Texas is determined to 'go up and be consistent' heading into the Kentucky game

On the eve of No. 21 Texas attempting to build on winning last Saturday’s 23-6 fist fight with Oklahoma when it faces Kentucky on the road (6 p.m., ESPN), what Colin Simmons said on Monday stands out as the theme of the week for Steve Sarkisian’s team.

Texas (4-2, 1-1 SEC) wants its suffocation of the Sooners to be the jumping-off point to a prosperous second half of the regular season. Coming off of his most productive game of the season (five tackles and 2.5 sacks), Simmons, who was named SEC Co-Defensive Lineman of the Week for his performance in the win over Oklahoma, was blunt in his response when asked about the challenge of maintaining the mental approach the Longhorns carried into the Red River Shootout.

“Well, I'll let you know this right now: We're not here for the emotional roller coaster. We're not here to go up and down,” Simmons said. “We're only here to go up and be consistent.”

Simmons, along with the other Texas players who met with the media on Monday, and Sarkisian referred to Saturday’s meeting with the Wildcats as “an SEC Championship Game.” While that might sound disingenuous on the surface, the mantra speaks to the Longhorns' understanding that a loss to Kentucky (2-3, 0-3) would all but put an end to their hopes of returning to Atlanta for the second consecutive season.

A start to Saturday’s game that mirrors what happened when Texas got itself into an early 10-0 hole in Gainesville on Oct. 4 (Florida hung on for a 29-21 win that knocked the Longhorns out of the Associated Press Top 25) is one from which the Longhorns might not recover. Mark Stoops has had better teams than the one he’ll lead onto Kroger Field. Still, the Wildcats’ potential to successfully utilize a ground-and-pound style of offense (Kentucky averages 159.4 yards per game and 4.22 yards per attempt on the ground) is the kind of attack capable of protecting a lead.

According to College Football Data, the Wildcats average 3.2 line yards per carry, which ranks fifth in the SEC. According to the metric, which distributes a percentage of the credit for an offense’s rushing yards to the offensive line, the Kentucky offensive line gets the job done in the running game better than all but four lines in the conference.

For all of the talk about the Texas offense needing to start fast, the defense’s job is just as important in that regard.

“We've got to come out and stop the run,” defensive tackle Hero Kanu said on Monday. “That's, obviously, the mindset we’ve got to have.”

In the loss to the Gators, Florida gained 94 of its 159 rushing yards in the first quarter. If the Longhorns can replicate what it did against the Sooners — the defense allowed only 80 sack-adjusted rushing yards (3.2 yards per attempt) and, once Texas grabbed the lead in the second half, turned up the heat on John Mateer to the tune of five sacks — it will go a long way toward making sure the team returns home with all of its goals intact.

“We've got to force them to have third-and-longs,” Kanu said. “We've got to stop them on first and second down. That's really the mindset we have and we know what we've got to do.”