Texas Football: Casey Thompson struggling to throw between the numbers

A strong start to this season, and a good finish to last season, has started to die down a bit of late for redshirt junior Texas football quarterback Casey Thompson. Texas was thrilled about the production that they got out of Thompson in a brief stint in the loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks and in the Big 12 opening-win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

Thompson was also brilliant for the Longhorns statistically in the 55-48 loss to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry game back on Oct. 9. But even in Red River, there were some bad stretches for Thompson. The same could really be said for most of the game that resulted in a win over the TCU Horned Frogs and in the loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys two weekends ago.

If you combine the win over TCU and the loss to Oklahoma State, the numbers really don’t look too good for Thompson. In those two games combined, Thompson registered 27 completions on 49 passing attempts (55.1 completion percentage), good for 321 passing yards, two passing touchdowns, and three interceptions.

His passer efficiency rating also hovered around 110, the lowest over the span of any two games combined in Thompson’s career to date.

A problem that emerged for Thompson in those games was passing between the numbers. Looking over the middle on intermediate and deep routes in the last few games, Thompson is really struggling. Of his five picks on the season, three came between the numbers.

Casey Thompson struggling to find his targets between the numbers for Texas football

And considering less than 45 of his passing attempts have come between the numbers, and in front of the line of scrimmage, you don’t want 60 percent of your interceptions and five of your eight turnover-worthy plays on the season to come in this spot. Thompson is struggling to hit a lot of the crossing and glance routes that he has to find of late.

Thompson also has his lowest adjusted completion percentage and NFL QBR throwing to this part of the field compared with looking on the right or left.

This wasn’t really an issue that emerged until the thick of the Big 12 slate too. A lot of this has to do with the lack of time that Thompson has to let these plays develop across the middle. The offensive line usually needs to hold the pocket up for at least three seconds for a lot of these intermediate and deep center throws to develop.

And considering Thompson is getting roughly 2.9 seconds on average on dropbacks to find his target, he’s not getting enough time to go through all of his reads. If he can get at least 3.25-to-3.5 seconds to go through these reads in the coming weeks, then the results should improve.

The problem this week is the fact that Texas is facing a stellar pass rush in the Baylor Bears. Head coach Dave Aranda and the No. 16 ranked Bears have one of the better pass rushes in the Big 12, led by the likes of defensive linemen Gabe Hall and Siaki Ika, who have more than 20 quarterback pressures on the season between the two of them.

Texas is set to take on Baylor on the road in McLane Stadium on Oct. 30, with kickoff time set for 11 a.m. CT. New head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns are looking to snap a two-game losing skid against the Bears this weekend.