Texas Football mettle going to be tested against West Virginia

Now that Texas has had time to work out the newness of the team, heal from injuries, and get familiar with each other, running through the shifts, plays, protections, snap counts, alerts, check-with-me's, Double X, jet, ice cream, 36, counter naked waggle at 16-9 Tennessee Free(1), it is time they reveal if they are going to be a contender this year and potentially make a bowl.

The West Virginia Mountaineers will give Texas a chance to demonstrate how tough, prepared, and able to handle adversity they really are. West Virginia has beaten Texas four of the six games played at DKR since their first meeting in 1956.

The Mountaineers average 42+ points a game. This means the Texas defense will likely be on the field a lot this game.

What to look for:

• If the WV offense quarterback JT Daniels sweeps wide left or right and pulls the defensive line out to chase him early in the game, it will be a sign they are trying to wear out our defense. We saw this last year and it proved destructive late in the game when the Texas defense was just worn out.
  
• Texas defense must stop West Virginia on fourth downs like they did against Alabama. WV is ranked No 5 nationally for its first down offense. Texas Tech last week on fourth down six of the eight times.

Statistically, West Virginia is better than Texas in total offense (490/409), rushing (217/165) — even though Texas has the top rated potential Heisman candidate Bijan Robinson and they are a run-first offense according to Sarkisian, passing offense (272/244) — we can only wonder if this would be true had Quinn Ewers not been injured, and the ever important time of possession (33:40/25:46).

After Texas shocked all of the College Football world in how they handled Alabama, it looked like they would be a force of nature only to get beat by Texas Texas with a field goal. Was the external motivation to win against Alabama greater than the internal motivation to play at the level they are capable of playing and demonstrated against Alabama?

We will find out Oct. 1 starting at 6:30 p.m. at DKR televised on FS1.

(1) quotes lines from movie Draft Day when Coach Penn (Denis Leary) is talking with Ali (Jennifer Garner) about the Cleveland Browns offense.