No. 15 Longhorns hope to bounce back against Kansas

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — There could not be a better weekend for the Texas Longhorns to face Kansas at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium than the week after the contest against Oklahoma.

There are plenty of people who have covered the Longhorns for a while who remember years when Texas had to play Arkansas a week after facing OU, creating a back-to-back that was not for the faint of heart.

Yes, Kansas is [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]better than in years past, but the No. 15 Longhorns (4-2 overall, 2-1 in Big 12 play) opened up the week as double-digit favorites and are expected to right their ship after running ground against the Sooners, mostly because of the ground attack.

In order to have the chance to rebound and stay in the Big 12 race, Texas has to tackle better. The Longhorns missed 15 tackles in the loss to Oklahoma, some of them in glaring fashion.

Texas coach Tom Herman said Monday that his decision to not tackle as much in practice to help his banged-up defense heal a little backfired against OU’s obvious athletic talent.

“We’ve got good athletes, too, that need to be able to tackle better, and we’ve got to teach them how to do that,” Herman said. “Even though we weren’t in pads (Sunday, we) did spend a good 10, 15 minutes working. There’s still drills you can do in tackling in terms of angles and leverage and all of that, and we’ll tackle live in practice tomorrow.

“We’re going to have to find a way to keep our guys healthy but also get some quality reps, because we need to improve in that area.”

Despite the loss to the Sooners, Texas still has plenty for which to play, including a likely rematch in the Big 12 championship game if the Longhorns win their final six regular-season contests.

After this week’s game at home against Kansas, Texas plays at TCU Oct. 26, at home versus Kansas State Nov. 9, at Iowa State Nov. 16, at (currently) undefeated Baylor Nov. 23 and at home for Texas Tech on the day after Thanksgiving.

But change is in the air … and we are not just talking about the weather.

“I don’t know if change is the right word,” Herman said. “Get better, improve, develop — those are all words that come to mind. With all the young guys playing, we’ve got to simplify moving forward … not that we haven’t been trying to these last few weeks, we have.

“We’ve got to let our guys play fast. We’ve got to let them play fearless … unafraid to make mistakes. That’s probably the biggest thing. If that means limiting what we call, then so be it, but we’ve got to play fast and play aggressive.”

The Longhorns should be able to do all those things, in spades, against Kansas (2-4 overall, 0-3 in Big 12), and if they do, that would bode well for the rest of the season, as UT does not have a lot of room for error.
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