AUSTIN — Offense, offense, offense.
In Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian’s opinion, post-game press conferences tend to take on a similar theme, but Sarkisian wanted to change that on Saturday night after the 30-6 win over the UTSA Roadrunners.
“Our defense just kicked their ass,” Sarkisian said. “I’m excited about that, and we should be excited about that, that our defense is playing the way they’re playing.”
Under head coach Jeff Traylor, who has an offensive background, the Roadrunners had
a sustained track record of success putting points on the scoreboard — Saturday’s game ended UTSA’s streak of 74 games with a touchdown dating back to October 31, 2020, a 24-3 loss loss to Florida Atlantic. In 23 of their previous 25 games, the Roadrunners had scored 20-plus points.
Things went sideways on the first play from scrimmage when quarterback Owen McCown’s pass bounced off the hands of wide receiver DJ Allen and into the arms of Texas senior linebacker Rasheem Biles for his second interception of the season. The Pitt transfer is already devising a new celebration after tossing two footballs into Bevo’s pen in the south end zone through the first three games.
“I think I done gave Bevo enough balls,” Biles said.
It was the first turnover of the season by UTSA, which entered the game as one of only 20 FBS teams without a giveaway.
“We talked about being intentional, trying to go get the ball first play of the game — Rasheem Biles’ interception — and I think that just set the tone defensively,” Sarkisian said.
Whatever the initial offensive game plan was for Traylor and coordinator Rick Bowie, the result was a turn towards the quick passing game to get the ball out of McCown’s hands as fast as possible. The strategy was successful in limiting the Longhorns to one sack by junior edge Colin Simmons on a third down, but also resulted in McCown only attempting on pass more than 10 yards downfield in his 23 attempts, finishing the game with 70 passing yards on three yards per attempt and a long of 13 yards.
Only two of McCown’s passes went for first downs.
The running game didn’t fare much better for the Roadrunners beyond several early runs by speedster Will Henderson, who was able to take the edge for runs of 12 yards, nine yards, and 12 yards on the second drive by UTSA, a 13-play, 59-yard effort that stalled in the red zone.
Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp quickly cleaned up the team’s efforts at containment and UTSA didn’t have another rush of longer than 10 yards, finishing with 73 rushing yards on 23 carries, 2.3 yards per carry.
Even more stark was the lack of overall success the Roadrunners had moving the football — the final nine drives for UTSA produced just 84 yards on 32 plays, leading to eight punts. Five of those drives were three and outs and none lasted longer than five plays.
“Just really effective against the run and the pass, and so that was a real positive,” Sarkisian said.
The drives were so abbreviated for the Roadrunners because the Longhorns were able to reverse the early-season trend of third-down failures. After entering the game tied for last in the SEC in third-down defense, Texas allowed UTSA to convert a 3rd and 1 on its second drive before forcing the Roadrunners off the field on their final 10 third downs.
The early third-down conversion was the only third and short UTSA had the opportunity to convert in averaging 12.2 yards to go, including eight third downs of nine-plus yards. The Roadrunners only averaged 2.5 yards on those third downs as McCown went 2-of-6 passing for 16 yards and the ground game produced just 12 yards on four carries.
Improving on third downs was an emphasis for Sarkisian and Muschamp all week.
“I think it was tying it all together. It was just the call at the line of scrimmage. I thought the communication in the back end. They taxed us with a couple motions, formations where there had to be real communication. I thought we communicated well, and I thought we were sticky coverage. And then the last part is you’ve got to tackle them. You’ve got to get them on the ground. And so I think all those things added up to they’re one for 11 on third down tonight and that’s a heck of a number for us,” Sarkisian said.
According to Pro Football Focus, a heavily rotated Texas defense that was without junior safety Kobe Black and didn’t have Simmons available in the second half missed six tackles and gave up 60 yards after contact in the running game and 60 yards after the catch through air. But the average depth of target of 1.8 yards by McCown meant that any yardage gained was going to come after the catch, so the 143 net total yards speak to the Longhorns’ ability to get numbers to the football quickly to get Roadrunners to the ground even if a tackle was missed.
“As a coach, I say it a lot, but you kind of get what we emphasize,” Sarkisian said.
On Saturday, that meant major improvement in a key area as the Longhorns turned in a defensive performance that was close to complete.
