Ehlinger’s mastery of the RPO game
Sam Ehlinger put on a RPO clinic last Saturday against Kansas State.
Five Quick Thoughts: Texas out K-State’s the Wildcats
Texas got back on 2018 form in this one, finishing off the Wildcats at home with a last minute field goal by Cameron Dicker. Texas carefully set up the field goal to take place with time expiring by having Sam Ehlinger take some goal line slides to force timeouts from Kansas State and turn the final drive into a 13 play, 67 yard affair that drained all of the remaining 6:45 off the clock before setting up an easy Dicker game-winner with time expiring.
Inside the Gameplan: To K-State, or not to K-State…
Chris Klieman seems to have unlocked the secret to winning with Bill Snyder’s roster. The Wildcats have a savvy QB who can run, a solid collection of blocking “ancillaries” at TE and FB, an OL comprised entirely of seniors, and just enough athleticism to take advantage of all these infrastructure pieces. Essentially it looks like one of Snyder's nine-win teams from the last decade.
Recruiting Notebook – 11/6/19
This week's Notebook starts in East Texas with a player with familiar lineage, then hits I-20 to head to Terrell for a linebacker before stopping in DFW to catch a defensive lineman, and finishes in CenTex with a budding DB. Get some Notebook.
Inside the Gameplan: A clarifying disaster
Texas’ 37-27 defeat in Fort Worth to TCU was a complete catastrophe. It was the punctuation mark on what is quickly turning into a nightmare season for the Longhorns in which a wildly talented and deep roster paired with a favorable schedule and vulnerable Oklahoma has turned into a fiasco. The Longhorns have four losable games left on the schedule, including road trips to Iowa State and Baylor, with a shot at the Big 12 championship still in play.
Inside the Gameplan: Storming the Fort
Last year the TCU game came as the Big 12 opener and a big test of whether Tom Herman’s Longhorns were ready to take another step in realizing the latent potential of the program. Gary Patterson’s Horned Frogs had delivered a number of stinging defeats to Texas over the decade since they joined the Big 12 and making a case as the No. 1 contender against Oklahoma in 2018 meant overcoming the Frogs. TCU predictably had a good plan in place for the Texas run game but were overcome by young quarterback Shawn Robinson committing something like a half dozen turnovers while Sam Ehlinger threw for 255 yards and scored three touchdowns in a 31-16 victory.
Five Quick Thoughts: Texas narrowly evades disaster against Kansas
With multiple new starters facing a Kansas offense that has shown much greater competence and had a bye week to prepare under a hotshot young OC, Texas' defense was in a decisive game. This was a time for the Longhorns to settle in on defense and focus on playing good base defense while keying Pooka Williams. That was the common assumption throughout the week, bolstered by talking points from the Texas staff about simplifying and getting the players moving fast.
Inside the Gameplan: Red River Recovery
Lincoln Riley and his staff put on a very unwelcome exposé in the Cotton Bowl on some of the problems in Tom Herman’s Texas program. There are a few issues now that are more or less settled fact, many of which can only be patched up next offseason when more rigorous solutions can be applied. One such issue is the lack of bang for his buck that Herman is getting from his staff.
Run Game Report: Oklahoma
In one sense, Texas took Oklahoma pretty seriously in this contest. They didn't really run the base offense that had vaulted them up to a no. 4 ranking in the SP+ offensive ratings and had them looking like the best offense the 40 Acres had seen since 2008 or earlier. Instead, they tried to pick at the obvious Oklahoma weaknesses from unexpected looks and didn't seem to have much confidence in some of the sets that had served them so well in previous weeks.
