Five questions: Texas football vs. Texas Tech

By Steve Habel, Senior Editor

AUSTIN, Texas — Remember all the good feelings that surrounded the Texas football team last weekend in the hours after the Longhorns beat West Virginia to earn the chance to play in a bowl for the first time since 2014?

All those warm and fuzzies were vaporized in a 14-minute, 23-second span of the fourth quarter Friday as Texas Tech’s Nic Shimonek came off the bench to throw two touchdown passes, including the game-winner with 1:47 to play, to lift the Red Raiders to a gut-punch 27-23 victory over Texas in a wild Big 12 Conference game at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

The win made the Red Raiders (6-6 overall, 3-6 in Big 12 play) eligible for a bowl game and likely saved the job of coach Kliff Kingsbury. It had been [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]rumored that Kingsbury’s team, which went 5-7 last season, had to beat Texas and earn a bowl for him to return for another year on the South Plains.

The Tech win was the Longhorns’ own fault as much as it was Shimonek’s credit. UT had four second-half turnovers — two fumbles and two interceptions — and those are the kind of mistakes a team that is fighting for everything it can get can find too difficult to overcome.

“We’re not at a point right now in out program’s development where we can overcome four turnovers in one half and expect to win a football game,” Texas coach Tom Herman said. “In the second half we put our defense in some really bad situations. They continued to respond save for the last, when we just ran out of gas, ran out of momentum.

“Losing that way hurts. We’ve got to find a way to play smarter, better, consistently.”

The loss denied the Longhorns (6-6, 5-4 in Big 12) a chance to clinch their first winning season since 2013. Texas still can achieve that milestone with a win in its bowl game.

Tech trailed, 23-13, in the opening minute of the fourth quarter when Shimonek, who despite being eighth in FBS in passing yardage spent the first three quarters on the bench, engineered a six-play, 75-yard touchdown march, with the score coming on a 13-yard pass to T.J. Vasher that brought the Red Raiders to within three points, at 23-20.

Shimonek then passed Texas Tech into the lead by hitting Cameron Batson with a 16-yard touchdown throw with 1:47 to play. The touchdown came after the Red Raiders’ Justus Parker intercepted Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger and returned the pick 55 yards to the UT 14.

“You know, Nic was feeling it and came up to me and said ‘you’re about to run out of time,’ so we put him in,” Kingsbury said. “It was as clutch a performance as I’ve ever seen. He had no fear. He cut it loose and won us a game.”

Texas stuck first, using machine-like precision to move 75 yards in just four plays to a 27-yard touchdown pass from Ehlinger to Armanti Foreman. The Longhorns began the drive with a pass from wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey to Ehlinger that gained 27 yards and set the tone for the game.

The Red Raiders answered late in the first quarter when quarterback McLane Carter ran 1 yard for a touchdown at the end of an 81-yard march that featured two receptions by Keke Coutee for 68 of those yards. Texas Tech added a 32-yard field goal by Clayton Hatfield on the second snap of the second quarter to move to a 10-7 lead.

The Longhorns’ Joshua Rowland tied the game at 10 with a 20-yard field goal with 8:07 to play in the second quarter after Texas used 14 plays to drive just 37 yards to the Tech 1-yard line but couldn’t punch it into the end zone.

Texas reassumed the lead on its ensuing possession on a 9-yard scoring run by Daniel Young. The touchdown came on the first play after Kris Boyd intercepted Carter and returned the pickoff 41 yards.

Late in the second quarter, Davante Davis nabbed the Longhorns’ second interception of the half to set the table for Rowland’s 19-yard field goal with 9 seconds left in the half, staking Texas to a 20-10 lead at intermission.

Hatfield cut the lead to 20-13 on the first possession of the third quarter with a 34-yard field goal at the end of an 11-play, 54-yard drive. Rowland responded with a 40-yard field goal with 14:23 to play to re-establish its 10-point advantage. Then Shimonek entered and the game flip-flopped to the Red Raiders.

“We certainly felt like we had a lot of momentum,” Herman said. “We still will once the sting of this wears off. We kept fighting. We’ll keep fighting through the bowl season.”

The Longhorns will have to wait until after the Big 12 Conference championship game to find out the bowl game in which they will play. UT can finish no better than tied for fourth in the final conference standings, and at 6-6 would be tied with Texas Tech and possibly Kansas State for the worst overall record of the league’s bowl-eligible teams.

What happened to the Texas running game?

A week after it gashed West Virginia for 233 yards on the ground, Texas managed 116 on 33 carries against Texas Tech, with Young earning 55 of those yards on 13 carries.

All the bombast about the return of injured left tackle Connor Williams and his boost to the rushing attack was negated by a Texas Tech defense that crowded the line and dared the Longhorns to pass the ball.

