Texas Football: Baylor figured out how to stop Bijan Robinson

Something that was hard to believe just a few weeks ago for the Texas football program and new head coach Steve Sarkisian actually came to fruition over the weekend. Texas couldn’t rely on star sophomore running back Bijan Robinson to essentially be the do-everything bell cow for this offense in the matchup against the No. 16 ranked Baylor Bears on the road on Oct. 30.

A running back that looked to be one of the best and most productive players in all of college football in the first half of the regular season had his worst outing against Baylor over the weekend. Bijan was held to just 43 rushing yards on 17 carries (good for just 2.5 yards per carry), one rushing touchdown, and four receiving yards on one catch with no receiving touchdowns.

This game also saw Bijan post his worst rushing and offensive grade of the season, by a good margin.

In fact, this was the lowest number of yards per carry for Bijan in any game in his career. That includes a freshman campaign where he was mostly dramatically underutilized by former Texas head coach Tom Herman.

His rushing grade was good for the second-lowest of his career in any individual game. And the offensive grade was tied for the worst of his career.

To make matters worse, Sark didn’t give the ball to redshirt sophomore running back Keilan Robinson much at all. He got the ball once on a catch that went for -1 yards. Junior running back Roschon Johnson had 23 rushing yards on five carries. And redshirt junior quarterback Casey Thompson had just over 30 rushing yards on five carries.

Bijan Robinson shut down for Texas football in the loss to Baylor

Thompson was actually the most efficient ball carrier for Texas in the loss to Baylor. That goes a long way to show just how much Baylor dominated Texas in the trenches last weekend.

When you break it down even further, you can see how much Texas struggled all around on the ground in this game. There was only one position along the offensive line that Bijan ran behind that he registered more than four yards per carry. And he didn’t force a single missed tackle running off any one position among the true offensive linemen for the first time in any game in his career.

Of Bijan’s 17 carries in this game, nine of them resulted in a gain of one yard or less. He also didn’t have a single rush of 10 yards or more for the first time in any game this season. Baylor was stacking Bijan up around the line of scrimmage on essentially every carry he got.

With the lack of ability for Texas to find a consistent rhythm in the passing game, Baylor’s defense was able to focus more on stopping the run. That formula could start to become something that most opposing defenses use to try and take down the Longhorns.

Sark needs to let Bijan get the ball more in space and get some of the balance back to this offense. The few times Bijan was able to find space to run, it was mostly on carries that he bounced to the outside.

Texas also needs to work the likes of junior running back Roschon Johnson and redshirt sophomore Keilan Robinson into the offensive gameplan more often. Keilan is insanely fast in the open field and can do a lot of damage in space. Roschon also has a ton of versatility as the package that has him lining up at quarterback has worked well this fall.

Those are just a few options that Sark and the Longhorns have to find more rhythm and balance on offense moving forward. Something surely has to give with how stagnant the rushing attack was in the loss to Baylor.

Following the 31-24 loss to Baylor on the road on Oct. 30, the Longhorns own a record of 4-4 (2-3 Big 12). Next up for Bijan, Sark, and the Longhorns is a challenging matchup against the Iowa State Cyclones on the road on Nov. 6.