Texas Wins the AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl If
When Texas takes the field on Monday for the AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl, it will do so against an Arkansas team that may be playing its best football the last few weeks of the season. The Razorbacks had back-to-back shut out wins over LSU and Ole Miss.
If the Longhorns have any hope of winning the Texas Bowl, these five things must happen.
More from Texas Football
- Texas Football: Quinn Ewers joins 7-Eleven Cleat Crew for charity event
- Texas Football: 4-Star A&M OT commit officially visiting for KU game
- How to watch Texas football vs. Baylor: TV, stream, game time
- Texas Football: Predicting each remaining 5-Star commit for Horns this fall
- Texas Football: Top 5 defenders during nonconference play
5. Make Brandon Allen throw the ball 30 or more times
The Arkansas quarterback is not known for his passing. The offense is built around the offensive line and the rushing attack. In Arkansas’s six wins, Allen has not thrown more than 27 passes in a game. In the six losses, he threw 30 passes or more in five of those games.
If Texas can get the Razorback offense out of sync and force Allen to beat the Longhorns, then Texas has a very good chance of pulling out the victory.
4. Hold Arkansas to less than 200 yards rushing
The Razorbacks average 220 yards rushing a game. This is how Bret Bielema wants to beat you – on the ground. Stop the ground attack and you improve your odds of winning. In five of Arkansas’ six losses the opponent held the Razorbacks to less than 200 yards rushing. In four of its six wins, the team had more than 200 yards running the ball.
Stop the run and you force Arkansas to throw the ball. That plays into a strength of the Texas defense.
3. Win the time of possession
It is difficult to keep that Arkansas offense from winning the time of possession battle. Arkansas won this stat in all but four games this season. Three of those four games were losses, however. The Razorbacks want to grind out a win. Run the ball and control the clock. If Texas can keep the offense on the sideline, as well as get several three-and-outs, it will bode well for a positive outcome.
2. Run the ball, alot
Sounds easy enough. But this is Texas we are talking about. The Longhorns have struggled to get much of a run game going this year behind a patchwork line. Arkansas’ front four are fearsome. It will be no small miracle if Joe Wickline’s group can control the line of scrimmage and open up running lanes for Malcolm Brown and Jonathan Gray.
Texas Longhorns
Wickline has had several weeks to get his troops regrouped after the TCU beat down. This is when he does his best work – when he has time to develop run schemes based on any weakness in the defensive line. If there is a weak spot, Wickline has found it and the offensive lineman will have a gameplan on how to exploit it.
1. Tyrone Swoopes must have the game of his life
Arkansas will be defending the run – as most teams have – and dare Swoopes to throw the ball down field. Which Swoopes is going to show up? The quarterback who ran the offense with confidence in the first half of the West Virginia game? Or will it be the Swoopes who looked like a deer in headlights last time out versus TCU?
The game will be in his hands. Texas fans can only hope Shawn Watson has gotten his young signal caller to forget the TCU game and focus on making better reads, quicker throws and better ball security.