View from the Cheap Seats-tOSU

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The View from the Cheap Seats-tOSU

The Stage was Too Big

 

Same story, different season for Sark and the Horns.   When matched against similar talent and coaching staffs, Sark reverted to form and turtled up.   The hype and the pressure was clearly too much for Sark, Arch, and the offense.   The same things we saw against Georgia twice last year and Ohio State in the playoffs: dumb penalties, turnovers (well, just 1), the same abandoning of creative play calling.   On the positive side of the ledger, the D came to play.   This team will go as far as the D carries us in 2025, which isn’t a bad thing.   Now in his 5th season at TEXAS, Sark has one win over an equally manned, equally coached team, and that was Bama on the road 2 years ago.

Don’t worry, the hype machine will crank back up as TEXAS now faces 3 tomato cans in a row, then a bye week before a road trip to play the Gators.   Gators are a good team but not in the Buckeye’s league.   All 3 games at home where the stats can be padded and for everyone to forget letting victory escape in Ohio.   Props to tOSU, they were the better team and outcoached the Horns.    

Glass half empty

Let us open the Cheap Seats with our frustrations.   And we’ll start with Sark’s largely inept play calling.   Where was the motion?   Against a top-flight D, where was the misdirection?   Why did we not use scheme and formation to put them off balance?   Or down in the Red Zone, where we failed to score a point on 2 drives?   Not scoring Red Zone TDs cost us the SEC and National titles last year and clearly still an issue.   Our lone TD pass came from outside the Red Zone, FYI.   We do NOT fault Sark for going for it on either 4th down.   Honestly, did anyone know we were not going to QB sneak the ball from the 1-foot line?     We do fault all eight of our play calls, each of which played into the strength of their D.    Sark did run the TE screen and it worked great.   Worked so well he never used the play again.

No way to spin it, Sark continues to come up short on the biggest of stages.   We expect he takes a 1-loss team between the hedges with another crack at Georgia.   The good news is that this team will be more battle-tested.   Sark’s grade for the offensive game plan is a D.   Not unlike the last game with tOSU, we had the chance to win, but we failed to execute/play our best.

Bombs away on 1st down is back, putting the Horns behind the chains.  

Our offensive line remains a bit of a work in progress.   Not unexpected.

The defensive grade is a A-, the minus due to the lack of pass rush we put on their 1st time starting QB.

For the first time since 2014, the #1 team in the nation was shut out in the first half, an ignominious distinction the Horns now own.

We have always told it like it is in the Cheap Seats; we saw why Arch was not the starter last year.  We felt sorry for the kid; he didn't have a good game by any stretch.     He will learn from this, he will grow from this. 

And last on the list were the mistakes.  It seemed that every time we did something right, we would get penalized by TOSU. We had two false starts (more problems from last year) and gifted the Bucks their TD drive. We were lining up to take the punt when a personal foul occurred, giving them a 1st down on the 1st TD drive.   Kinda hard to miss when you rip the defender's helmet off.    Buckeyes countered with a clean game.

Glass half full

Coach K and the defense.    We’d have bet the house had you told us we’d hold them to 14 points.  This team goes as deep into the playoffs as Coach K and crew will carry us.

How good was the TEXAS D you ask?    tOSU only crossed the 50 twice in the game.

The two shining stars of the D were the transfer defensive tackles who had a great game and true freshman Graceson Littleton.   Where did he come from?   No wonder Coach Akina wanted to come back to add to DB-U’s .    Smith was the best player in the nation?   Coach K and company said “we’ll play him every week”.    Shut down again by Coach K.

The leading returning rusher in the SEC picked up where he left off from last season.   Tre Wisner racked up 80 yards against a tough tOSU front and ran HARD.   Speaking of running backs, Cedric Baxter showed us why he has been hyped.  Welcome back after losing back-to-back seasons to brutal knee injuries.   And we should mention, a key block on a blitzing LB that appeared to have a straight shot to Arch until Ced stonewalled him.  The block led to one of the best completions of the day for Arch-to-Livingstone, a combo we think we hear often the next two seasons.

TE Jack Endries, our transfer from Cal, with 50 yards to lead all pass catchers, and True Sophomore WR Paker Livingstone flashed with a great TD grab.  Not surprising given the reports on the two of them coming out of Fall drills.

Hello punting game.   We love Aussie punters.

Arch was intercepted.   Why is that good?   Get it out of the way.

Arch’s early Heisman hype is done.  Why is that good?   It’s about winning, not awards.

Team #1 ranking is gone.   Why is that good?   From #1, no place to go but down.   Now they can focus on climbing back up.

Make no mistake, this team was always going to be better in November than September.   Not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, all the makings of a great season are ahead of the Horns.

Net Net

Largely, a speed bump on the way to the playoffs.   TEXAS will lose its #1 ranking, so what?  Not a conference game, so it does not impact a shot at automatically qualifying for the playoffs.   It does cut the margin of error pretty dramatically as the Horns now have a “game to give” if the playoffs are the goal.   Short of winning the conference, 3-loss teams don’t make the playoffs.  Miss the playoffs, and it would be hard not to describe the season as anything but a failure given the hype.

Offensive Player of the Game:

Tre Wisner had an excellent game against a tough defense. TEXAS now knows it can run the ball. 80 yards on 16 carries with a 5 ypc average.   Against a good D, we’ll take it.

Defensive Player of the Game

Graceson Littleton announced his presence with authority.

Special teams player of the Game

Punter Jack Bouwmeester pinned the Buckeyes inside their 10 twice and made sure TEXAS won the field position battle.

Stats that Matter

• 5-14 on 3rd down-not our standard on offense
• 1-5 on 4th down-with these stats, not shocked we lost
• 3-12 on 3rd down-OUTSTANDING by the D stuffing tOSU drives, Championship football
• 6-50   Penalties, the worst part, many of them bailed tOSU out and kept their drives alive

On Deck

Texas has a home date against the San Jose State Spartans to release some of their frustrations.  We hope we do not see Arch on a called rush in the game; that we work on the run game, and we work on getting Arch in a rhythm early.    With 2 more tomato cans on deck after the Spartans, we’d love to see Arch give way in the middle of the 3rd, but hope he doesn't take a 4th-quarter snap in the month of September.   These next three games should be games we get a great deal of reps for 2nd and 3rd level players, we will need as the season continues.  If you look at the season in thirds, we face Florida on the road after the bye, then the RRW before road trips to Kentucky and Mississippi State, before facing Vanderbilt at DKR, the middle of the season.   It will be a tough road stretch against teams we should beat, but none of them are tomato cans.

Then a bye week before Georgia on the road, and the close of the season.

 

Game Highlights (low lights)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcGN5jyC2yM