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I think we have a game tomorrow

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Walden Ponderer

Walden Ponderer 12639

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I'm looking forward to all the casual fans saying "We're back!" after tomorrow night, and all the cynical old farts (like, probably, me) screaming at them with froth-filled animus about how beating a bad team doesn't mean anything, yada yada...

Anyway, looking forward to getting soggy, and TEXAS from just off Texas Avenue in College Station.

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satyanash

satyanash 14281

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(Jeff Howe) Tale of the Tape: How Texas stacks up against Tulsa

It’s time for the Tale of the Tape, an article where Horns247 takes a look at the Texas Longhorns and their opponent in a position-by-position breakdown to see which squad, on paper, looks better. This week, we’re taking a look at how the Longhorns (0-1) stack up against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (1-0) in the home season opener at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday (7 p.m., Longhorn Network).

Tom Herman and the Longhorns are coming off of a forgettable season-opening loss to Maryland, 34-29, at FedEx Field last Saturday. Starting off the season 0-1 for the second year in a row, something the program has experienced for the third time in the last four seasons, isn’t what the burnt orange faithful envisioned and has prompted a week where the discussion has revolved around what happened against the Terrapins and where the program is headed as opposed to the upcoming opponent.

The opponent, Tulsa, is one looking to bounce back from a 2-10 season under Philip Montgomery, a longtime assistant coach under Art Briles who is in his fourth season leading the Golden Hurricane. While this is the first meeting between the two programs, Herman owns a 2-0 record against Montgomery from his time at the University of Houston, snagging a 38-24 road win in 2015 and a 38-31 win home win in 2016.

With Texas about to run through a four-game gauntlet that includes contests against three teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 — No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 16 TCU and No. 17 Southern Cal — this is the last change the Longhorns have to resolve the issues the coaches identified coming out of the Maryland game. If Texas is going to make something out of the 2018 season, putting things together and trouncing Tulsa is the only option for the Longhorns this weekend.

QUARTERBACKS

Luke Skipper (15-for-24 passing for 196 yards and two touchdowns against Central Arkansas) is looking to revive a Tulsa passing game that finished 109th nationally last season. Like a lot of quarterbacks who have been at the controls of the veer-and-shoot before him, Skipper has some running ability (13 carries, 30 yards and a touchdown in the opener) and can take advantage of certain situations on the ground. That’s what the Longhorns need to see more of from Sam Ehlinger, specifically getting him on the move on designed runs. The quarterback run game worked when the Longhorns went to it against Maryland, which didn’t feel like enough to take advantage of Ehlinger’s skill set. If it’s true that the most growth for a team is from the opener to the second game of the season, Texas needs Ehlinger to make a big leap forward and clean up the mistakes he made against the Terrapins when facing the Golden Hurricane defense.

EDGE: Texas

RUNNING BACKS

In the Montgomery era of Golden Hurricane football, Tulsa has had two players rush for 100 yards or more in the same game and has sported a 9-1 record in those contests. Those 10 games include the win over Central Arkansas as Shamari Brooks and Corey Taylor II went for 129 and 110 yards, respectively. Texas has only three 100-yard rushing performances in 14 games under Herman and the one running back who has hit the century mark (Chris Warren III with 166 yards against San Jose State) is no longer on the roster. That said, the Longhorns appear to have found something with Keaontay Ingram (6.2 yards per rush against Maryland), who’s expected to get more touches than the seven (six rushing attempts) he got last week. After a forgettable year at the position, Ingram and Tre Watson (52 yards on 12 attempts) provided a much-needed shot in the arm right out of the gate.

EDGE: Texas

WIDE RECEIVERS

Collin Johnson (three catches for 59 yards) and Devin Duvernay (four receptions for 58 yards) each had touchdown grabs in the opener and Lil'Jordan Humphrey (caught six balls for 82 yards) led the way for the wideouts against Maryland. Outside of a performance where perimeter blocking was lacking, the Texas wideouts showed 2018 could be much different from last season with multiple playmakers asserting themselves in the first game of the season. The veer-and-shoot always produces productive receivers and Justin Hobbs, a 2017 All-AAC selection, is the one to watch among Tulsa’s bunch has he enters the game with 140 career receptions for 2,127 yards and 10 touchdowns. Even if the Golden Hurricane offense is able to generate explosive plays (the veer-and-shoot is all about using the run game to set up deep shots down the field), the Longhorns have the more talented group of perimeter playmakers who set a solid foundation for the rest of their season against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

