Texas Longhorns College Football Preview 2021: Keys To The Season
Texas Longhorns Biggest Key: Offense
Will Texas start doing more to control the ball and the clock? Alabama with Steve Sarkisian as the offensive coordinator certainly struck quickly and had a whole lot of flash, but it also managed to maintain control to slow things down a wee bit after getting a lead. The Tide kept the ball for almost 31 minutes per game.
Texas kept it for about 31 minutes a game in 2019, but last year it struggled to convert on third downs, wasn’t quite consistent enough over all, and only had possession for 27:48 per game.
The Longhorns have a solid D, but it won’t be 2019 Alabama. The coaching staff isn’t going to let the O go 100 miles per hour, although it’ll be tempting at times.
Texas Longhorns Biggest Key: Defense
Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone wants to force takeaways, but it’s insane how much it mattered to Texas over the last few years when it forced multiple turnovers.
Again, yeah, yeah, yeah – come up with three takeaways and you probably win, but it’s more than that. The Longhorns were feast-or-famine last year, coming up with three or more turnovers in five games going 4-1 – the crazy game with Oklahoma was the outlier. The D came up with just two takeaways in the other five games.
Texas lost the turnover battle three times and dropped two of those games including to TCU and Iowa State.
By the way, Texas is 12-1 since 2016 when it comes up with three or more takeaways.
Texas Longhorns Key Player To A Successful Season
QB Casey Thompson, Jr. or Hudson Card, Soph.
This is a veteran team that has a chance to get to the Big 12 Championship if everything breaks right. It’s going to take a huge year from the quarterbacks – and the staff that knows how to coach up quarterbacks – to do it.
Sam Ehlinger was better than he ever got credit for. He threw 94 touchdown passes, ran for 33, was the definition of gutty, and did everything possible for the program over his four seasons at the helm.
No, he didn’t get the job done when it came to winning Big 12 championships and getting the Longhorns into the College Football Playoff, but he won plenty of big games.
Thompson and Card are extremely talented and ready to take over.
If spring ball was any indication, it’s Thompson’s gig going into the season. However, Card was a big recruit with the mobility and high end passing skills to get more of an honest shot with the new staff in fall camp.
Texas Longhorns Key Game To The 2021 Season
at Iowa State, Nov. 6
If Texas really is good enough to be Texas right out of the gate for the Steve Sarkisian era, this is a two game season. It has to beat either Oklahoma or Iowa State and both games are away from Austin.
Obviously the base will demand a win over the Sooners, and obviously that’s a neutral site game, but the Iowa State has to go to Norman. The Longhorns lost the last two years to the Cyclones, and that’s just not the way things are supposed to work.
Lose to OU? Okay, it might be the preseason No. 1 team and definitely top five. Iowa State might be preseason top ten – or higher – but the balance of Big 12 power can’t be partially residing in Ames.
– Texas Longhorns Schedule Breakdown & Analysis
2020 Texas Longhorns Fun Stats
– Punt Return Average: Opponents 9.1 yards – Texas 3.1 yards
– Sacks: Opponents 23 for 143 yards – Texas 17 for 123 yards
– Time of Possession: Opponents 32:12 – Texas 27:48