Texas Football Ends On A High Note

The Texas Longhorns ended their 2015 season with an upset of No. 12 Baylor Saturday in Waco in a game that was a near perfect display of Texas football this season.

The Texas Longhorns put the 2015 season to a thankful end Saturday afternoon by upsetting the twelfth ranked Baylor Bears 23-17, the Horns first win in Waco since Colt McCoy was the Texas triggerman. It was a game that, much like the Texas season, had a little good, some bad and a whole lot of ugly.

The good was mainly the first quarter, where Texas jumped out to a 17-0 lead thanks to a nice Tyrone Swoopes to Caleb Bluiett 57 yard touchdown pass. The Horns later added a Nick Rose field goal and another 18 Wheeler touchdown run. Meanwhile, the Texas defense was swarming. They knocked Baylor quarterback Chris Johnson out of the game late in the first quarter.

The Horns added another field goal before halftime and seemed on the way to dominating the Bears. Texas intercepted Baylor WR/QB Lynx Hawthorne twice along the way.

Then the bad and the ugly set in. The ugly was the Texas offense, which was largely ineffective in the second half and horribly predictable. One particular series of events in the fourth quarter pretty much said it all. With the momentum all on Baylor’s side and the Texas offense desperately needing to put some points on the board, Texas faced third and long. However, Swoopes found a wide open John Burt, who could have run for the first down. Instead, Swoopes threw low, forcing Burt to dive for the catch and leaving Texas short of the first down.

The Horns lined up to go for it on fourth down and set up in a formation that screamed “Swoopes power run”. Then called a timeout, only to come out in the same formation and run, surprise, a power run from Swoopes. Everyone knew it was coming and Baylor snuffed it out.

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In the second half, everyone knew that Baylor was going to run as well, including, in theory at least, the Texas defense. The Bears decided to abandoned any pretense of a passing game in the second half and instead just jammed the ball down the throat of the Texas defense. Apparently the only person who didn’t realize what Baylor was doing was Texas defensive coordinator Vance Bedford, who continued to put Texas in a three man front with his defensive backs playing far off. Baylore responded by running for 395 yards on the day at a 6 yards per carry clip. Ugly.

Using that strategy, Baylor steadily chipped away at Texas’ lead, closing to 20-17 before Texas finally got something going on offense again, putting a third Rose field goal on the board.

Down six and needing a touchdown to win, it looked like Bayor was going to add another chapter to the misery of Texas Football 2015 when they started driving late in the fourth quarter. That’s when the Longhorn defense made the play they needed to make. Poona Ford stripped the ball from Baylor running back Johnny Jefferson, who a spectacular game nonetheless. Texas recovered, ending Baylor’s best chance to complete the comeback.

The win was a nice one for the Longhorns, but no one should read too much into it. Despite Baylor’s lofty ranking coming into the game, this wasn’t the same Baylor team at all. The Bears own sloppy, undisciplined play certainly contributed to the Texas cause. In addition to turning the ball over four times, Baylor was penalized 10 times for 60 yards, many of them damaging penalties.

Baylor offensive players also showed a shocking lack of decisionmaking on Baylor’s last drive, which started at their own three. Baylor was actually moving the ball in huge chunks, but Hawthorne took stupide intentional grounding penalty by throwing the ball into the ground to avoid a sack instead of launching the ball downfield and out of bounds. Baylor recovered the yardage, but lost valuable time. Then, twice Baylor players failed to get out of bounds, again costing the Bears time. They were surprising mistakes from an offense that normally executes at a high level.

Texas Longhorns /

Texas Longhorns

As for Texas, many of the same things that have frustrated fans all year were still on display. The play calling was questionable and at times laughable. The quarterback play was streaky at best, while the defense was helpless to stop the Baylor running game once the Bears decided to feature it.

Want to hope for better things next year? Keep in mind, there’s nothing coming down the pipeline for Texas at defensive tackle. It has long been known that Charlie Strong will likely replace most, if not all, of his offensive staff at season’s end, but I think that Bedford should also be replaced. Much like Manny Diaz before him, Bedford looked great when coordinating a defense with several veterans in key roles but his defense crumbled when those players left. Even if Strong coordinated the defense himself, some sort of change needs to be made.

So, the long offseason begins. Longhorn nation will spend the next months watching the coaching carousel and then the recruiting boards. We’ll wait for spring football and hope that we see reasons to believe for 2016. The sad fact is, there is very good reason to believe that Texas won’t be much different next year than they were this year. If they’re not, then it will be several more years before Texas football will be relevant again.

So for now, enjoy bowl season and a much better level of football than we’ve witness from Texas this year and let’s all hope that Strong has an ace up his sleeve for next year.

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