TIGHT ENDS

The veer-and-shoot isn't known for producing highly-productive tight ends. However, Cole Neph led to the Golden Hurricane four receptions for 40 yards and a touchdown against Central Arkansas. Still, the Texas tight ends made plays when they were called upon in the passing game against Maryland. Andrew Beck helped the offense come off of the goal line in the fourth quarter with a 15-yard catch-and-run while Cade Brewer recorded a 13-yard reception on a well-run option route in the first half. Both were also able to set the edge and get a push in the game. While the offensive performance overall was lacking, there were plenty of signs against Maryland of the tight end position being able to produce at a higher level than what the Longhorns have gotten out of the position in a long time.

EDGE: Texas

OFFENSIVE LINE

Looking back on how the Longhorns performed against Maryland, the offensive line wasn’t too bad. Texas was able to get bodies on defenders and while getting a push was hit and miss, overall it was a step in the right direction from what was visible most of last season. With Zach Shackelford out, the Longhorns might be putting a better mix on the field when it comes to being able to move bodies off of the ball at the point of attack, specifically with kicking Derek Kerstetter inside to guard and letting Samuel Cosmi, who was praised by the staff for his toughness and grit against Maryland, get all of the work at right tackle. Tulsa has three returning starters — guard Tyler Bowling, center Chandler Miller and tackle Willie Wright — who have combined to start 101 career games. That’s a lot of experience, but it shouldn’t be enough to give them the better line if the Longhorns can build on what they did right against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

DEFENSIVE LINE

Tulsa was among the worst teams in the country last season at generating tackles for loss (103rd with 4.8 per game) and sacks (121st with one per game). The lack of production doesn’t all fall on the defensive line, but it’s a group that didn’t make a lot of plays last season. That said, the Golden Hurricane defensive line did account for three of the team’s six tackles for loss against Central Arkansas, which is the same number of tackles for loss the Texas defensive front combined to record against Maryland. Chris Nelson is coming off of an outing where he flashed in his debut as the nose tackle in the odd from Todd Orlando utilizes. Facing an offense they’re much more familiar with, I’d expect Nelson and the rest of the group to have a greater impact on the outcome in the home opener.

EDGE: Texas

LINEBACKERS

Diamon Cannon, a Killeen Shoemaker product who had four tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss in Tulsa’s win over Central Arkansas, leads a Tulsa linebacker group that’s not terribly deep when it comes to experience. The experience the Longhorns have at the position will be more prominent than it was against Maryland with Anthony Wheeler available for the whole game and Gary Johnson getting back on the field after missing the entire second half of the Maryland game due to a targeting penalty. With Johnson and Wheeler inside and Jeffrey McCulloch showing last week he’s capable of providing quality reps as the primary backup, what Orlando does with Malcolm Roach will be an interesting storyline to follow in this one after the versatile junior didn’t play up to his expected potential against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

SECONDARY

The Texas wide receivers could have a field day against a Tulsa secondary that wasn’t productive last season (only 34 pass breakups and seven interceptions in 12 games). For the Longhorns, it remains to be seen who will be on the field. While Herman expects Kris Boyd and Davante Davis to be available, Brandon Jones is out with an ankle injury. One probable move could be putting P.J. Locke III at safety to have an experienced body next to Caden Sterns, which would force Josh Thompson to be the primary man in the nickel position. As far as the Longhorns are concerned, hopefully, the game gets to a point where Boyd and Davis aren’t needed and the trio of Kobe Boyce, Anthony Cook and Jalen Green can get some valuable game experience.

EDGE: Texas

SPECIAL TEAMS

Ryan Bujcevski (nine punts, 37.7 average, long of 56 yards and two downed inside the 20-yard line) had a solid punting debut in the opener. Cameron Dicker wasn’t called upon for a field goal, but he was a perfect 3-for-3 on extra points and three of his five kickoffs weren’t returned. Look for D'shawn Jamison to be the primary returner on both kickoffs and punt returns this week with Jones out. Tulsa punter Thomas Bennett averaged 49.2 yards per punt against Central Arkansas, earning him AAC Special Teams Player of the Week recognition. While the Longhorns are going to have true freshmen all over the place in the kicking game, including short snapper Justin Mader, the upside appears to be tremendous with this group.

