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Getting curbstomped in set 1 at home

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

18-10 just sloppy play by Texas

Sucking in service return

10-5 Kentucky TO Texas Texas completely out of system

View from the Cheap Seats-Vandy comes to town Reverse Starkville It was a yard from reverse Déjà vu all over again. After scoring 21 in the 4th in Starkville to force overtime, the Horns come home, put on their best performance of the year for 3 quarters before giving up 21 unanswered to make things WAAAAY too interesting in the 4th quarter. Vandy executes a perfect onside kick with time running out, but cannot corral the ball, and it rolled harmlessly out of bounds to seal the win with 33 ticks left on the clock. As Sark would say, “We like to keep it interesting”. The Cheap Seats doesn’t like interesting, especially when the 4th quarter was marred by mistake after mistake. In the pre-season edition, we warned this had all the earmarks of a “trap game”. We did NOT think Vandy would come in as a top 10 team. The game could not have gotten off to a better start for the Horns, who returned to Austin and DKR after a month on the road. Arch takes the first snap, pivots to the right, fires a WR screen to Ryan Wingo, who breaks two would-be tackles and goes 75 yards for an opening touchdown. Not to be outdone, the defense, led by All-American Collin Simmons, records the trifecta: a sack, a strip, and a fumble recovery on the same play. There is no truth to the rumor that Simmons then ran into the stands to sell popcorn as well. This gave the Horns a short field, and they converted a field goal. The D would force another punt as Vandy tried to pin the Horns deep, and it almost worked. Mr Return Ryan Nibblet makes a nifty move from inside his 5 and brings the ball out to the 17. Arch engineers a 10-play 83-yard drive, finishing the drive with his 2nd Touchdown pass of the game to CJ Baxter to take a 17-0 lead. Vandy would close out the 1st half with a Field Goal to make the score 17-3 While the first half started with an explosive start, the second half began with our defense forcing a three-and-out before the offense put together an 11-play, 93-yard drive to put the Horns up 31-10. Vandy would miss a field goal while TEXAS would then add a field goal to go up by 24 at the end of the 3rd. Up to this point, the defense had been playing lights out against a top-15 scoring offense in the nation, while the offense and Arch were looking like what we expected to see all year. Going back a week, TEXAS had not punted in 11 straight drives. In 2 weeks, TEXAS’ D has fallen from a Top 5 scoring D to #13 as Vandy would put up 21 4th quarter points with the help of goofs, gaffs, bad play and blown calls. Vandy opens the 4th putting together a drive to the TEXAS 25, where the Horns lose contain and Baker Mayfield wannabe Diego Pavia scampers around the edge for a 25-yard TD. This was the 1st example of blown assignment football in the 4th, not even close to the last. No worries, Arch/TEXAS go on a 10 play, 6+ minute drive which results in an Arch TD pass to Mosely for what should be his 2nd TD pass of the day. Upon further review, he did not catch the ball but the zebras missed his jersey being pulled off, exposing his shoulder pads. How do you miss something so blatant? Mirroring another weak call by the zebras, reliable Shipley misses the field goal. OK, it’s still a 17-point lead. Vandy needs three scores with 4:04 remaining in the game. The one thing we cannot do is let Vandy score quickly. TEXAS’ secondary lets their outstanding TE Eli Stowers lose for a 67-yard TD with NO ONE around him. Vandy lines up for the 2-point conversion to make it a 10-point game. Replay shows the ball NEVER broke the plane of the end zone, but the ruling on the field is upheld. The blunders continue. TEXAS recovers an onside kick, 3:53 left. They move the ball to 3rd and two while forcing Vandy to burn their timeouts. One more very makable short gain, and it’s victory formation time. Not so fast, my friends, OL false starts (which was a highly questionable call). Now it’s 3rd and 7. Vandy stuffs the rush, but our Aussie punter pins them at their own 11. Defense bows up, Ethan Burke buries Diego at their 2 to force 4th and 19. Pavia would pass for 108 yards on the drive, thanks to sacks and penalties, but takes the Commodores down for another TD. 33 seconds to go, Vandy’s one kick skips away from Livingstone, and a mad scramble for the ball ensues. Horn fans' collective hearts stop. Fortunately, Vandy knocks the ball out of bounds, the TEXAS ball Arch finally goes into victory formation as the comedy of errors comes to a close. Glass half full TEXAS beat a Top 10 team as the final 4-game stretch of the season begins. Vandy also has the best winning record against TEXAS in our history, though this win improves TEXAS to 5-8-1. South Carolina (0-1) is the only other SEC team with a winning record vs TEXAS. Arch is playing his best football of the year and looks great. He has found his rhythm and is in his “groove”. Sark has now called a great game plan for the 2nd week in a row. He is putting the offense in a position to succeed. The bye week is here. Time for figuring out what is going right and what is going wrong. Bye week also means more time to get injured players back, such as Michael Taffe and Ryan Wingo. TEXAS wins out, and they are a playoff team with perhaps the best 2-loss resume in the nation. We rank this as the 2nd best win of the season since beating the land thieves still ranks as the top victory, though not by much. Glass half empty. Defensive breakdowns almost cost TEXAS this win. Injuries that every team gets seem to be piling up. Run game struggles continue. 9 penalties, some at the worst possible times. This team makes some dumb plays. Which is part of what lead to TEXAS/Sark losing the 2nd half, a trend for Sark at TEXAS. Things got very chippy with Vandy, and too often, the Horns took the bait. TEXAS is running out of time to get help to repeat in the SEC title game. Bye week, last time we had a bye, we responded with our worst game of the season. Cannot afford that vs the Dawgs. Offensive Player of the Game Arch Manning had his best day as a Horn. 328 yards passing, 25 of 33 passing with three touchdowns and no turnovers. And he looked great doing it, he stood strong in the pocket, completed passes under duress against a good Vandy D. This was Arch’s 2nd back-to-back 300 yard games. Honorable Mention: The Vth, Emmitt Mosley V has become Arch’s favorite weapon and led all TEXAS pass catchers with seven catches, averaging 10 yards a catch and a Touchdown. It should have been two had he not been held in the end zone. Defensive Player of the Game Collin Simmons, who set the tone early in the game, recorded a sack, a forced fumble, and the fumble recovery on one play. The All-American candidate did nothing to diminish his quest, and we’re thrilled we have him for one more year. Special Teams Player of the Game Jack Bouwmeeter, our Aussie punter, only had one try, and he made it count, burying Vandy at their 11. Wasn’t his fault the D gave up 4th and 19. Stats that Matter · 7 of 11 TEXAS on 3rd down, the best performance so far vs a team with a pulse · 4 of 5 TEXAS red zone TD production, they would also record a FG · 22-1 Sark’s record at TEXAS when scoring 1st · ZERO Arch was not sacked in the game · 5 TEXAS sacked Pavia 5 times On Deck The Horns have the bye week to recover and to prepare. TEXAS will come off the bye to face Top 5-ranked Georgia between the hedges. This will mark the 2nd match-up this year vs a Top 5 team so far this season, to go with two games vs Top 10 teams before wrapping up the year with Top 5 Aggies (that sucks to type), who come to Austin to wrap up the season. TEXAS wins out; they are a playoff team, but they cannot afford to lose any of the next three games. Win out and TEXAS may have a shot at a home playoff game, which would be sweet. The Horns would need a bunch of help to get to the SEC title game. Making the playoffs would mean a successful season. Highlights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlDp7IBOluw

