Five Thoughts After Beating USC

– Will Baizer

What a win! Texas gets the 900th program win against the USC Trojans in front of a raucous crowd of 103,507! Here are a few thoughts of mine coming away from the game.

1. This is a great program win.

This weekend Texas was hosting 60 recruits. They were on prime time television that has been hyped all week long. The fact that they came out a clobbered USC is a big win in not just the record books but also for perception.

2. However, I’m not sure USC is the real deal.

While it was a great win, both of these teams came into the game with reservations about their program. This could be the last season for Clay Helton as USC fans are livid, and the Trojans are projected to win seven games this season.

I was unimpressed with their offensive line (and more unimpressed with Texas struggling at time to get a pass rush against it), they are obviously hurting in the secondary, and their running back corps seemed to be missing their usual punch.

I’ll be keeping an eye on them this season, but wouldn’t be surprised if it was like Notre Dame in 2016.

3. Nonetheless, Todd Orlando executed what he wanted to do perfectly.

Texas’ MO on defense is to stop the run and pressure the QB on passing downs. They did this by exploiting the flaws in USC’s offense. The main flaw being their offensive line. I’m sure you’ve seen this stat, but Texas held USC to 26 yards on the ground (not including the sack yardage lost). Texas had eleven tackles for loss and three sacks. Todd Orlando took advantage of USC’s immobile freshman QB and forced him to try to throw over the top of the Texas secondary on the run. While he did end up getting 322 yards through the air, Texas was completely fine with this. As long as they stopped the run, they were fine with letting JT try to beat them because they knew he couldn’t.

4. Texas’ offense wasn’t flashy, but it was what they want.

Looks like Texas has an identity on offense and they flaunted it tonight. Lean heavily on the run with QB runs as well, then when the defense focuses there toss it up to one of the playmakers on the outside. USC was playing into this as well as they let Sam have some free lanes and played one-on-one to the outside wide receivers more times than not.

While Sam Ehlinger may not have been very accurate on the stat sheet, I was fine with it. The stat book looks the way it does due to the number of shots he took downfield to the wide receivers who were one-on-one. He protected the rock well, was effective with his throws, and made some great decisions throwing downfield.

Lil’Jordan Humphrey is the real deal. The guy moves like he’s a 5’10” slot receiver with his fluidity, but has the size and strength of his 6’5” build. Texas is really understanding what type of weapon he is, and he’s rewarding them for it.

Tre Watson was a great pick up in the off-season. I shudder to think what this offense might have been without him. He’s been very serviceable and reliable.

5. Texas has a kicker

Tonight was like finding an oasis in a desert of sub-par field goal kickers. Being able to make a 46-yard kick to put the team up going into halftime was huge. Not to mention the three kicks he had beforehand.

Again, it was an awesome win for Texas. Fans should relish it, but I think next week vs TCU should be a better measure of where this team is.

Post USC Recruiting Updates

– The Football Brainiacs

🤫 — Bryan Carrington (@BCarringtonUT) September 16, 2018

*** Bryan Carrington sent out the commitment notification.

As you all should be aware of by now, that “shh” was for Derrian Brown, the 2019 running back out of Georgia

Brown is the first running back in the 2019 class to commit to the Longhorns.

*** I checked with a source on how things went with Trey Sanders. Remember, that while I was in Georgia a source out there told me Texas quietly leads?

I asked a source about Sanders visit and the response I received was…

”I think we got him”.

Stay tuned here as Texas has positioned themselves very well in his recruitment at this time.

*** Marcus Washington clearly enjoyed the visit, this weekend. I touched base with his father as they headed home and he said they will return to TX for the Red River game in Dallas.

We will have much more on Marcus later as well as updates from a bunch of other recruits who were in attendance for the game!