EDGE: Texas

TEXAS OFFENSE VS. TULSA DEFENSE

The Golden Hurricane fielded one of the worst defenses in the country in 2017, finishing 127th out of 129 FBS programs against the run (265 yards per game allowed) and in total defense (528.9 yards per game allowed) while ranking 120th in scoring defense (37.5 points per game allowed). Tulsa had a nice defensive outing against Central Arkansas (247 total yards allowed, 82 rushing yards allowed, holding the Bears to 0-for-10 on third down) but the Longhorns should be able to move the ball however they wish in this one. The Golden Hurricane aren’t as bad as the San Jose State defense Texas piled up a season-high 623 total yards against last season, but if the Longhorns don’t bounce back in a big way then there are bigger problems on the horizon than what happened against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

TEXAS DEFENSE VS. TULSA OFFENSE

There will be two huge keys for Texas in this one. The first is stopping the run: Tulsa ran for 274 yards against Central Arkansas and finished 14th in the nation in rushing offense last season (247.3 yards per game). The second is getting lined up and ready to go on time against Tulsa’s tempo. Forcing alignment/assignment issues are the one way the Golden Hurricane will be able to move the ball against the Longhorns. As long as Texas gets lined up properly on a consistent basis, the pieces are there for the run defense to be good enough to get Tulsa in third-and-long situations that will be advantageous to Orlando’s aggressive blitzing defense on surefire passing downs.

EDGE: Texas

SCORE PREDICTION

This one is more about what the Longhorns do and how Texas fixes the issues from the Maryland game moving forward. Tulsa isn’t a good football team and Texas should win this one going away if the mistakes made in the season opener are correctable and the Longhorns are a more mature team than what they showed last weekend. While the country is down on the Longhorns and the burnt orange faithful are bummed about the unsavory start, Herman has proven in his short head coaching career that he and his staff are at their best when the chips are down and their backs are against the wall. That’s certainly the way things appear right now, so I’m expecting the Longhorns to come out swinging looking for the knockout punch early.

Score: Texas 42, Tulsa 10

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Victor Lazlo

Victor Lazlo 1767

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51 minutes ago, satyanash said:

(Jeff Howe) Tale of the Tape: How Texas stacks up against Tulsa

 

  Reveal hidden contents

It’s time for the Tale of the Tape, an article where Horns247 takes a look at the Texas Longhorns and their opponent in a position-by-position breakdown to see which squad, on paper, looks better. This week, we’re taking a look at how the Longhorns (0-1) stack up against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (1-0) in the home season opener at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday (7 p.m., Longhorn Network).

Tom Herman and the Longhorns are coming off of a forgettable season-opening loss to Maryland, 34-29, at FedEx Field last Saturday. Starting off the season 0-1 for the second year in a row, something the program has experienced for the third time in the last four seasons, isn’t what the burnt orange faithful envisioned and has prompted a week where the discussion has revolved around what happened against the Terrapins and where the program is headed as opposed to the upcoming opponent.

The opponent, Tulsa, is one looking to bounce back from a 2-10 season under Philip Montgomery, a longtime assistant coach under Art Briles who is in his fourth season leading the Golden Hurricane. While this is the first meeting between the two programs, Herman owns a 2-0 record against Montgomery from his time at the University of Houston, snagging a 38-24 road win in 2015 and a 38-31 win home win in 2016.

With Texas about to run through a four-game gauntlet that includes contests against three teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 — No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 16 TCU and No. 17 Southern Cal — this is the last change the Longhorns have to resolve the issues the coaches identified coming out of the Maryland game. If Texas is going to make something out of the 2018 season, putting things together and trouncing Tulsa is the only option for the Longhorns this weekend.

