Texas Football: 5 takeaways from Longhorns heartbreaking loss to OU

Defending dual-threat quarterbacks is still an issue

Speaking of doing a poor job defending the ground game, Texas was gashed on the ground by Gabriel and the Sooners. Gabriel had a huge game running the ball, gashing the Longhorns on a few big plays using his legs as a weapon.

Gabriel led the Sooners in rushing yards (115) and yards per carry (8.1). He also rushed for one score. Texas was having a ton of issues trying to tackle Gabriel. Three of his runs of 10+ yards featured at least one missed tackle from someone in the Texas front seven.

Granted, missed tackles were a big issue in and of themselves for the Longhorns in this game.

Gabriel’s dual-threat ability was Oklahoma’s most effective way to move the ball down the field. It also opened up other opportunities for the Oklahoma offense to gash Texas’ defense. Oklahoma got some of their better receivers in single coverage on the outside and kept Texas’ linebacker on their toes since they had to monitor the threat of Gabriel’s running ability throughout the game.

Pete Kwiatkowski and the Longhorns did a nice job containing some of the running threats at quarterback they faced early this season (namely Kansas’ Jason Bean and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe). But this version of the Texas defense against the dual-threat quarterback looked more like they did against Donovan Smith and Texas Tech in that loss in Lubbock early last season.