By Steve Habel/Senior Editor
AUSTIN, Texas — In years to come, folks likely will remember the Texas Longhorns’ 42-28 victory Saturday over Rice before 86,458 fans at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium as the coming-out party for quarterback Jerrod Heard, who earned his first college start.
But the real stars of the win in the Longhorns’ home-opener were the members of the UT special teams, namely the punt return unit, and the defense that forced just enough turnovers to thwart the Owls and allow Texas to escape with its first win of the season.
There no doubt that Texas got a needed [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]spark from redshirt freshman quarterback Jerrod Heard, who blazed away on a 35-yard scramble on the second offensive snap of the game. With the Longhorns offense simplified this week after Jay Norvell took over Tuesday for Shawn Watson as the Texas play caller, Heard took advantage of the times when things broke down, hitting just enough of his passes (4-of-7, for 120 yards and two touchdowns) to keep the Owls’ defense honest.
“Heard gives us some juice at quarterback, and that’s what this team needed in this game,” Texas head coach Charlie Strong said. “He can beat the defense with his feet and you never know what will happen once he gets around the corner.
“We had to make the change (from former starter Tyrone Swoopes to Heard) for the team. We needed to get a spark and we needed to give Heard a chance.”
After an early Heard-to-Armanti Foreman 32-yard touchdown pass, the Longhorns (1-1) created some separation in the first quarter with two huge punt returns. Daje Johnson spun and sprinted his way to an 85-yard punt return touchdown and later in the period Duke Thomas’ 56-yard return led to a two-yard touchdowns plunge by Johnathan Gray and a 21-0 Texas lead.
“Coach (Strong) has been after me pretty hard to make something happen so I was glad that I was able to get loose and get us rolling,” Johnson said. “There’s an attitude to this team that we are still working to reveal, but getting this win and getting some momentum was a good first start toward our goals.”
Rice (1-1) got back in the game with two touchdown runs by Samuel Stewart from 22 and 16 yards, respectively, and trailed just 21-14 at the half.
Texas added to its lead on the first offensive snap of the third quarter as Heard, making his first career start, hit freshman John Burt with a 69-yard touchdown pass. Later in the period, freshman UT linebacker Malik Jefferson scooped by a fumble and raced 26 yards for a touchdown that pushed the lead to 35-14.
The fumble was caused by freshman Kris Boyd, who blew into the backfield and disrupted the timing of the option pitch between quarterback and running back.
The Longhorns pushed across a two-yard touchdown run by D’Onta Foreman before Rice cut into the lead on a four-yard pass from Driphus Jackson to Temi Alaka with 6:41 remaining at the end of an 18-play drive. The Owls scored again on a 14-yard pass from backup quarterback Tyler Stehling to Luke Turner with 36 seconds left.
Stewart led Rice with 130 yards on 25 carries. The Owls outgained Texas 462-277, ran 96 plays to the Longhorns’ 38 and had a whopping 44:02-15:58 edge in time of possession but coughed up five turnovers.
“One of the things we had to do was take care of the ball and we didn’t,” Rice coach David Bailiff said. “We believe we had the better football team and came in here expecting the win, but we made too many mistakes.”
Strong lamented the Longhorns’ missed tackles and sacks that slipped away; Rice converted 14 of its third-down opportunities and its only attempt on fourth down.
“We have a long way to go before we are the team we need to be,” Strong said. “We have to get off the field on third down and we didn’t because we missed about 20 tackles and about 10 chances to sack the quarterback.”
So Texas moves forward with a needed infusion of momentum and confidence built via a win against a better-than-expected Rice squad. Next up is the Sept. 19 home contest against undefeated California, a 35-7 winner Saturday over San Diego State and — with its Air Raid-style offense — a better test for the Longhorns’ defense.
Texas will need more from Heard and its running game and its defense than it produced against Rice to beat the Golden Bears.
[/s2If] [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] [article-offer] [/s2If]
Discover more from Horns Illustrated
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.