The Texas Longhorns lost in deflating fashion to the Oklahoma Sooners. It was deflating because the Longhorns defense had seemingly no answer for the Sooners’ offensive attack.
Somehow Texas found itself in the game late. And while handed a gift, the team couldn’t capitalize.
Saturday’s matchup came down to a handful of plays, including Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers’ three turnovers. His near flawless play outside of those plays, 31-for-37 for 346 passing yards by the game’s end, helped the Longhorns back in to the game. Albeit, struggles in one particular category played a huge role in the game.
Texas went 1-for-3 in red zone scoring opportunities finishing with 3 points in the red zone. Oklahoma went 6-for-6 in the red zone with 34 points. If it felt like the Longhorns were getting blown out until late in the game, the 31-point disparity in the red zone is a huge reason why.
The way in which Oklahoma attacks is different than how Texas plays in the red zone. The Sooners step up to the line with confidence that they will exploit the defense with some sort of schematic advantage.
On the other side, Texas approaches seemingly unsure of itself. It has the look of a pitcher down in a 3-1 count simply trying to sneak a fastball over the plate.
As brilliant as head coach Steve Sarkisian has been for this offense, the Texas red zone attack was unimaginative on Saturday. It did not match what Oklahoma brought to the game.
Sarkisian may not need to dig deeper into his red zone bag, however, to find plays that more guarantee success. The Longhorns might simply need to drill down fundamental plays to look as confident as the Sooners were on Saturday. They need to attack without any doubt they are going to score. They need to execute.
Oklahoma won the red zone battle 34-3. It converted 6 of 6 red zone tries to the Longhorns’ 1-for-3 day that netted only a field goal. Texas lost 34-30.
If Sarkisian and company can simply bridge the red zone gap, his squad could look more like the Big 12 championship team we expected it to be before the game last week.