Snapshot for Texas vs. LSU: Players to Watch and Game Strategy

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — No. 9 Texas hosts No. 6 LSU Saturday in Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in the what’s being billed as the biggest non-conference showdown in Austin since No. 1 Ohio State beat No. 2 Texas in 2006.

Here are some of the players we will be watching and some of the things we expect to see when the Bayou Bengals come to town for the huge Big 12-versus-Southeastern Conference dustup:[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]

Players to watch
Quarterback Sam Ehlinger: Ehlinger engineered the Longhorns to an easy 45-14 win last week over Louisiana Tech, racking up a combined 310 yards (including 276 through the air) and four touchdown passes. None of Ehlinger’s eight runs in the game were planned — they were all scrambles — but don’t expect Texas to be able to beat the tough, fast and talented Tigers without some additional production from Ehlinger in the run game. I’ll say the quarterback runs 15 times, with only seven of those scrambles. I also expect the Longhorns to go deep in the passing game multiple times Saturday and they’ll hit at least one of those for more than 50 yards.

Running back Keaontay Ingram: He is not the last man standing in the Texas running back room but Ingram is the only back that had a scholarship who was listed at the position when the season began. The fact that Ingram is the starter, and was expected to be the main running threat for the Longhorns in 2019, has been a little lost in the fog of injuries that have whittled down the team’s depth at the spot. Ingram is more than capable of carrying the load. Expect 25 carries from him against LSU and three catches out of the backfield, for a combined 120 yards.

Cornerback Jalen Green: Texas allowed Green to play on an island against Louisiana Tech’s best receiver for most of the win last week, so the talented sophomore will be brimming with confidence this week and will be more than up to the task of defending against the LSU receivers. If Green can shut down his side of the field, Texas can scheme to help the corners on the other side — just like in golf, if you can eliminate one side of the course (in this case, the field) it makes things incrementally easier. I won’t predict that Green will have a pick, but I think he will have two pass breakups, both of which will come early in the game.

Kicker Cameron Dicker: In a game that could go to the wire and one in which points will be at a premium, Dicker could be the difference. The sophomore was 1-for-2 in the season opener, hitting from 40 and missing from 49 yards, and I’m of the opinion that he will provide the winning points in this game, likely with a field goal of less than 40 yards in the third quarter, after which Texas will outlast LSU with defense and ball-control offense down the stretch.

Key matchup: The Texas offensive line versus the LSU defensive front six.
The Longhorns want to run the ball and take what the defense gives (outside of a few big chances for chunk plays — see above), preferring to “out-SEC” their opponent from the Southeastern Conference. Herman and his staff will try to take a page or two out of the playbook that they used to beat Georgia, a better SEC team than LSU, in last year’s Allstate Sugar Bowl: play tougher, harder-hitting, physical football and take some chances when they are most opportunistic. Texas has won that way before, and I think it will win that way again, finding enough to beat the Bayou Bengals, 27-24.

Wild card
Herman’s teams always seem to play well in the biggest games, and have gone 8-2-1 covering the spread as an underdog in the games he’s been head coach, first at Houston and for the past two-plus years, on the Forty Acres.
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