Five Questions – Baylor | Horns Illustrated

By Steve Habel/Associate Editor

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For the first 29 minutes of play against Baylor, Texas had just about everything going its way. But all that changed in the drop of a hat, or in this case, a football.

After the Longhorns’ unfortunate fumble, the sixth-ranked Bears [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] spent the final 30 minutes and 44 seconds of the game rolling past Texas. Baylor walked away with a 28-7 victory before an announced crowd of 93,727 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

The Longhorns’ defense had shackled Baylor’s high-powered offensive attack while the offense — doing its best to stay on the field to limit the Bears’ possessions — was on the Baylor 1-yard line with a chance to score the tying touchdown just before halftime.

But then Texas fumbled away the game on the most basic play — the exchange between the center and quarterback.

With the miscue went the Longhorns one real chance to put scare into Baylor and, ultimately, was the obstacle that kept Texas from pulling off the kind of upset that can spur an inexperienced team to play above its ceiling.

“We have to learn to win a game like this … we have to learn to finish,” head coach Charlie Strong said. “We had our opportunities and didn’t take advantage of them. We have to play better and get over this hump.”

Poor special teams play burned the Longhorns (2-3 overall, 1-1 in Big 12 Conference play) and in turn helped Baylor turn the game in its favor — twice.

In the first quarter, the Bears’ Beau Blackshear blocked a 52-yard field goal attempt by Texas’ Nick Rose that barely got more than head-high. Baylor’s Terrell Burt snatched the bounding ball and sprinted down the sideline for a 62-yard touchdown return and a 7-0 lead at the 9:02 mark.

While Baylor (5-0, 2-0 in Big 12 play) used its huge defensive stop at the end of the first half to build momentum, it was another special teams play that really got the Bears going. Facing a fourth down and 5 from its own 33, Baylor punter Spencer Roth ran for 19 yards on a fake that caught the Longhorns by complete surprise.

“You can’t allow a team to be successful against you with a fake punt,” Strong said. “We had guys in position to stop that from happening but we didn’t get it done. We can’t beat ourselves.”

Three plays later, Baylor’s Bryce Petty, reduced to a mostly bit player by the Texas defense until that point in the game, hit Antwan Goodley with a perfect 30-yard touchdown pass. The score gave the Bears a 14-0 lead that exorcised any spell the Longhorns’ had placed on the talented visitors.

Baylor added to its advantage at the 11-minute mark of the fourth quarter when it drove 75 yards in 12 plays, which included 11 runs. The drive ended with a 1-yard scoring plunge by Shock Linwood and a 21-0 lead. A fourth-quarter, 30-yard touchdown pass from Petty to Corey Coleman (one of just three passes he completed in the second half) pushed the Bears’ advantage to 28-0.

Texas averted a shutout with a final 12-play, 92-yard drive that ended with a 2-yard touchdown run from Johnathan Gray with 2:42 to play. The Longhorns haven’t been shutout at home since losing to Houston 30-0 in 1976, in coach Darrell Royal’s final season on the bench.

Only one Texas possession in the second half — the Longhorns’ touchdown drive — used more than five plays or gained more than 23 yards.

“We had a plan but we didn’t execute it in the second half,” quarterback Tyrone Swoopes said. “It’s little things that we didn’t get done, but those little things hurt us. We have to get better and we know it.”

The Longhorns now head to Dallas to square off against Oklahoma, which lost 37-33 to TCU on Saturday in Fort Worth. Texas has plenty to get done before the Red River Rivalry, but just not enough time to get through it all.

 

1. What happened to the Texas defense after halftime?

Texas limited Baylor’s high-octane offense to 130 total yards and 43 yards passing. The Longhorns also held a more than seven minute edge in time of possession in the first half, all part of the game plan to limit the Bears’ opportunities.

Baylor’s coaches made some adjustments at halftime, mainly finding holes between the tackles in the Longhorns’ defensive front. That area of the field is thinned when teams try to play nickel and dime packages against the spread offense, and the Bears took advantage, especially toward the end of the third quarter and the first six minutes of the fourth stanza.

“It was missed tackles [that made the difference],” Strong said. “It wasn’t what Baylor was doing — they ran that same play in the first half. We have to get off the blocks and when we call movement, we need to get the movement. Our linemen need to beat their linemen.”

Eventually, the Texas defense ran out of steam.

“We played well defensively,” cornerback Quandre Diggs said. “We came out and took away those big plays Baylor likes to do. They didn’t have the total yards or points they normally get. We just didn’t finish the way we needed to.”

“We did well in the second half too,” Diggs added. “It’s just that those guys made plays too — they don’t lead the country in yards and total points per game for nothing.”

