In the two games that Texas Longhorns redshirt senior safety Michael Taaffe has missed due to injury, the team’s defense has dropped from No. 1 to No. 5 in ESPN’s SP+ rankings after allowing 382 passing
yards and five passing touchdowns to the Mississippi State Bulldogs and 365 passing yards and three passing touchdowns to the then-No. 9 Vanderbilt Commodores in Saturday’s home win.
“I think there were a couple things that were disappointing because of the standard that we set defensively,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said on Monday.
Those disappointing breakdowns also came without junior safety Jelani McDonald on the field after he suffered a first-quarter concussion, contributing to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia exploding for 205 passing yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including a 67-yard touchdown pass to tight end Eli Stowers on a coverage bust by Texas.
“Giving up the 67-yard touchdown pass was extremely disappointing when you have a game really in hand,” Sarkisian said.
Playing zone coverage, Texas had a miscommunication on the switch release by Vanderbilt when senior cornerback Jaylon Guilbeau played the flat instead of carrying Stowers, failing to receive any help over the top from redshirt junior safety Derek Williams Jr., who was occupied by the receiver to the boundary.
Based on Guilbeau’s reaction, he expected that help from Williams, and regardless of which player made the mistake, it’s the type of breakdown that the Longhorns have largely avoided over the last two seasons.
An earlier miscommunication led to an 18-yard touchdown reception by Stowers coming out of the two-minute timeout before halftime, another uncharacteristic mistake that gave the Commodores some momentum to end the second quarter.
With junior linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. coming off the edge on the 3rd and 10, sophomore linebacker Ty’Anthony Smith was left as the only second-level defender. Shaded to the boundary, Smith didn’t make a coverage drop and certainly didn’t space to the field, allowing Stowers to work to the middle without interference before breaking a tackle for the score.
The fourth quarter also featured less egregious mistakes as a prevent defense only prevented Texas from forcing incompletions, most notably on the 12-play, 89-yard drive by Vanderbilt to cut the deficit to three points with 33 seconds remaining.
A sack by senior Jack end Ethan Burke pushed the Commodores to their own goal line, setting up a 4th and 19 from the 2-yard line that saw Pavia connect with Junior Sherrill for a 21-yard completion as Longhorns freshman nickel back Graceson Littleton got lost in coverage and took a poor angle for the tackle, mistakes that register as unusual despite his youth.
“We weren’t able to get the receiver on the ground and end the game right there, so those things are uncharacteristic to us around here,” Sarkisian said.
Taken in whole, the mistakes speak to the steadiness that Taaffe and McDonald provide on the back end, from pre-snap communication to post-snap coverage ability.
“Would it be helpful to have Michael Taaffe and Jelani McDonald out there? Of course it would, just their experience, their poise and composure in those moments in game I think would be extremely helpful to go along with the communication side of things,” Sarkisian said.
Longhorns defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski was vocal prior to preseason camp about Taaffe’s ability to get Texas out of bad defensive calls and into better ones, a sentiment echoed by Sarkisian since Taaffe’s thumb injury against Kentucky and subsequent surgery.
After playing five straight conference games, the bye week is coming at an opportune time for the Longhorns to get players healthy, including Taaffe and McDonald, while allowing players with less serious injuries to get fresh after enough injuries mounted to force freshman safety Jonah Williams to play seven snaps and freshman cornerback Kade Phillips to play 19 snaps.
“Clearly we were banged up in the secondary and there was a moment in there where we didn’t have either starting corner, we didn’t have either starting safety, and we were holding on a little bit, and we’ve got to play more with the mindset of going to win the game, not just holding on not to lose the game,” Sarkisian said on Monday.
Even though McDonald was in concussion protocol at the time of Sarkisian’s last update, the bye week offers a favorable opportunity to clear any remaining symptoms in concert with Taaffe’s expected return to bolster coverage in the secondary and help Texas avoid the communication issues that resulted in at least two Vanderbilt touchdowns.
And even with the struggles in pass defense over the last two games, Sarkisian hopes that the experience gained by players like redshirt freshman safety Xavier Filsaime will benefit the team in the future.
“It’s also great for those other guy being in that environment, being in that arena, being in those situations — if we do it right, it’s going to really help us down the road. So sometimes you need to have some of those failures to really learn from to get players’ attention,” Sarkisian said.
“Well, I think we got some of these young DB’s attention now the last couple weeks and where they need to grow and where they need to improve, but it’s our job as coaches to to get them better in those situations when they come up again.”
The ability to play effective situational football is a focus for the Texas staff with those young defensive backs or even the older defensive backs like junior cornerback Warren Roberson, who was flagged for offside when he prematurely tried to jam a Vanderbilt receiver before the snap.
“I know he’s trying to quick jam the tight end, but it’s 3rd and 10. He didn’t really need to do it in that moment, so those are experiences of where the growth needs to come,” Sarkisian said.
For Filsaime, who has dealt with a shoulder injury this season, the short-term future looks more positive if his shoulder holds up, a serious concern given how long it has lingered this season with the looming possibility of requiring offseason surgery.
“There’s a lot to Xavier to be excited about — he’s got great speed, he’s got great cover ability,” Sarkisian said.
The same applies to Williams, who spent the spring playing baseball, sustaining a hamstring injury that impacted his summer and fall transition to football. Williams has only played 18 snaps on defense and 37 snaps on special teams, mostly appearing in the third phase over the last two games.
“I’m glad Jonah played the seven or eight snaps that he played in this game. Again, him just being out there playing, that’s the best practice he can get is actually getting in the game and having to communicate and do those things and so but we need to learn from it, and we need to get better from it,” Sarkisian said.
Heading into the road trip to No. 5 Georgia in Athens, the best news for players like Filsaime, Williams, and Phillips is that they should have practice time to make those improvements before they are thrust into such high-leverage situations again.
In Taaffe and McDonald, the Longhorns trust, and for good reason.
