Red River Shot-down

The Longhorns played their best four quarters of the year but still managed to leave Dallas empty handed, losing 31-26 to Oklahoma.

Texas fared better in every statistical category on the offensive side of the football except for the final score. They outgained the Sooners 482-232, with QB Tyrone Swoopes throwing for a career-high 334 yards. The Longhorn defense came to play and limited Oklahoma to only one third down conversion for the entire afternoon. UT controlled the clock as well, by a margin of 38 minutes to 22 – but still managed to lose the game.

The game hinged on two key plays from the Oklahoma special teams and defense. The first big play came after Texas took their opening drive 64 yards for a field goal. The Longhorns kicked off to Oklahoma who promptly returned the kick 91 yards for a touchdown to take an early lead. Then Swoopes made his biggest mistake of the day, throwing behind his intended receiver and giving an easy pick six to the hungry Sooner defense.

The most notable change has come in how Shawn Watson’s offense has adapted to suit his personnel. Texas’ offense ran a number of sweeps and read-options to go along with the Pro-Style sets that head coach Charlie Strong is known to prefer, and it paid off. Swoopes is not a great drop-back passer or runner so you can see why maybe he’s struggled as a quarterback. But Watson added some motion and misdirection in the backfield, which in turn opened up wider running lanes and confused the defense enough to provide for a couple extra moments in the pocket before the pressure arrived. That made all the difference for Texas’ offense, which capitalized with a strong passing game and solid production from Johnathan Gray and Malcolm Brown, who ran for 50 and 78 yards, respectively.

The UT defense seems to have turned a corner over the last couple of weeks. Most notably, they are a much more physical tackling team than they were last year. According to Stats.com, The Longhorns have only missed 9 tackles on the year, compared to 31 last year. Brown and Quandre Diggs put in solid efforts as usual against the Sooners, but the rest of the defense hit hard and shut down the Oklahoma passing game. The Longhorns limited their opponent to under 125 yards passing for the second straight week and lost.

Texas is doing all the hard things that you need to win a game but they’re plagued by lapses in concentration. There are plenty of positive things that they can build on, even if they didn’t translate into a win this time.