By Steve Habel/Senior Editor
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Longhorns’ best chance to win in the big-yardage, high-scoring Big 12 Conference is to turn up the heat and pick up the pace on offense. After a bowl-less 5-7 campaign in 2015 and two straight losing seasons, the team has adopted the latest case of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” to keep up with the haves instead of joining the have-nots.
To those means, Texas coach Charlie Strong brought in new offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert to crank up the Longhorns’ attack, which ran an average of 65 plays a game last season — about 20 fewer than the conference’s elite teams (TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State).
Gilbert has put the Longhorns into [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]high gear with a combination of plays that he has gleaned from his stints as an assistant at Houston (where he worked under former Baylor coach Art Briles), Eastern Illinois, Bowling Green and Tulsa.
“Whatever it takes to win — that’s what we are focused on, not some definite number of plays,” Gilbert explained. “Some games are going to be more and some are going to be less. We have different ways to play, depending on the game and the situations we face.”
The 38-year-old Gilbert doesn’t have a lot of experience calling plays, but he has worked with some of the best in the business in formulating game plans that are successful.
Asked if the new Texas offense is like the attack Briles has employed, Gilbert said he preferred to consider it a “Texas plan,” a combination of plays he has developed through the years and tailored into a blend of the Longhorns’ past attack and their current players.
“It’s our offense, our twist on things that we do different,” Gilbert said. “We are always looking for some kind of balance with run-pass and with touches for different guys. We have feelings about who’s good and who might be better than his stats, but we are always going to go with the facts over any feeling.”
The players running the new Texas offense have the mandate to snap the football 10 seconds after the end of the previous play, and the Longhorns have been working well toward that goal in the first week of fall drills after being mostly successful with the up-tempo attack during their 15 workouts during the spring.
One of the keys to any chance the Longhorns have to be a solid football team is its quarterback play. Through the first week of fall camp, the battle to start at the position is down to true freshman Shane Buechele and senior Tyrone Swoopes.
Jerrod Heard, who started 10 games for Texas last season, is getting as many snaps at the slot receiver position as at quarterback. That role could change if either Buechele or Swoopes gets injured or is ineffective.
“Whichever guy we decide to go with (at quarterback), we’ll play to his strengths,” Gilbert said. “We’ll scheme it that way, and we’ll set him and ourselves up to have success on Saturdays. That’s the ultimate goal.”
Sophomore wide receiver John Burt, who appears poised for a huge season after leading the Texas wideouts in 2015, said the new attack is about moving the football around and giving different players opportunities.
“This offense is geared towards receivers of all sizes,” Burt said. “We can hit people deep outside and we can hit our smaller guys inside for big gains. I like how a lot of the routes are vertical. A guy with my speed likes to get down the field. It is really going to be something to look forward to.”
Gilbert said he never has watched any of the Texas games from last season and refuses to evaluate his offensive players by the way they have performed in the past.
“Labelling is disabling,” Gilbert said. “Nothing from last year is going to help us now. We have a lot of different options, a lot of different ways to play the game and win football games.
“When you come in new and install a new system, we have to work to see where guys fit, what they do best. That’s what we’re doing in the run-up to our opening game. Our mentality is that every day is big (this fall).”
A huge part of the Texas plan is to get the ball in the hands of its talented running backs, namely junior D’Onta Foreman and sophomore Chris Warren III — two guys with speed, size and power.
“(Foreman and Warren) are big and really talented,” Gilbert said. “We have a stable of backs that can do different things, and that’s vital. We will call plays and scheme to the strengths of what those guys can do.”
A potential drawback of any hurry-up offense is what happens when teams rush into a quick three-and-out, which give the ball back to the opposition with little rest for the defense.
Gilbert said his players understand the offense a little better than they did in the spring.
“When you’re out there, you’re trying to play fast, you’re trying to process a play, and you’re trying to do it with a big linebacker bumping on you or a corner jamming you,” he said. “When you start to minimize the thinking process, it allows you to go faster. Everywhere we’ve been they want to win now, and it’s no different here. Yeah, this is Texas and we understand all that comes with that, but we are going to do what we do.”
Here’s hoping that the Longhorns get up to speed forthwith, because Notre Dame is waiting and it doesn’t grade on the curve.
Just sayin’, ya know?
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