40 Acres Sports

Can Texas stop Graham Harrell (or at least slow him down)? The defense has made much worse QB’s look like All-Americans this season.

If I were the Athletic Director of Oklahoma State University, I would try to figure out a way to remove Texas from the schedule. Or maybe just transfer out of the Big 12 all together. This game was absolutely ridiculous, and probably the best comeback against OSU of the 3 in the last 4 years.

What I want to know is why Texas only decides to play in the 4th quarter? If they played like that for the whole game, we might be looking at playing in the Sugar Bowl this year. In case you missed it, here are the highlights.

None of Texas’ wins against [tag]Oklahoma State[/tag] the last few years have come easily and that isn’t likely to change today. This team showed last week it could come back from a big deficit and win, but hopefully they don’t have to keep doing that. I wouldn’t mind jumping out to an early 17-point lead like last year, that might be the only way I’m not a nervous wreck this afternoon.

Here are three keys to a Texas victory against the Cowboys:

1. Find a way to run the football

Oklahoma State isn’t a terrible football team but they’re not a good one either. This is a team that’s giving up an average of nearly 26 points per game and gave up 41 in an early season loss to Troy. The Longhorns won against Nebraska because they suddenly rediscovered the zone read, against the Cowboys they’ll have to try that and a bunch more because they can’t win if they can’t run the ball. [tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] showed what he can do when he’s feeling it, let’s hope he can stay on a roll, find a few holes, and make some more big plays this week.

2. Beat the blitz

Texas got lucky last week. The Cornhuskers blitzed often and with tons of success against the Longhorns for the first three quarters. Quarterback [tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] didn’t have time to think let alone throw and that resulted in one of the worst performances in his career. Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy is 40 years old and claims his team won’t blitz like Nebraska did but I don’t buy it, they’d be stupid not to. McCoy and the Texas offense have to threaten the defense deep in order to open on the quick hot routes they’ll need to hit to beat the blitz. Of course if Charles rushes for nearly 300 yards again that would be nice as well.

3. Have a linebacker lead the team in tackles

The bad news: Sergio Kindle is out this week. The good news: the coaching staff appears to be noticing that the young, athletic linebackers can make more plays that the veteran group. Last week the team’s top three tacklers were all linebackers (when is the last time that happened?) and the defense needs to be led again by it’s linebackers against OSU and their option attack. If Marcus Griffin or another member of the Texas secondary is the game’s leading tackler that probably means OSU running back Dantrell Savage had a big day and the Horns are headed home to Austin as losers.

Prediction: Texas 35, Oklahoma State 31

Longhorns hoping for two strong halves against Okie Lite. I might not survive a first half like the last few years.

No new injuries for the Horns after Nebraska game. Roy Miller and Sergio Kindle are fortunately both healthy for OSU.

It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but the Longhorns came back from down 14 and then barely held on in the final minutes to knock off [tag]Nebraska[/tag] 28 – 25. The victory takes the Horns to 7 – 2 on the season and puts them back in the discussion for a Big 12 title shot. The game wasn’t sealed until Texas was (finally) able to recover an onside kick and pick up a critical first down that allowed them to run off the last two minutes from the clock.

ESPN highlights of the game are below:

[tag]Jamaal Charles[/tag] had the biggest game of his career with 290 rushing yards, with a whopping 216 of those coming in the fourth quarter including three long touchdown runs. His big day took him over the 1,000 yard mark for the season.

The game will be re-aired by ESPN Classic on Sunday morning at 8 a.m.

Will it be 2003 all over again for the Horns? Zone read unveiled against Nebraska in 2003, do we see any new wrinkles this year?

I’ll be surprised if Bill Callahan survives the weekend after Nebraska’s blowout loss to A&M. I knew Nebraska was terrible but didn’t expect A&M to score almost 40.

Despite miscues, Longhorns earn 10th straight win vs. Baylor. Game was too close for too long but Texas pulls away late.

Today’s matchup for the Longhorns against [tag]Iowa State[/tag] should be a rout, but there’s been lots of games like that this season and Texas only took care of business against Rice. The Horns need to continue the solid play from last week against Oklahoma and if they can they should be able to come home with a comfortable win.

Follow with me and my random thoughts during the game below:

First Quarter

• I wonder when FSN Southwest will be in high definition on DirecTV? It looks like the game is being shot in HD and if I had FSNMW I could be watching it in HD. Oh well.
• Ryan Bailey kicking off, is Hunter Lawrence hurt?
• Same starting lineup on defense that we’ve seen all year.
• Texas is only 7th in the Big 12 in punt returns? [tag]Quan Cosby[/tag] is solid back there so I don’t really blame him for that number. With Limas Sweed out for the year it might be time to protect Cosby and put one of the young WR/DB’s back there.
• Long bomb from [tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] to [tag]Jordan Shipley[/tag] on Texas’ first offensive play. McCoy does nice job buying time in a collapsing pocket and finds Shipley wide open. 58-yard touchdown for the Horns.

Texas 7, Iowa State 0

• FSN’s wonderful coverage continues. They take a TV timeout and miss both the kickoff and the first ISU play after it. Sad.
• FSN announcers are apparently using an OU roster instead of Texas.
• On third down play it looks like defensive line slants to the field and [tag]Robert Killebrew[/tag] lets the ISU runner get wide for the first down. Might have been Lamarr Houston’s fault. Terrible defensive fundamentals.
• I was just going to complain about the lack of pressure from the Texas defense then [tag]Lamarr Houston[/tag] comes untouched off the end for the sack.
• Face raped? Yikes. Not sure you should say that on TV. That was a definite face mask but the reason the helmet comes off is that it’s not fitted correctly. Your helmet should never come off that easy. He said face rape again.
• Is our defense really this poorly coached? We’ve got guys flying inside to avoid blockers on every play. If you’re a defensive end and have a linebacker blitzing to your inside you can’t try to get in the same gap. Ugh.
• [tag]Derek Lokey[/tag] playing defensive end on that play. He got whipped man on man and gave up a big run.
• Texas holds on third down and forces a field goal. Field goal is wide right. Break for Texas as Iowa State had put together a very solid drive.
• Mental mistake by wide receiver covered up Jermichael Finley. FSN announcers are morons.
• Looks like [tag]Chris Ogbonnaya[/tag] is seeing increased playing time already over Jamaal Charles. If we’re going with the wide open offense that’s a good idea since he’s a better blocker and pass catcher than Charles.
• Looks like McCoy is growing a sweet mustache. Couple more weeks and that might be thick enough to show up on camera.
• Ogbonnaya and [tag]Vondrell McGee[/tag] get the two Texas redzone rushing attempts. Hope Charles can keep his head up, figure out the issue, and earn these attempts back.
• Not sure that was a well advised throw by McCoy but man did Cosby get up and get that one. No good camera angle but I think that might have come out a little when he hit the ground. Another good scramble to buy time and find a receiver by Colt.

Texas 14, Iowa State 0

• Hunter Lawrence kicking off on this one. Wonder why it wasn’t him in there on the first one?
• Young linebackers in there for this series.

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