Four takeaways from Texas-LSU game

By Steve Lansdale

There were some saying that the 2019 season didn’t really start last week for the Texas Longhorns, because Louisiana Tech wasn’t enough of a threat to makethe Longhorns break a sweat. So the real kickoff to the season, those people said, came Saturday when then-No. 6 LSU came swaggering into town. That game would be the first “real” game of the year, the first measuring stick to see where the Longhorns stood after all the progress shown in a 2018 season that ended with a win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

So what can be made of UT’s 45-38 home loss to LSU?

The first reaction is[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] not a technical X’s-and-O’s breakdown of what went wrong. Instead, it’s only this: losing sucks. It’s awful. Fans hate it, players hate it, coaches hate it, university administrators hate it — everybody hates it.

But in an era in which teams single losses can impact postseason hopes, what should be taken away from the game?

The pass defense needs to tighten up
No, that’s not breaking news — surrender 471 passing yards and allow three receivers to go over 100 yards for the first time in the storied history of LSU football, and it’s indisputable that corrections need to be made.

During preseason camp, defensive coordinator Todd Orlando and head coach Tom Herman offered the possibility of a defensive alignment in which the Longhorns would roll out eight defensive backs — at once. The idea sounded unorthodox, to say the least, but the logic behind it was sound: gone are the days when every coach wants the biggest players possible at every position. Sure, if given a choice, it’s nice to have hulking players who can flatten opponents, but more than anything, coaches want speed all over the field. Fast offensive players can run away from defenders, obviously, just as fast defensive players can catch more offensive players. So in certain situations, the goal of the UT coaches is to get as many fast players on the field at the same time as possible.

No, it didn’t shut down the LSU offense, but that does not mean it’s a flawed scheme. More than anything, it likely needs tweaking. Players didn’t always line up exactly right, or take the right angles on plays, and when those things happen, the results can be disastrous — see the aforementioned trio of Tigers who each pulled in more than 100 yards in receptions. Coaches and players alike said after the game that their miscues in the secondary can be fixed through coaching and film study and practice. If so, the defensive passing statistics could improve dramatically.

When they need to, the Longhorns can move the ball
Lost in the “ooooohs” and “aaaaahs” over the LSU passing game was the fact that the Texas offense didn’t exactly get stuck in neutral. The Longhorns piled up 38 points and 530 total yards, including 409 through the air, against a normally stingy defense that boasts rare athletes and a reputation for putting as many defensive backs in the NFL as any school in the country.

LSU traditionally is viewed as one of the nation’s premier defenses, and Texas scored 17 points in the fourth quarter and 31 in the second half. The UT offense was operating so smoothly that LSU head coach Ed Orgeron was grateful the Longhorns did not get another possession. “Just to be honest, we couldn’t stop them,” Orgeron said. “I think if they’d have got the ball back I think it would have been a different story.”

Does that acknowledgement from Orgeron make the loss any more palatable to the Longhorns and their fans? Of course not, but if an offense can move the ball and score against LSU, the optimism for the rest of the season should be high.

Texas still can win the Big 12
Why not? With very few exceptions, no team in the country has played a conference game yet, and that includes Texas. There is no team in the conference, including the Sooners, that Texas can’t beat. That does not mean the Longhorns will run the table in conference games, but the potential to do so certainly is there.

Every team would like to go undefeated, and the fact is that few, if any, will. The Longhorns can beat any team remaining on their schedule — after all, they split a pair of games with OU last year — and winning the conference would go a long way toward helping them achieving any larger goals on a national scale.

The Longhorns fell in the national rankings … but still could reach the College Football Playoff
Preseason hype has everyone excited about their teams, and Longhorns fans are no exception. But while some predicted a Texas victory over LSU, and subsequently wandered away from the game in a funk, the “wait ’til next year” approach is absurdly premature.

The Longhorns fell from No. 9 to No 12 in the Associated Press poll and to No. 13 in the Amway Coaches Poll. Moving up would be better, to be sure, but 12/13 is not a death sentence. Texas is the highest-ranked team with a loss, perched above undefeated Penn State, Wisconsin, Central Florida, Michigan State, Iowa, Washington State, Maryland, Boise State, USC and Virginia.

Consider which teams are ahead of the Longhorns: Oklahoma, which Texas will play at least once, and if they meet in the Big 12 title game. Four Southeastern Conference teams — Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Auburn — all rank in the top 10. If any of them runs the table, it will be in the National Playoff, but what if the Crimson Tide, Bulldogs, Gators and Tigers take turns knocking each other off? All of a sudden, the Longhorns could climb past some, if not all, of them. Big 10 rivals Michigan and Ohio State both rank ahead of Texas — what if one of those teams stumbles somewhere along the way, as Michigan nearly did Saturday against Army, and then beats its longtime rival. Could both teams slip below the Longhorns?

The answer is that nobody knows, and it’s far too early to writing off the year.
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