QUARTERBACKS

Luke Skipper (15-for-24 passing for 196 yards and two touchdowns against Central Arkansas) is looking to revive a Tulsa passing game that finished 109th nationally last season. Like a lot of quarterbacks who have been at the controls of the veer-and-shoot before him, Skipper has some running ability (13 carries, 30 yards and a touchdown in the opener) and can take advantage of certain situations on the ground. That’s what the Longhorns need to see more of from Sam Ehlinger, specifically getting him on the move on designed runs. The quarterback run game worked when the Longhorns went to it against Maryland, which didn’t feel like enough to take advantage of Ehlinger’s skill set. If it’s true that the most growth for a team is from the opener to the second game of the season, Texas needs Ehlinger to make a big leap forward and clean up the mistakes he made against the Terrapins when facing the Golden Hurricane defense.

EDGE: Texas

RUNNING BACKS

In the Montgomery era of Golden Hurricane football, Tulsa has had two players rush for 100 yards or more in the same game and has sported a 9-1 record in those contests. Those 10 games include the win over Central Arkansas as Shamari Brooks and Corey Taylor II went for 129 and 110 yards, respectively. Texas has only three 100-yard rushing performances in 14 games under Herman and the one running back who has hit the century mark (Chris Warren III with 166 yards against San Jose State) is no longer on the roster. That said, the Longhorns appear to have found something with Keaontay Ingram (6.2 yards per rush against Maryland), who’s expected to get more touches than the seven (six rushing attempts) he got last week. After a forgettable year at the position, Ingram and Tre Watson (52 yards on 12 attempts) provided a much-needed shot in the arm right out of the gate.

EDGE: Texas

WIDE RECEIVERS

Collin Johnson (three catches for 59 yards) and Devin Duvernay (four receptions for 58 yards) each had touchdown grabs in the opener and Lil'Jordan Humphrey (caught six balls for 82 yards) led the way for the wideouts against Maryland. Outside of a performance where perimeter blocking was lacking, the Texas wideouts showed 2018 could be much different from last season with multiple playmakers asserting themselves in the first game of the season. The veer-and-shoot always produces productive receivers and Justin Hobbs, a 2017 All-AAC selection, is the one to watch among Tulsa’s bunch has he enters the game with 140 career receptions for 2,127 yards and 10 touchdowns. Even if the Golden Hurricane offense is able to generate explosive plays (the veer-and-shoot is all about using the run game to set up deep shots down the field), the Longhorns have the more talented group of perimeter playmakers who set a solid foundation for the rest of their season against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

TIGHT ENDS

The veer-and-shoot isn't known for producing highly-productive tight ends. However, Cole Neph led to the Golden Hurricane four receptions for 40 yards and a touchdown against Central Arkansas. Still, the Texas tight ends made plays when they were called upon in the passing game against Maryland. Andrew Beck helped the offense come off of the goal line in the fourth quarter with a 15-yard catch-and-run while Cade Brewer recorded a 13-yard reception on a well-run option route in the first half. Both were also able to set the edge and get a push in the game. While the offensive performance overall was lacking, there were plenty of signs against Maryland of the tight end position being able to produce at a higher level than what the Longhorns have gotten out of the position in a long time.

EDGE: Texas

OFFENSIVE LINE

Looking back on how the Longhorns performed against Maryland, the offensive line wasn’t too bad. Texas was able to get bodies on defenders and while getting a push was hit and miss, overall it was a step in the right direction from what was visible most of last season. With Zach Shackelford out, the Longhorns might be putting a better mix on the field when it comes to being able to move bodies off of the ball at the point of attack, specifically with kicking Derek Kerstetter inside to guard and letting Samuel Cosmi, who was praised by the staff for his toughness and grit against Maryland, get all of the work at right tackle. Tulsa has three returning starters — guard Tyler Bowling, center Chandler Miller and tackle Willie Wright — who have combined to start 101 career games. That’s a lot of experience, but it shouldn’t be enough to give them the better line if the Longhorns can build on what they did right against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

DEFENSIVE LINE

Tulsa was among the worst teams in the country last season at generating tackles for loss (103rd with 4.8 per game) and sacks (121st with one per game). The lack of production doesn’t all fall on the defensive line, but it’s a group that didn’t make a lot of plays last season. That said, the Golden Hurricane defensive line did account for three of the team’s six tackles for loss against Central Arkansas, which is the same number of tackles for loss the Texas defensive front combined to record against Maryland. Chris Nelson is coming off of an outing where he flashed in his debut as the nose tackle in the odd from Todd Orlando utilizes. Facing an offense they’re much more familiar with, I’d expect Nelson and the rest of the group to have a greater impact on the outcome in the home opener.

