Texas Football: 5 overreactions from nightmare loss to OU

Offensive line is holding back Bijan Robinson

Maybe the biggest struggle in this game for the Longhorns, specifically in the second half, was the offensive line. We knew that there were going to be some issues that the offensive line faced this month after losing senior Denzel Okafor due to injury for the rest of the season in the win over the TCU Horned Frogs last weekend.

But it was hard to envision that Texas was going to have as many difficulties in the trenches as they did in this tough loss to the Sooners. The aforementioned stat that Thompson was pressured on roughly 36 percent of his dropbacks is absolutely unacceptable. It is also unacceptable that Thompson only had around 2.7 seconds to throw on passing plays against the Sooners.

The Oklahoma defense is good, and they do have some explosive pass rushers. But the way that the offensive line struggled when it mattered most is something that new offensive line coach/offensive coordinator Kyle Flood has to fix.

And this poor play from the offensive line really held star sophomore running back Bijan Robinson back in the second half. On more than eight touches in the second half, Bijan had less than five yards if you take out one big 33 yard run in the third quarter.

It’s unacceptable that Bijan can come up with 126 rushing yards after initial contact, and 13 missed tackles forced, and the offensive line can’t pick him up down the stretch. Roughly four or five missed tackles forced (depending on how you define that) for Bijan in the second half should be enough to at least pick up four yards per rushing attempt.

The offensive line allowed seven run stuffs on the best running back in the nation in the second half. That has to improve from here on out.