Agreed. Need to take a guy that will be happy to be at Texas, bet on himself and potentially develop

Obviously Akina isn’t a long term solution for many reasons.

The fact that we never covered stowers who was their best receiving threat is simply unbelievable. He was wide open all the time. Terrible game plan

Given Akina’s history, I doubt he is calling this much zone. Akina (and Nansen for that matter) believe in man coverage. PK is your zone man. The only reason to play zone against Vandy is to keep eyes on Pavia. That doesn’t mean that you have to play so far off receivers though.

That 4th and 19 conversion from the Vandy 1 really was disappointing. Not sure how that can even happen.

From what I understand PK calls the defense, the secondary coordinator is in charge of the alignments and coverages on the back end. Requires good coordination between the two units. Missing players shouldn’t excuse poor basic zone play.

That’s awesome. My dad is 85 and listens to coffee everyday. That’s my goal.

Lots of cash is winning if he manages it well. These kids are going to work at 18. I think grabbing the bag and going to Tech at this point is very smart.

Texas HS football legend redefines success in life after the game https://share.google/KqXOLnkwKopY2eSzz

This was also a big factor in the Mississippi State comeback

One thing that jumped out at me that makes total sense which I've not seen discussed yet: Our RB's chipped well on their blitzing defenders to give Arch ample time to get past 1st and many times 2nd reads. Having Baxter fully back to add depth to that spot was instrumental. https://youtu.be/OIzSev3fbCk?si=uAcCUkrNd5NNsdlp

You're just a kid. (I'm 73)

Kirk was writing for the Daily Texan when I was in school there. His stuff has baffled me over the years.

Consistently giving 8 yard cushions while playing bail technique is on the coaches. PK automatically playing prevent defense when we have anything more than a 7 point lead is coaching. PK just plays soft in the secondary.

At the end of the season yes.

Yeah freeze is a dead man walking

Unpopular take: I’ll let Sark and PK figure it out.

It also doesn’t seem Derek Williams is back to 100% or to the level he was playing at last year

Three weeks ago four weeks ago, he praised the defense how great they are now they’re trash, my goodness