Texas Football: Joshua Moore scores on first offensive play back

Texas football got off to a lightning fast start in their opener against the UTEP Miners with a 78-yard touchdown pass to Joshua Moore on the first play.

It was a really quick start for the Texas football program in their first game of the 2020 season. Texas opened up the 2020 season on Sep. 12 under the lights at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium at 7 p.m. CT against the UTEP Miners out of Conference-USA. UTEP came into this game with a 1-0 record after beating the FCS Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks by the final score of 24-14 at home at the Sun Bowl in El Paso.

This is the first game back for the Longhorns in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic since knocking off the Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl by the final score of 38-10. Texas finished up the 2019 season with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12), good to warp up the year with a No. 25 ranking in the last AP Poll.

Moreover, it did not take long to get off and running for the Longhorns in the season opener against UTEP. Redshirt sophomore wide receiver and former four-star recruit Joshua Moore took a 78-yard pass for a touchdown in the first offensive play of the game against the sleepy UTEP secondary.

This was also the first game back for Moore since the 2018 season. The speedy No. 6 just got more yards in one catch than he had during the entire freshman campaign for him back in 2018. He registered seven receptions for 53 yards and one touchdown as a freshman.

He’ll now have more than 120 career receiving yards and two touchdown catches after this first offensive play of the Texas-UTEP game. Senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger hit Moore on a B-line pass to really get off and running in the blink of an eye.

This was quite the way for this new-look Texas offense under the direction of former Ohio State passing game coordinator Mike Yurcich as offensive coordinator.

Texas was favored by a whopping 44-point margin heading into this season opener against UTEP. This needs to be a solid start for the Longhorns before taking on the Texas Tech Red Raiders on the road in the Big 12 opener on Sep. 26.

Ehlinger has a plethora of skill position weapons to turn to this fall, including a three-headed monster in the backfield and five or six wide receivers that are all explosive threats.