Texas Football: 3 weaknesses Sarkisian can exploit vs. Texas Tech

Draw up some delayed pressures on Tyler Shough

One of the interesting parts about the distribution of passing stats for the former Oregon Ducks transfer quarterback Tyler Shough is how much he struggles when he takes more than three seconds to get the ball out of his hands compared to quicker passing attempts (around 2.5 seconds or less).

When Shough gets the ball out of his hand in less than 2.5 seconds on a passing play, he has a rock-solid adjusted completion percentage around 87 and doesn’t have a single turnover worthy play on 47 attempts. He completed all of those passes when he was pressured seven times on 49 dropbacks when he threw the ball in less than 2.5 seconds too.

Texas Tech offensive coordinator Sonny Cumbie likes to get the ball out of Shough’s hands in some short game to let the quicker skill position weapons work in the open field on the outside. That helps to build up Shough’s confidence so that he can start to find some of his targets in the passing game deep on the outside and on 15-20 yard routes between the numbers.

How Texas can limit the quick passing game from the start from Shough and the Red Raiders is by getting creative with some delayed blitzes. On 41 dropbacks this season where Shough had the ball in his hand on designed passing plays for 2.5 seconds or more, he was sacked three times, had a whopping 17 quarterback pressures, and was hit while thrown twice.

All told, when Shough wound up holding the ball for 2.5 seconds or more so far this season, he was disrupted more than 55 percent of the time (disruption plays include pressures, hits, batted balls, interceptions, etc).

Coming off the line of scrimmage with overwhelming pressure and numbers looks like it won’t do much for the Longhorns against a pretty composed quarterback in Shough that plays in an offense where he’s often encouraged to get the ball out of his hands fast anyway.

And Texas hasn’t done much with delayed blitz packages this season, and that looks like a necessary adjustment to make this weekend. That is more on the shoulders of Pete Kwiatkowski to get going for the Big 12 opener.