Texas Football: 3 weapons Sarkisian can use to expose Arkansas

Xavier Worthy, WR

The highly anticipated debut of the former Michigan Wolverines commit and the touted true freshman wide receiver Xavier Worthy partially lived up to the hype. Texas did get a nice look to the speedy and elusive Worthy early on in this game. He got a 34-yard catch in the first half on a nice route that looked like a stop-and-go on the outside.

Although it looked at one time like Worthy would start out of the slot in this game against Louisiana, only around 27 percent of his snaps came out of the slot. Worthy was one of the starting outside receivers against the Cajuns along with redshirt junior Joshua Moore.

The bulk of his snaps actually saw him lineup out wide. That might have to do with something that Sark saw in the Louisiana defense that he could exploit.

The likely scenario is that Worthy can still get around 25-40 percent of his snaps out of the slot next weekend with how advantageous that could be. The bulk of the passing yards that the Hogs tend to give up since Odom took over as defensive coordinator in 2019 came between the numbers from around 5-20 yards from the line of scrimmage.

Arkansas has some solid and experienced corners on the outside between Montaric Brown and LaDarrius Bishop. It’s likely to be the nickelback Greg Brooks Jr. that gets the bulk of the looks in pass coverage against Worthy. Brooks is a more advantageous matchup for the Longhorns on the explosive Worthy than someone like Brown and/or Bishop.

Arkansas rarely gets beat over the top under Odom as defensive coordinator. But Texas can pick this Arkansas defense apart between the numbers using Worthy to get open on some glance and post routes.