Texas Football: What’s next for Sarkisian heading into the bye week?

It’s really hard to say if this is good timing for new Texas football head coach Steve Sarkisian to have a bye week at this point of the season. What is clear is that Texas needs a reset. You can’t say that it’s alright for Texas to just look forward and rely on talent alone to get this team to the Big 12 Championship Game. Texas was in a great position to make a run to the conference title game just a few weeks ago.

But that narrative has shifted in a big way in the last couple of games. Sark and the Longhorns have experienced big second-half meltdowns in two consecutive games against both of the Oklahoma schools. It was Oklahoma outscoring Texas by a margin of 35-10 in the second half of the annual Red River Rivalry game last weekend.

And then, Sark and the Longhorns saw the No. 12 ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys and head coach Mike Gundy rally to score 19 straight points to end the game. That resulted in Texas falling short to Oklahoma State by the final score of 32-24.

Heading into the fourth quarter of the Texas-Oklahoma State game last weekend, it looked like the Longhorns had firm control of the win. The collapse in the loss to Oklahoma State saw Texas take control for more of the game than they did in the loss to Oklahoma. Texas had firm control of Red River in the first quarter and just couldn’t close out in the second half.

But the loss to Oklahoma State was all thanks to that aforementioned fourth-quarter collapse.

In both of the losses to the Oklahoma schools, we got to see two completely different versions of the Texas offense. One was steady and used star sophomore running back Bijan Robinson as a catalyst to open up the rest of the offensive playbook. The deep ball worked well, and redshirt junior quarterback Casey Thompson was able to work the likes of Xavier Worthy, Joshua Moore, etc. into the offense.

Another version of the Longhorns offense, though, couldn’t move the ball at all and couldn’t protect the passer for any sustained period of time. The offensive line was certainly a big issue that caused the rest of the offense to falter. But you can’t place all of the blame on the offensive line for the collapses in the last two games.

There is blame to go around to a variety of different sources at this point.

Texas football HC Steve Sarkisian needs to find a way to right the ship in the bye week

First and foremost, there has to be a lot of responsibility for these losses that fall back on the coaching staff. Namely, the trio of Sark, offensive line coach/offensive coordinator Kyle Flood, and co-defensive coordinators/linebackers coaches Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Choate have to take some blame here to better prepare for their teams to close out games that should be won.

There is no excuse for Texas to fall flat the way they have in the second halves of games two weekends in a row. Texas looked very similar to the way they played in the road loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks back on Sep. 11 compared to how they played when they collapsed in the losses to the Oklahoma schools.

Texas can’t just disappear in the middle of key games like this.

Blame here has to go to some of the players too. In the loss to the Sooners back on Oct. 9, it looked like some of the players just weren’t leaving it all out on the field down the stretch, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

I’m not a huge fan of the excuse that players weren’t giving it 100 percent. But that is part of the reason why Texas wasn’t able to close out against the Oklahoma schools.

Not only is Texas not matching the physicality and mentality of a lot of their opponents in the three biggest games of the season so far (all resulting in losses), they just don’t look prepared for the spotlight in clutch time. Texas looked overwhelmed in the loss to Arkansas all game long.

And while Texas came out strong against the Sooners and Pokes in the last two weekends, the team that showed up in the second half of those games looked very similar to the one we saw all game long against Arkansas.

This leaves us with the question, where do the Longhorns go from here heading into the bye week?

Adjustments must be made by the coaching staff to just have this team in a better mindset to play a consistent 60 minutes game-in and game-out. That should be a given, but obviously, something isn’t connecting here. Texas must use this bye week to make some adjustments in practice and in the film room to ensure the necessary mental and physical preparation ahead of the meeting with the Baylor Bears on Oct. 30.

Whether that be something small that changes the tone of the locker room, or something as big as sizable personnel shifts, something has to give in terms of the preparation and mentality of this team.

Secondly, Texas must rely on their leaders on each side of the ball to provide a spark in clutch time. This is two straight weeks now where Sark went away from Bijan in the latter stages of a game. Bijan was essentially the lone source of offense for much of the Oklahoma State game. And in the fourth quarter, Sark pretty much stopped giving him the ball at the same rate he did in the 45 minutes prior.

In the fourth quarter in the loss to Oklahoma State, Bijan got just three rushes for seven yards. That was an eerily similar trend to the workload that Sark gave Bijan in the loss to Oklahoma.

Let Bijan and this talented backfield go to work instead of putting such a heavy emphasis on a pretty bad offensive line to hold up in pass protection. Even the likes of junior running back Roschon Johnson, sophomore Keilan Robinson, freshman Jonathon Brooks, etc., should be capable of keeping up a solid rhythm in the ground game down the stretch.

There is a plan that Texas can put in place to get moving in the right direction finally. But it won’t be easy to right the ship after two collapses in two of the most important games of the season. This bye week is crucial for the Longhorns.

Texas carries a record of 4-3 (2-2 Big 12) into the first bye week of the season following the 32-24 loss to Oklahoma State at home on Oct. 16. Next up for the Longhorns out of the bye week is a meeting with Baylor on the road on Oct. 30.