Texas (4-5) found the win column again on Saturday night with a 59-20 win over last-place conference opponent Kansas (0-9). A challenging first half was soon overshadowed by a scoring barrage in the second half that included six touchdowns by the Longhorns.
Highlights on the night included Tyrone Swoopes’ 5 touchdown performance, a 93-yard touchdown run by tailback D’Onta Foreman, a 40-yard touchdown reception by Armanti Foreman and an 84-yard touchdown pass from Jerrod Heard to John Burt.
The Longhorns amassed 598 yards of total offense which included a balanced attack – 299 yard rushing and 299 yards passing.
Coaches and players gave their thoughts on the team’s performance in post-game availability with media.
Charlie Strong on the win
“Well, we’re not going to write we turned the corner, keep writing it’s really bad, don’t give them no hope at all. We don’t need that.
It’s like every time we get built up, it’s like crash and burn. We don’t — but, no, it’s glad. Just so happy to see how our players battled. You hear so much, and I tell them all the time, it’s — what matters the most is the team and when you start playing for what’s on the front of your jersey and not what’s on the back, then good things are going to happen for you.”
Strong on being shutout by Iowa State last week and scoring 59 points against Kansas
“I needed those points last week. I just needed half of them last week. But, no, it isn’t an explanation.
Last week we don’t release the ball and Jerrod knew he needed to make the throws and
we don’t take advantage of what they gave us.
And then you look at tonight. First play of the game we open it up and just throw the deep one, and just lay it out there. Because the thing about John Burt, he can make plays. Just lay it out to him and he will go get it and run it down.
But just watching us make the plays and watch the quarterback, it starts with the quarterback. If the quarterback has a good night, then we’re going to get the good result that is we have tonight.”
On playing Malik Jefferson, who was available only in an emergency situation
“Well, I looked out there and I said that we can’t continue to miss tackles. Malik is one of those guys he can make the plays. And so I said we will play him. He wasn’t feeling well, I said, let’s make sure he’s okay before we throw him out there.”
Jay Norvell on the team’s confidence moving forward
“We just build on it. We show them the things that are going well and we keep pushing them. We have to push this team, we’ve got to ride them, and we’ve got to make sure they have the kind of focus and effort that we need out of them. This will be another big challenge this week. We felt coming out of the bye week after the Oklahoma game that we could build on our performance and we did a little bit but we took a step back. It’s just not a team we can take anything for granted with. We got to press them, keep getting what we want on them and that’s our job as coaches. We just have to continue to push. We need a breakthrough on the road against a good football team and we haven’t done it yet this year. We’re certainly capable of all these games on our schedule. If we perform the way we are capable of, we can put together games where we can win on everybody left on our schedule.”
Defensive End Bryce Cottrell on beating Kansas
“ I don’t take any win for granted. A win is a win. At the end of the day, it’s better than a loss. So no matter who you play, a win is a win.
Quarterback Tyrone Swoopes on if the tribute jerseys had to do with the inspired play
“ I would honestly say it was a little bit of both. We didn’t play nearly as well as we wanted to last week, so we came out with a different mindset and were ready to play tonight.”
Wide Receiver John Burt on the passing game
“We work on it a lot in practice, along with the run game. It really was just a matter of time of getting in a situation where we could pass the ball efficiently. As you saw tonight, we did a pretty good job of that.”
Linebacker Peter Jinkens on where the team is moving forward
“We’re just still trying to get things right. We still have to clean up some things from tonight. We’ve just got to keep going off what we have and just keep doing what we do.”
Safety Dylan Haines on the upcoming road game against West Virginia
“You just look at the way we’ve played on the road and it hasn’t been our standard, so we’ve got to change something. We have to take the energy and excitement that we play with when we’re at
home and take it on the road, and that’s easier said than done, but we have to find a way to do it, because we have to win on the road if we want to be successful here. That’s just something that we’ll be emphasizing this week.”
Running back Johnathan Gray on D’Onta Foreman’s 93-yard touchdown run
“It did a lot. As running backs, you have to be able to take the ball and score from wherever and D [D’onta Foreman] did that. The offensive line did a great job of blocking that play up and the speed kicked in and he gave us a burst in the third quarter and gave our offense a spark.”
Safety Duke Thomas on what it meant to wear Freddie Steinmark’s number
“It meant a lot. That’s a big stage putting on that number. It meant I lot. I knew that every play out there, I wasn’t just playing for myself. It was definitely big.”
Quarterback Jerrod Heard on the offensive performance
“A lot of execution on the offense, a lot of the plays we wanted to get, we got done. I have been with Coach Strong and know that we had to keep pushing. They really loaded the box and so it was a lot of outside the main throws. It was pretty good.”
Running back D’Onta Foreman on the timing of his 93-yard touchdown run
“I feel like it was very important. It was important for me, it was important for the team. This game, I just wanted to go out there and make an impact on the game and I feel like I did that. But with the help of my brother [Armanti Foreman] and the team, it was set up for me. I was really untouched on the play. They blocked for me very well. I talked to Coach before the run, he told me to just run. Just go. A lot of people underestimate how fast you actually are, so just run and get the edge. And that’s what I did. My brother had a wonderful block. Caleb Bluiett had a wonderful block. Everybody blocked perfectly, I was able to go untouched.”
