Texas Football: 5 thoughts after Longhorns drubbing of Rice

2. The secondary might be deeper than we thought

It’s easy to look back on the loss for Texas football to LSU and think that defensive coordinator Todd Orlando should panic about his secondary. But the fact of the matter is that there is talent in this defensive backfield, just a lot of youth and inexperience. This is the kind of situation where the Longhorns need to be patient with the secondary coming along.

Facing Rice came at the perfect time for the Texas secondary to get their confidence and momentum back. The Longhorns held Rice to just 179 passing yards in this win. The only two passing touchdowns for Rice came when the Longhorns had the backups mostly in for the fourth quarter.

It did help that Rice had to play their backup quarterback, Tom Stewart, but there were only 12 completed passing attempts for the entire game. Although one missing piece in this win was an interception. Texas did manage one interception against LSU, but there were missed chances against the Owls this weekend.

Redshirt sophomore cornerback Kobe Boyce just missed out on a pick six chance when he jumped a screen route. A trio of defensive backs outside of the primary starter, sophomore Jalen Green, had pass deflections on the day which is an encouraging sign. Those three were Donovan Duvernay, Anthony Cook, and Boyce.