“We didn’t have as many mistakes against West Virginia,” Young said. “Tonight the mistakes set us back — they killed us. But we’ll bounce back from that. We have to look forward. We can’t dwell on it too much. We have to prepare for what’s next.”

Guard Jake McMillion was quick to praise the Red Raiders’ defense for making plays that kept Texas from gaining more on the ground.

“Those guys played hard,” McMillion said. “(Texas Tech’s) defensive line is a good group, a physical bunch. They ran around and played with a lot of effort tonight.”

What were the game’s biggest plays?

Texas twice moved into the shadow of the Texas Tech goal line in the second quarter, only to be held out of the end zone both times and settling for short field goals, which proved to be a winning formula for the Red Raiders.

Ehlinger said the Longhorns needed to get into the end zone on those occasions to add to their lead and create added pressure on the Red Raiders in their effort to come back.

“They were bringing everyone,” Ehlinger said of the Red Raiders’ goal line defense. “They had a great scheme for what we were trying to do. They always had an extra hand in the backfield and we weren’t able to execute.”

Those plays on the goal line not only kept Texas from adding points on the board, but gave the Red Raiders’ defense the momentum it needed for the second half. The Longhorns had nine possessions after halftime. Four ended in punts, four resulted in turnovers and one, in the first minute of the fourth quarter, resulted in a Texas field goal. That field goal was UT’s only points in the second half.

Can Texas overcome Ehlinger’s continued mistakes?

The Longhorns’ feisty freshman quarterback brings a lot to the table, but again made mistakes with the game on the line.

The interception Ehlinger uncorked midway through the fourth quarter and was thrown across his body while running in the opposite direction — a pass that quarterbacks are coached never to throw — and resulted in a 55-yard runback. The play changed the game and became the latest example of Ehlinger’s recklessness with the football in key situations.

“It’s concerning,” Herman said of Ehlinger’s latest crucial turnover. “I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t. But there’s no greater teacher than experience. At some point, when you continue to make the same mistakes, we have to try a different approach. We’ll figure out what buttons to push and work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

To his credit, Ehlinger never hesitates to own up to his errors and understands the cost.

“That happening again was very frustrating,” he said. “You want to learn from your mistakes and never let them happen again, especially crucial ones like that. For it to happen again, and let down the team again … it’s awful.

“I’m continuing to learn this system and I’m much more comfortable in it. I definitely feel as if from the beginning of the season the game has slowed down. It’s continuing to do that every day.”

Who, besides the seniors, likely played their final home games?

Three of UT’s junior offensive linemen — Williams, McMillion and tackle Terrell Cuney — are weighing their options against a return to the 40 Acres.

Herman is uncertain if McMillion will return but said he was “pretty sure” Cuney would not. Williams, the preseason All-America who lost seven-and-a-half games to a knee injury this year, is expected by many to be a high first-round pick if he decides to enter the NFL Draft after this season.

Texas also is likely to lose cornerback Holton Hill, a junior who was suspended from game activity prior to the Kansas contest for breaking unspecified team rules. Fellow junior defensive backs DeShon Elliott — a finalist for the Thorpe Award that is given annually to the best defensive back in the nation — and Kris Boyd also may leave early. Such anticipated moves would impact UT’s depth of the defensive back line severely.

Junior linebacker Malik Jefferson — the team’s leading tackler and the heart and soul of the defense — will also likely head to the NFL after this season. He stopped, kissed his hand and then touched a Longhorn logo as he was leaving the turf after the game Friday.

Jefferson was noncommittal when asked if this had been his final home game.

“Possibly,” Jefferson answered. “I have no idea, actually. I don’t want any regrets or miss any opportunities that I have for this stadium and the love of these fans. We should have won a lot more games. It’s frustrating.

“When recruits and kids look at me, I hope they understand that if you are in a situation like I am, just keep pressing forward and never give up. Understand the people around you are going to make you better and you have to make the people around you better. “

That sounds like a bit of a coda to a career, doesn’t it?

What’s next for Texas?

The Longhorns will find out which bowl game in which they will play after the Big 12 Conference Championship. The Longhorns will finish at least tied for fourth in the final conference standings. At 6-6, Texas ties Texas Tech and possibly Kansas State for the worst overall record of the league’s bowl-eligible teams.

“We certainly felt like we had momentum,” Herman said. “We still will once the sting of this wears off. We kept fighting. We’ll keep fighting through the bowl season.”

Expect, in predicted order, either a trip to Houston Dec. 27 for the AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl, to Memphis Dec. 30 for the AutoZone Liberty Bowl or to Phoenix Dec. 26 for the Cactus Bowl.

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