AUSTIN, Texas — On a position group trip to a local barbecue joint, the big uglies for the Texas Longhorns are unlikely to leave any meat on the bone.
For head coach Steve Sarkisian assessing the running
game in the wake of the 34-31 win over the then-N0. 9 Vanderbilt Commodores, that was the phrase that he kept coming back to — “meat on the bone.”
The Longhorns did manage to out-gain the Commodores on the ground by gaining 100 yards and scoring a touchdown on 27 carries as the visitors only produced 58 rushing yards. In the context of Vanderbilt’s season as a ball-control offense built on rushing success, that’s an accomplishment. Considering the game flow with Texas taking a 17-0 lead before the end of the first quarter, it’s less surprising, and left Sarkisian wanting more.
“I think we can still improve our run timing and when I say run timing, it’s like the timing of the blocks with the runners hitting the holes. I still felt like that was a little bit off today. I felt like we left some meat on the bone in the run game,” Sarkisian said in his post-game press conference.
If there’s a level of frustration built into the lack of timing after nine regular-season games, a lack of continuity at the running back position and along the offensive line have factored into the slow development of the Texas ground game.
Junior running back Quintrevion Wisner, the only returning SEC running to eclipse 1,000 yards last season, currently ranks 26th in the conference with 338 rushing yards this season. His 37-yard run against Oklahoma is his only run longer than 13 yards, a disappointing lack of explosiveness impacted by a hamstring injury that cost him the three non-conference games against overmatched opponents.
Without a speedster at the position like Jaydon Blue, the Horns haven’t been able to create big plays from other backs at the position, and a hamstring injury sustained by redshirt sophomore CJ Baxter has hampered his return from the season-ending knee injury that kept him out in 2024. Baxter did have a 14-yard run against Ohio State and an 18-yard run against San Jose State, but in his two games back, he only has 49 yards on 16 carries (3.1 yards per carry) with a long run of 10 yards in the comeback win over Mississippi State.
A lack of continuity along the offensive line hasn’t helped. Senior Cole Hutson missed the Sam Houston, Kentucky, and Mississippi State games with injury, limiting the staff’s ability to use Hutson alongside redshirt junior Connor Robertson to patch the leaky left guard position, which received awful pass blocking and questionable run blocking from freshman Nick Brooks over his 196 snaps in SEC play.
Sarkisian admitted that using Hutson at left guard and Robertson at center isn’t the most athletic starting group position coach Kyle Flood can field, but it can at least reduce miscommunication and busted assignments — Texas only allowed one tackle for loss against Vanderbilt and didn’t commit any holding penalties.
Matching 13-yard runs by Wisner were the only explosive plays produced by the running game for the Longhorns, but because the Commodores weren’t able to inflict negative plays, Texas faced an averaged distance of 6.5 yards on third downs and converted all five third and shorts.
However, despite clearing that low bar for improvement against Vanderbilt, the advanced rushing stats for Texas all range from poor to awful.
Since Texas was nearly able to beat Georgia in the SEC Championship game last year despite advanced rushing stats that were as abysmal as the team’s 31 rushing yards on 28 attempts suggested, it might be possible for the Horns to upset the Dawgs in Athens without the benefit of a successful running game, but that still feels far fetched.
Allowing 3.1 yards per carry this season with no opponent surpassing four yards per carry in a game, the Georgia rush defense remains formidable, matching the overall defensive profile for the Bulldogs as the No. 15 defense in SP+ — effective, but less capable of inflicting negative plays than last year’s No. 9 defense.
So the imperative for improvement remains clear — for Texas to secure its third straight College Football Playoff berth by winning out, the run game will be necessary to balance an emerging identity as an attack capable of exploiting perimeter space with speed at the wide receiver position.
“There’s going to be natural things that we tweak and adjust and maybe add to, but at our core, our run timing is going to be critical as we move forward for those last three ball games here in November,” Sarkisian said.