 

2. Was the Longhorns’ offensive too conservative?

Offensively, the Longhorns never got on track in the second half until the game was well out of reach. Assistant head coach for offense Shawn Watson said that the failure was due to a matter of execution and a level of understanding in the offensive line that is still being built.

“We’re playing five guys in the offensive line and we were able to roll a sixth one in there today and give a guy a spell, but after a while those guys wear out,” Watson explained. “What you have to do is practice smarter. You can’t let off the gas, either. You have to keep on working. Those guys have given us everything.”

Swoopes hit on just 16 of his 34 passes for 144 yards and suffered his second and third interceptions of the season. The Longhorns had only 65 yards passing in the second half, 34 of those on one pass to John Harris. Harris outworked the defender to haul in a “jump-ball” pass that could’ve just as easily been intercepted.

Running back Malcolm Brown said the Texas offense has “got to get better.”

“We’re not doing our job, and I don’t like it,” Brown said. “I want to go out and match the defense. For us to go out there and not score anything until a couple of minutes left in the fourth quarter — that’s something that shouldn’t happen.”

 

3. Has Swoopes hit a plateau in his improvement curve?

The media asked Strong that specific question in his postgame press conference. He sidestepped it in his response and reminded the media about the circumstances that has put the sophomore under the intense spotlight of the starting position.

“Tyrone came into the season as the backup,” Strong said. “You lose your starting quarterback, so now all of a sudden here’s your backup quarterback and everything is resting on his shoulders to go lead this football team. It can’t rest solely on him and he knows that.”

“Tyrone could’ve played better today,” Strong added. “He had some throws that he could’ve made.”

Watson admitted that Swoopes looked nervous at times during the game against Baylor.

“At quarterback, you can always see when they’re seeing the rush as opposed to playing poised in the pocket,” Watson said. “I talked to Tyrone about it during the game, about staying calm in the pocket and keeping his eyes where his work was. He got nervous and had some throws that were correct reads, but they were behind. With a young quarterback, you go through this. There are speed bumps with them and you have to keep working.”

Swoopes understands what’s expected of him and that he has to improve his execution.

“We obviously didn’t execute like we were supposed to so we weren’t able to move the ball,” he said. “I think everybody is frustrated. The offense isn’t playing as well as the defense. We have to get up to par with them so we can start winning.”

 

4. What’s the team’s level of frustration after the Baylor loss?

The real key to the Longhorns’ season is to keep everyone on the same page and in line with what Strong and his staff continue to pound home. The team needs to work together toward a common goal — getting the program back on the correct course even if the losses keep piling up and frustration grows.

In 2010, the Longhorns’ locker room grew apart when the offense couldn’t make the plays it needed and the defense grew weary of the lack of support. Defensive end Cedric Reed said that this year’s team hasn’t pointed any fingers.

“We aren’t blaming the offense for anything,” Reed said. “We’re not pointing fingers at anybody; this is a team game. In the second half we expected the offense to go out there and score, but things don’t happen as you plan — that’s football. It’s a long season and we have a lot of Big 12 play left.”

Reed, Diggs and linebacker Jordan Hicks understand that it’s their role as leaders to make sure the team doesn’t splinter.

“Once you’re out there, you’re fighting for the man besides you,” Reed added. “We always say that we’re the big brothers of this team. When the offense isn’t doing anything, we need to go out there and give the ball back to them to help them out.”

“It’s frustrating when you lose,” Diggs said. “You can’t point fingers at anybody. We didn’t execute. We gave away 21 [points].”

The Longhorns’ defense is miles ahead of its offense, but Strong said that’s been the norm with his past programs.

“I’ve always been where the defense has out-performed the offense,” Strong said. “I tell our guys all the time that the plan to win is go play great defense, and we had to play really well today. And I know that we missed some opportunities on offense and I know we need to score points in games to beat these teams because they can score. Really, we need to play well in all three phases.”

 

5. Looking ahead, can the Longhorns beat OU?

We asked the same question at this time last year and Texas waylaid Oklahoma in one of the truly surprising beatdowns in decades in the Cotton Bowl.

Winning might require a similar performance from the Longhorns, especially with Oklahoma smarting mightily from its upset loss to TCU on Oct. 4.

“Everybody gets up for OU week, so we’re going to work harder than we did this week and go to Dallas and play as well as we can,” Swoopes said. “It’s a great atmosphere and I think we’ll be ready.”

“Oklahoma is a momentum game and that’s how that game has always been, whether one team is up or one team is down with its record,” Harris said. “You have to go in ready to play and be prepared.”

Strong said the Longhorns have to find a way to bring the same energy it had early on against Baylor to Dallas.

“One game is not going to make a season,” Strong said. “We still have a season left. We have to play smarter and just make plays at the right time.”

 

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