was. It was incredibly frustrating taking stats for this, looking at 28-42-42 yard conversions over and over again. It didn’t seem like it could get any worse.
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However, throughout the year, the Longhorns limited points and production when their opponents lost yards. It seemed to be the only thing they could do in an effective manner.
…but I didn’t think it could get worse.
How did things hold up in Mahattan? See for yourselves.
For starters, when the Wildcats lost yardage it was almost guaranteed they would get a first down or score points.
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The Longhorns kept their season average of a 47% conversion rate on 3rd/4th downs but they didn’t make it difficult for KSU to put themselves in 3rd and short situations. Instead of forcing them back and making them convert from 6 yards out, they allowed the Wildcats to tackle 3rd and 4th downs from short distances. Kansas State took immense advantage of this by converting on 71% of those opportunities.
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In fact, the Longhorns were even worse at stopping KSU at converting than they have been all season. KSU had an 83% rate of converting a first down or TD on every single set of downs. 19 of the 29 KSU conversions came via the run and Texas gave them five via penalties. A lot of this can be attributed to the 20 missed tackles and overall lack of fundamentals the defensive unit is currently playing with.
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KSU threw for less than 200 yards, didn’t have a 100+ yard rusher. They turned it over 3 times and still almost doubled Texas’ time of possession. In fact Texas had only one possession in the 1st quarter.
Despite 2 lucky fumbles and a good interception, this game could have been and should have been a lot worse because the defense played arguably their worst game yet this season statistically.
