Texas Football: 4 overreactions from eruptive win over Texas Tech
Inconsistencies of the secondary will come back to bite Texas
The Texas secondary had very mixed results from this win over Texas Tech this weekend. There were some positives, but likely more negatives that arose out of this weekend for the defensive backfield. Especially when you consider how much Texas got beat over the top against Texas Tech from the second quarter and on, you can’t help but be worried about what lies ahead in Big 12 play.
Some of the other teams around the Big 12, such as the Baylor Bears, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Oklahoma Sooners, etc. possess the ability to break a game open by beating opposing defenses over the top.
Senior cornerback D’Shawn Jamison and senior safety B.J. Foster both had their fair share of struggles in this win over Texas Tech. Jamison was beat deep on multiple occasions, which is an increasing trend that is a worrying sign in the last few games. Foster also missed some reads, missed a key tackle that resulted in a touchdown for quarterback Tyler Shough, and got beat over the top to give up another touchdown.
Foster did only miss a couple of tackles in this game, but they were two of the costliest missed tackles when it was all said and done. And if Jamison is going to be the Longhorns’ primary cornerback, we need to see more of the solid pass coverage he showed up with in the last two seasons.
Moreover, Foster now ranks in the top three on the team with the most missed tackles (six on the season) and missed tackle rate (north of 20.0 percent). Given how important he is to this secondary, we need to see more out of Foster in all phases of the game ahead of a critical matchup next weekend against the TCU Horned Frogs.
And Jamison allowed almost as many yards after the catch in this game (77) that he did all of last season (80). He’s got beat deep on three occasions now this season, which resulted in a costly play in the loss to Arkansas at one point. Jamison is lucky it didn’t matter as much in this win over Texas Tech.
Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Choate now need to make the adjustment of giving some help on deep patterns now that other Big 12 offensive coordinators know that Texas can be exposed over the top.
At least we did have some positives here in the fact that senior corner Josh Thompson came up with a pick six and second-year safety Jerrin Thompson had himself a solid outing. It wasn’t all bad for the Texas secondary in this game.