Longhorns hoping bye week offers boost against Baylor and in season’s second half

Baylor’s win came a week earlier in a 47-14 trouncing of lowly Kansas. 

Like the UT defense, the Texas offense is in a situation where it is going up against a bit of an unknown.

Baylor defensive coordinator Ron Roberts is part of first-year coach Dave Aranda’s new staff, coming to Waco after spending the last two seasons at Louisiana.

“Coaching at this level, it’s not his first job, and people generally carry over tendencies from previous schools,” Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger said. “For us, it’s personnel stuff, and then schemes from the first two games. Then, it’s looking at his previous jobs and what he did there.”

Texas has the No. 1 scoring offense in the country — granted, playing two games that have gone into overtime helps — and the13th-ranked total offense in the country, but Ehlinger thinks the bye week should yield more dividends.

“We did a lot of solid work over the bye week,” he said. “We put in a lot of high-speed work against each other and I think we got better.”

Non-football issues have received more attention than football-related topics over the past two weeks around Texas. However, the Longhorn players insist they are focused on trying to correct things on the field and finish the season with a flourish, something to which they are hoping the bye can serve as a springboard.

“Our goal is to finish out 6-0,” Graham said. “We have to attack each week. If we focus on that, what I feel like we want to happen will pan out.”