I’m not sure how to feel about this game. It pretty much sucked for about three hours when you consider the hype and expectations coming in. The “biggest season-opener in the history of college football” was a dud for about 56 minutes of game clock, mostly because of the Texas offense. But then it ended up being a pretty damn exciting finish, with Texas coming up just short. The Longhorns’ season didn’t come crashing down because of this game. Not at all. But this offensive performance didn’t necessarily inspire a ton of confidence that Texas is a team capable of competing for a national championship, and maybe not even a conference championship. That side of the ball has to play better, and it will.
All eyes were on Arch Manning coming into this one (even during commercial breaks when he was routinely featured). There’s no way to sugarcoat this one. That was a pretty bad performance overall, although we saw flashes late in the game of what Manning is capable of. Manning’s final stat line … 17-30 for 170 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception.
The Texas offense was pretty bad for most of this conteste (although the run game had some good moments and was productive overall) but at some point, you have to tip your cap to a very good Ohio State defense. That unit just completely outdid the Texas offense until the Longhorns were down two scores and basically threw caution to the wind. Matt Patricia’s defense took away just about anything Texas tried to do downfield for most of the game.
More random thoughts on the game …
Holy crap the hype in this one got to me. Watching some of the pregame packages, including the FOX spot by Tom Rinaldi on Arch Manning, definitely got the blood flowing.
Lee Corso picked Ohio State, as expected. I didn’t think there was any way he was going to go against the home team. Not with his history in picking the Buckeyes. And definitely not with him doing it on the field. Pretty cool to see the Ohio State band spell out “CORSO” behind the set.
Great to see C.J. Baxter out there early on, without a brace. Looked good on his first two touches.
I loved Sarkisian’s aggressiveness on that first drive, going for it on fourth down twice. I did not like the second fourth down call, handing off to C.J. Baxter on fourth-and-two. I’m assuming Arch had the option to keep there, and it looked like he had room had he pulled the ball and ran around the right side.
Graceson Littleton getting the start and making a couple of nice plays early. That’s really impressive that he’s earned enough trust from the coaches to start in a game like this. Littleton would show why he’s on the field in the second quarter with a couple of nice plays no PBUs.
Texas gets bailed out when Ohio State Max Klare drops a perfectly thrown ball on fourth down, giving the Longhorns the ball back around midfield. Jack Endries for president!
Jeremiah Smith with two straight drops? Never thought I’d be typing those words.
First quarter QB comparison … Arch Manning 3-5 for 13 yards; Julian Sayin 3-6 (with 3 drops) for 33 yards.
Monster penalty on Colin Simmons on that facemask on third down. Instead of forcing a punt, Ohio State moved near the red zone. Another penalty two plays later did put Ohio State in the red zone. The Buckeyes would wind up capitalizing on a fourth-down run for a touchdown. Brutal turn of events on that entire series for the Longhorns.
Jack Bouwmeester is the real deal. He was the top player on the Texas team in the first half. Ohio State’s punter … not so much.
First-half stats of interest … Arch Manning 5-10 for 26 yards and a 71.8 rating; Julian Sayin 6-11 for 53 yards and a 95 rating; Texas 79 yards of total offense; Ohio State 103 yards of total offense; Texas 4 penalties for 35 yards; Ohio State 0 penalties; C.J. Baxter 7 carries for 26 yards; Texas wide receivers 1 catch for 7 yards; Jeremiah Smith 3 catches for 27 yards; Texas 0 sacks; Liona Lefau 8 tackles (2 solo, 1 TFL); Michael Taaffe 6 tackles (1 solo); Texas 39 tackles but only 7 solo.
First-half thoughts … Pretty brutal first half for the offense overall, including Arch Manning. Sark needs to dial up the aggression in the second half … pretty conservative game plan in the first half. Arch Manning hasn’t exactly had receivers running wide open, but he was pretty bad in the first half. Even when guys were open, he was missing them badly. Julian Sayin was the better QB in the first half. I thought the Texas defense was very good, aside from two costly penalties. The interior of the defensive line lived up to the preseason hype. Liona Lefau was damn good. Manny Muhammad had a couple of big negative plays.
Couple of nice plays by Manny Muhammad on OSU’s first drive of the second half. He got a little handsy on that third down play but he was stuck on Jeremiah Smith on both passing plays on that drive.
I love that Sark did two things on that first drive of the third quarter … he went with some tempo, and basically challenged Ohio State with Texas’ physicality. He had Ohio State on their heels on that drive … until Sark went with a QB sneak on fourth and goal. Where is the creativity? QB power, QB power, halfback dive, QB sneak.
Texas sucking in the red zone. What else is new?
Texas finally pushes the ball downfield for the second time of the game. The first was a bad throw into double coverage. The second was an even worse attempt that Manning threw right to the DB for an easy interception. Yikes.
Third quarter QB comparison … Arch Manning 9-15 for 38 yards and 1 INT; Julian Sayin 10-16 for 78 yards.
Hey, a penalty on Ohio State? Only took until the fourth quarter for that to happen. Credit to OSU for not making dumb mistakes, but the officials obviously missed some calls.
On that second Ohio State touchdown, it really wasn’t that good of a throw but Jaylon Guilbeau was trailing Carnell Tate by a good five yards.
Sark finally started to get more creative and aggressive after Texas went down 14-0 in the fourth quarter. We actually saw some misdirection stuff, a shot to a wide receiver down the field, a tight end screen. Not sure why it took so long to see that type of creativity. Sark will probably say they stayed conservative because of the way the game unfolded, but I would have liked to have seen that stuff much earlier.
That ball from Arch to Livingstone for the touchdown, and the catch by Livingstone, were things of beauty. We heard all spring and in fall camp that Livingstone was making plays pretty much every day, and we finally got to see a flash of that in this one. Unfortunately, it was a little too little, a little too late. Again, why did it take so long to see that kind of aggression and play call?
The throw to Livingstone might have been bested on the ball to Jack Endries down the sideline in the fourth quarter. Okay, maybe there’s hope for this offense after all. Let’s see more of that, much earlier in games, moving forward.
This game sucked for all of you reading this column, but at least you’re not this guy:
Losing this game wasn’t necessarily disappointing. You can understand falling to Ohio State in Columbus. Losing a game in which the offense was stuck in the mud for most of the game, in such a highly anticipated matchup that everyone has been looking forward to for months, was disappointing. It feels like the Texas offense left a lot of meat on the bone with the way it performed for most of this game, especially after seeing what the offense can do when Sark opened up the playbook.
This was a humbling defeat for Texas. The Longhorns will have to lick their wounds and take some heat from fans/media for a while, but the Longhorns will have three easy home games to establish some momentum and build some confidence before conference play begins.
