AUSTIN, Texas — For the second straight scrimmage during preseason camp, the Texas Longhorns defense got the best of the offense at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in a 120-play game simulation impacted by brutal heat as the temperature on Campbell-Williams Field reached closed to 150 degrees.
During a Monday media availability, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian expounded on the areas that his team needs to improve upon before the 2:30 p.m. Central kickoff against Texas State on Sept. 5.
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“What I was trying to get at Saturday from an offensive perspective, it felt a little, I guess, lethargic is the best word for what we’ve been in practice, for how good of a week they had, and so we’ve got to do a better job from an offensive coach’s perspective of making sure the mentality is right when we’re in those conditions,” Sarkisian said.
With a current forecast high of 99 degrees for the opener, the heat will only be slightly less intense, increasing the already high level of scrutiny on the team’s depth that the Longhorns will need against the Bobcats to keep players fresh, including for the high-profile tilt against the Buckeyes the following week.
Missed assignments were also an issue for the offense, ranging from improperly alignment to blocking the wrong person to running the wrong route or the right route at the wrong depth.
“Things that we have done well for two and a half weeks time, and all of a sudden we got into that arena and we made some some mistakes that were uncharacteristic to us, so we’ve got to get to the bottom of that,” Sarkisian said.
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The MAs weren’t the only mental mistakes on Sarkisian’s side of the ball, either.
“Too many times — I use the term we played mindless football offensively — we were running plays rather than playing football in a competitive setting, playing the game of football. It’s different when you’re in practice and it’s all scripted, and you run the play, whatever happens, the ball goes to the right hash, and you run the next play,” Sarkisian said.
“When you get into a scrimmage, you’re trying to make it as game-like as possible — there’s consequences for not doing things right. It may be a sack, it may be a false start, it may be a missed block, whatever that looks like. We we can’t play mindless football when we get into scrimmage and game settings. We need to apply the game to the play and the play to the game.”
The offense also left some plays on the field as the quarterbacks missed opportunities for explosive pass plays.
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And even though the defense won the scrimmage, coordinator Will Muschamp’s group is still going through some growing pains after losing key communicator Michael Taaffe to the NFL. In one notable play, junior wide receiver Emmett Mosley got turned lose in the red zone because defenders were playing different coverages, the type of mistake that happened far too frequently late last season and contributed to the firings of coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski and defensive passing game coordinator Duane Akina.
“From a defensive perspective, as good as the day was, our ability to communicate has got to got to continue to improve. We’ve all got to be on the same page,” Sarkisian said.
In the first scrimmage, another apparent coverage bust led to a long touchdown catch by junior wide receiver Ryan Wingo.
The communication element extends to the ability to align quickly when opponents use tempo, which happens less frequently as many offenses have gone away from the hurry-up, no-huddle approach that took college football by storm a generation ago, but every team uses situationally.
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Now in the midst of mock game week, the Longhorns have survived the grind of preseason camp, and have some time to recover, but the team remains a work in progress as the nation’s most difficult schedule looms.
“Fatigue makes cowards of us all, and so we’ve got to trust our physical and mental conditioning that we can perform under those elements and and do our job, and we didn’t do it well enough Saturday to what we’re capable of doing,” Sarkisian said.
