5 Questions: Baylor

October 23, 2012

James Schleicher

regional television audience that likely tuned into see how many points the two teams’ offenses could rack up.

The points piled high and, for the most part, Texas’s and Baylor’s prolific offenses produced the expected fireworks.

But the Horns’ defense made just enough stops, forced two Baylor turnovers and outlasted the Bears at the end to secure the victory. The win ended a two-game Texas losing streak to Baylor and righted the ship after back-to-back losses to West Virginia and Oklahoma.

Both teams had 14 possessions in the game. Texas (5-2,2-2 Big 12) scored touchdowns on eight of its series, while Baylor had six TDs and three field goals. Holding the Bears to three points rather than six on those three possessions proved crucial.

“In a game like this, and especially in our league right now, you’ve got to get a stop,” Texas coach Mack Brown said. “And that means a field goal. That means a turnover. That means a punt.

“If we had gotten a stop like we did tonight against West Virginia we’d be sitting here at 6-1,” Brown added. “We grew up some tonight. We did better. We didn’t panic. We didn’t get down.”

The Horns came into the game reeling after a thumping by Oklahoma in Dallas the previous week that shook the team to its core. A week of tenacious, back-to-basics practice and a rededication to toughness allowed Texas to put that loss in the rear-view mirror.

Texas used a balanced attack to amass 525 total yards versus Baylor’s porous defense. The rushing attack, led by hammerhead sophomore Joe Bergeron’s 117 yards and five touchdowns, racked up 251 yards. Quarterback David Ash– injured left wrist seemingly forgotten– coolly distributed the ball to 10 different receivers and racked up 274 yards on a 19-of-31 showing. Mike Davis led the pass-catchers with six grabs for 148 yards that included a 67-yard third quarter bomb.

Most importantly, the Horns did not commit a turnover.

“This is the offense we want,” Brown said. “It’s who we want to be. It’s who we were the first two games. It’s who we were at Ole Miss and Oklahoma State and West Virginia. We got away from it and didn’t do it well last week but Oklahoma had something to do with that.”

Texas got the lift it needed in this track-meet-style football game with a scintillating 84-yard touchdown run by freshman Daje Johnson on the first offensive snap. Baylor answered with an 8-yard touchdown run by quarterback Nick Florence (who would throw for 352 yards and account for 421 yards of total offense) after a high snap on a punt gave the Bears the ball in the shadow of the UT goal line.

Bergeron scored the first of his five TDs from 15 yards out midway through the first quarter, but Baylor added to its ledger with a 2-yard scoring run by Glasco Martin and then an 80-yard touchdown pass from Florence to Terrance Williams on which UT cornerback Quandre Diggs slipped. The Bears led 21-14 at the end of the first quarter.

Texas ruled the second quarter, scoring on three Bergeron TD bursts, from 2, 9 and 4 yards respectively, and freshman Johnathan Gray’s 25-yard scoring run, his first as a Longhorn. Baylor kept the game close with a 7-yard touchdown pass from Florence to Lanear Johnson and the first of Aaron Jones’s three field goals. The teams went to the half with Texas leading 42-31, and plenty left to be decided.

Baylor had the ball first in the second half and cut the Texas lead to 42-37 when tight end Jordan Najvar fell on a fumble by Florence that rolled forward into the end zone. The Bears went for two but Florence’s pass fell incomplete. Jones kicked another field goal (a 42-yarder) with 7:09 to play in the third quarter to pull Baylor to 42-40.

On the following driveTexas went for the kill shot, as Ash threw deep into a stout southerly wind and hit Davis, who came back to catch the ball before being pulled down at the BU 8 after a 67-yard play. Bergeron rumbled around the left end behind a punishing block by tight end Barrett Matthews for an 8-yard TD that gave the Horns a little breathing room.
Jones nailed his third field goal near the end of the quarter but Texas answered with a nifty 15-yard TD on a screen pass from Ash to Davis. The Horns started the drive at the BU 46 when linebacker Steve Edmond forced Martin into a fumble that sophomore safety Josh Turner pounced on..

Baylor drove 94 yards in 15 plays for its final tally, which came on a 1-yard Florence touchdown run with 1:57 to play. Texas recovered the ensuing pooch kick and ran out the clock, even though Bergeron fumbled while in the pile and found a way to get on the ball before any BU defender could.

“All I could think about was getting on top of the ball. It was kind of like playing ‘Hungry Hippo,’” Bergeron said in reference to the children’s board game.

Once the dust cleared, Baylor (3-3, 0-3 Big 12) had 607 yards of total offense. “Obviously, we still have some work to do,” Texas defensive end Alex Okafor said. “But to come back after a loss like last week, and step it up and get this ‘W’, it means everything and it shows our character.”

1. What was the biggest play of the game?

Brown and several of the Horns’ players called Johnson’s run on the first snap crucial to their success.

Johnson, a mercurial running back, took a quick handoff from Ash, ran around the corner in a flash past a sealing block by tight end M.J. McFarland. Once he was in the secondary, Johnson had to outrun the Baylor defense, he only slowed toward the end after it looked certain no one could catch him.