EDGE: Texas

LINEBACKERS

Diamon Cannon, a Killeen Shoemaker product who had four tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss in Tulsa’s win over Central Arkansas, leads a Tulsa linebacker group that’s not terribly deep when it comes to experience. The experience the Longhorns have at the position will be more prominent than it was against Maryland with Anthony Wheeler available for the whole game and Gary Johnson getting back on the field after missing the entire second half of the Maryland game due to a targeting penalty. With Johnson and Wheeler inside and Jeffrey McCulloch showing last week he’s capable of providing quality reps as the primary backup, what Orlando does with Malcolm Roach will be an interesting storyline to follow in this one after the versatile junior didn’t play up to his expected potential against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

SECONDARY

The Texas wide receivers could have a field day against a Tulsa secondary that wasn’t productive last season (only 34 pass breakups and seven interceptions in 12 games). For the Longhorns, it remains to be seen who will be on the field. While Herman expects Kris Boyd and Davante Davis to be available, Brandon Jones is out with an ankle injury. One probable move could be putting P.J. Locke III at safety to have an experienced body next to Caden Sterns, which would force Josh Thompson to be the primary man in the nickel position. As far as the Longhorns are concerned, hopefully, the game gets to a point where Boyd and Davis aren’t needed and the trio of Kobe Boyce, Anthony Cook and Jalen Green can get some valuable game experience.

EDGE: Texas

SPECIAL TEAMS

Ryan Bujcevski (nine punts, 37.7 average, long of 56 yards and two downed inside the 20-yard line) had a solid punting debut in the opener. Cameron Dicker wasn’t called upon for a field goal, but he was a perfect 3-for-3 on extra points and three of his five kickoffs weren’t returned. Look for D'shawn Jamison to be the primary returner on both kickoffs and punt returns this week with Jones out. Tulsa punter Thomas Bennett averaged 49.2 yards per punt against Central Arkansas, earning him AAC Special Teams Player of the Week recognition. While the Longhorns are going to have true freshmen all over the place in the kicking game, including short snapper Justin Mader, the upside appears to be tremendous with this group.

EDGE: Texas

TEXAS OFFENSE VS. TULSA DEFENSE

The Golden Hurricane fielded one of the worst defenses in the country in 2017, finishing 127th out of 129 FBS programs against the run (265 yards per game allowed) and in total defense (528.9 yards per game allowed) while ranking 120th in scoring defense (37.5 points per game allowed). Tulsa had a nice defensive outing against Central Arkansas (247 total yards allowed, 82 rushing yards allowed, holding the Bears to 0-for-10 on third down) but the Longhorns should be able to move the ball however they wish in this one. The Golden Hurricane aren’t as bad as the San Jose State defense Texas piled up a season-high 623 total yards against last season, but if the Longhorns don’t bounce back in a big way then there are bigger problems on the horizon than what happened against Maryland.

EDGE: Texas

TEXAS DEFENSE VS. TULSA OFFENSE

There will be two huge keys for Texas in this one. The first is stopping the run: Tulsa ran for 274 yards against Central Arkansas and finished 14th in the nation in rushing offense last season (247.3 yards per game). The second is getting lined up and ready to go on time against Tulsa’s tempo. Forcing alignment/assignment issues are the one way the Golden Hurricane will be able to move the ball against the Longhorns. As long as Texas gets lined up properly on a consistent basis, the pieces are there for the run defense to be good enough to get Tulsa in third-and-long situations that will be advantageous to Orlando’s aggressive blitzing defense on surefire passing downs.

EDGE: Texas

SCORE PREDICTION

This one is more about what the Longhorns do and how Texas fixes the issues from the Maryland game moving forward. Tulsa isn’t a good football team and Texas should win this one going away if the mistakes made in the season opener are correctable and the Longhorns are a more mature team than what they showed last weekend. While the country is down on the Longhorns and the burnt orange faithful are bummed about the unsavory start, Herman has proven in his short head coaching career that he and his staff are at their best when the chips are down and their backs are against the wall. That’s certainly the way things appear right now, so I’m expecting the Longhorns to come out swinging looking for the knockout punch early.

Score: Texas 42, Tulsa 10

 

Well, shit. I’m feeling pretty good about our chances after that. 

What could go wrong?

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