Texas Football: 5 overreactions from the unbelievable OT loss to Kansas

Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense is flat out terrible

This is definitely the most realistic of the overreactions on this list following this terrible loss to the Jayhawks this weekend. The defensive play of late for new co-defensive coordinators/linebackers coaches Jeff Choate and Pete Kwiatkowski is downright lame.

Texas just is having all sorts of trouble trying to find playmakers and some common schemes that work on a consistent basis. Seeing this Longhorns’ defense come out with a solid 60-minute effort in Big 12 play this season is unheard of.

You would figure that the Kansas game was the right opportunity to get this defense on track under Kwiatkowski during this stretch run in the month of November. That’s not what happened so far this month.

Texas allowed a whopping 49 points in regulation to a Kansas offense that averaged less than 19 points per game coming into this matchup. This performance was absolutely unacceptable for most FCS teams, let alone a defense that has as many blue-chips as the Longhorns do.

Some particularly problematic players for the Longhorns defense in this game were junior linebacker Luke Brockermeyer, sophomore linebacker Jaylan Ford, and senior safety B.J. Foster. Brockermeyer and Ford combined to allow four catches on four targets in pass coverage, good for 60 receiving yards, roughly 30 yards after the catch, and two passing touchdowns.

Ford and Brockermeyer also combined for four missed tackles, roughly a dozen combined tackles, no quarterback pressures, and no pass breakups. This was a bad outing for the Texas linebackers. And most of the other levels of the defense didn’t do much to help on this night.