Ash had the best seat in the house and said Johnson’s run set the tone for a game everyone knew would likely be an offensive shootout.

“Everybody did their job,” Ash said. “Any doubt that was in our minds was gone at that moment when we showed that we could get in the end zone again. We can play football. We can win. We can be successful as a team. All the hard work we put in this week paid off.”

Texas co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin called the play “huge.”

“We wanted to start fast, and Johnson made it happen on the very first play,” Harsin said. “It was a statement that we wanted to make throughout the week, and it says volumes about what (the Texas players) did in their preparation.”

Horns’ guard Trey Hopkins said the players could just feel the passion building on the sideline prior to that first play. “Especially on the offense, we knew we had to come out and make things happen,” he said. “That first play was a combination of everything.”

2. What did the Horns do different in preparation for the Baylor game?

After the debacle against Oklahoma, the Texas coaches pulled out all the stops for practice in the run-up to playing the Bears, and the players amped up their intensity during their preparation.

“Anytime you play as poorly as we did last week there’s a different urgency,” Brown said. “Sometimes that slips a little bit when you start feeling pretty good about what you’re doing. Every practice this week was good, very physical and very intense.”

The Horns just went back to basics according to Okafor. “It was kind of like a training camp type practice, everybody was just giving it their all,” he said. “Nobody was trying to save their bodies for the game. Everybody was acting like practice is the game.”

Horns’ safety Kenny Vaccaro–never one to shy away from the physical aspects of the game–reveled in the harder practice sessions. “We took guys to the ground the whole time,” he said. “The scout team, everyone was getting slugged around. We just got back to getting physical and not so much worrying about the stuff that you get distracted with at Texas and just got back to playing football.”

Brown said the practices and the Horns play against Baylor reestablished the team’s toughness.

“We saw (our toughness) at Oklahoma State,” Brown explained. “We saw it at Ole Miss. We saw it against West Virginia. And we saw it tonight. I don’t know where it went last week. Our team is not good enough to beat somebody unless we’re ready to play with a lot of intensity and a lot of urgency.”

Expect the physical practices to continue for the rest of the season.

3. What has become the most unimportant statistic for the Horns in 2012?

Nothing matters for Texas except the bottom line, which is getting the victory. These Horns are not going to win any beauty contests for their play on defense, and against Baylor UT lost in every offensive category besides the scoreboard.

“We knew going into the game that Baylor would make plays,” Texas defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. “We just needed to find a way to win. You look it as a game of stops, and a game of runs. We look at the two turnovers and how crucial those were. And then there was holding them to three field goals. Those are things that we did to win the football game.

“These last two weeks, we didn’t feel too good, because we lost the games, but we are better about things tonight because we won,” Diaz added. “We still have plenty of things to work on, but it’s so much easier to correct things after you win, because everybody has a good feeling about themselves.”

For the record, Baylor outrushed UT 255-251, outpassed Texas 352-274, averaged 7.1 yards per snap to the Horns’ 7.0 and had 29 first downs to Texas’s 27. None of those figures mattered to Brown, who said “stats are out the window.”

“The only thing we’re evaluating now is wins,” he added. “I want to win, and that’s all that matters. So I’m happy we won. I don’t even remember the score or care. We’re doing better. We’re sure not where we need to be. But we’re taking baby steps here.”

4. Was there a breakout player in this game?

Two players had their best games against Baylor – McFarland and Turner.
McFarland had a catch for 29 yards and was dominating in his blocking against the Bears, especially on Johnson’s TD run on the first play from scrimmage.

“M.J.’s getting a lot better,” Brown said. “When you take a wide receiver, and he goes from 230 pounds to 256 and he’s never blocked at the line of scrimmage in his life, it’s going to take a while. He’ll be what we thought he would be in time.”

Turner, who made his first-career start at safety in place of Adrian Phillips, had a hand in both the Baylor turnovers. He snatched an overthrown pass from Florence off the turf for his first career interception and later recovered a fumble.

“Turner was really exciting,” Diaz said. “He made plays. He was lined up right. He was where he was supposed to be and he was disciplined in our coverage.”

5. What’s on the horizon for the Horns?

If Texas is ailing, the Horns usually get well when the play Kansas, whom UT visits for an 11 a.m. kickoff Oct. 27. Texas has defeated Kansas every time the two teams have played in Brown’s tenure on the Forty Acres (5-0) and are 9-2 all-time against the Jayhawks.
The game should be a momentum builder for Texas, which will then travel to Lubbock to face a surging Texas Tech (a 56-53 triple overtime winner over TCU on Oct. 20).
After the battle on the South Plains, the Horns will finish at home against Iowa State on Nov. 10 and versus TCU on Thanksgiving night before travelling to Big 12 frontrunner Kansas State (which walloped West Virginia 55-14 on the road Oct. 20) in the season finale.
“(Beating Baylor) gives us a chance to get a sixth win next week at Kansas and be bowl eligible, at the same time we were last year,” Brown said. “And then maybe we can play a little bit better down the stretch.”