Habe on the Horns
Based on the Texas football team’s most recent attempt at stopping a strong-armed and quick-footed dual-threat quarterback (read: BYU’s Taysom Hill), the Longhorns’ defense finds itself in dire straits this Saturday when UCLA’s Brett Hundley leads the Bruins into AT&T Stadium in Arlington on Saturday evening.
Hundley, a Heisman Trophy candidate [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] at quarterback who eschewed putting his name in the NFL draft in order to play this season at UCLA, will throw more – and, quite frankly, better – than Hill. That means the Horns have to ready for a little bit of everything on Saturday in the House That Jerry Built.
“Hundley reminds me a lot of Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers,” Texas defensive coordinator Vance Bedford said Wednesday. “He’s big, strong and athletic, and – I must admit – one of the best arms that I have seen.”
Bedford coached Florida’s defense against Detroit Lions QB Matt Stafford when he was at Georgia and current Houston Texans backup Ryan Mallet at Arkansas. Bedford thinks Hundley’s passing ability is on par with those players.
“The entire field is wide open for Hundley,” Bedford explained. “He could be on one hash and throw the out cut and, I’ll tell you what, it looks like a bazooka. He’s a special talent.”
Bedford’s unit didn’t spend the past week lingering on the things it did wrong in BYU’s 28-point third quarter last Saturday. He understands that the Horns’ defenders had the opportunity to make plays, but didn’t.
“We had a chance,” Bedford said. “We had five or six sacks in that game, but we missed six more. If you get half of those six sacks, you take 20 points off the board.
“Did we reinvent ourselves (this week)?” he added. “No, we just need to go be who we are. Football and defense is about the attitude that you want to go make every single play. We’ll continue to do those types of things and play with great effort.”
The prowess of the Texas secondary will be paramount to the Horns’ chances to post an upset of the 12th-ranked Bruins.
“If we can have tight enough coverage to make Hundley hold the ball a little bit, we can buy time for our down guys to get there (and get sacks),” Bedford said. “Disguising coverage is going to be key. Hundley does a good job sitting back there and reading coverages.”
On the other side of the ball, Texas has to have success in the run game to help quarterback Tyrone Swoopes find his bearings and his comfort zone against a UCLA defense that will load the box and force UT to pass.
Assistant head coach for offense and quarterbacks coach Shawn Watson said that Swoopes is ready for an expanded playbook and to make the plays to help Texas win.
“He is [ready]” Watson said of Swoopes. “We’ve just got to get the other people around him ready. We’re working with a young offensive line and still putting those guys together, and we’ll keep pushing Ty and the pieces that we have.”
If the Horns can find a way to get to Hundley and create a little doubt early in the game, then they will be able to hang around for a while in this game.
And if they can get to the fourth quarter within seven points of UCLA, Texas has the weapons to beat a Bruins team that’s been underwhelming it it first two games.
Both those might be tall orders, but one can hope for the best.
Just sayin’, ya know?
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