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Collecting all the post-game analysis articles, including those behind paywalls, regarding the UK game here:

(Gerald Goodridge) No. 21 Texas 16, Kentucky 13: Three things we learned

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Ugly may not be strong enough of a word to describe the No. 21 Texas Longhorns’ efforts in their win over the Kentucky Wildcats. Texas looked hapless on offense until the very end, nearly blowing a sure thing in overtime after needing just a field goal to win the game in the extra period. The passing game was out of sync, and the run game was something even worse than failure-to-launch.

The offense is not fixed

It looked like the offense may have found a recipe for success against the Oklahoma Sooners, but it looked like its typical listless self in Lexington. Texas started the game with three consecutive punts, only breaking the trend thanks to a massive punt return from Ryan Niblett that set them up with a short field. Texas was somehow worse in the second half, with three of their first four drives going three-and-out for one yard. Just two drives in the second half ended with points, both of which were field goals. One had one chunk play — a 31-yard pass to Emmett Mosley — and the other was set up by Ryan Niblett’s second big return of the night. Even on that final offensive drive of regulation, the offense made a crucial mental error, with DeAndre Moore going out of bounds to stop the clock and give Kentucky enough time to tie the game up in regulation.

This defense deserves better

The Texas defense did enough in regulation to beat Kentucky. Pete Kwiatkowski’s unit forced the Wildcats to punt on six of their drives, keeping a clean sheet for the first half, with a turnover on downs, three punts, an interception, and a missed field goal. Colin Simmons and Anthony Hill played like men possessed, with Hill finishing the game with 12 tackles and an interception and Simmons with three sacks and a forced fumble.

The unit sputtered a bit late, but they were rightfully gassed in the second half, with Kentucky massively controlling the time of possession, ending regulation with an almost 19-minute advantage in time of possession, running 81 plays to Texas’s 52. Despite that, the defense came up with stop after stop in the second half, sending Kentucky off the field without points on three of their five drives to close regulation. They did it again in overtime, after allowing a big chunk play to set up UK in scoring position, but stonewalled them on the goal line to set up the game-winning field goal.

Texas needs answers on the ground

While Quintrevion Wisner looked solid a week ago against Oklahoma, that seemed to be an apparition based on what Texas managed in Lexington. Texas put together just 50 yards by its running backs with 15 carries, averaging just 3.3 yards per carry in the contest. The Longhorns went 1-4 on downs when they needed two or fewer to convert and were stuffed on 32% of their carries. They were 0-4 on third and shorts, with just 18 yards on the ground on third downs, converting just one by rush. The offensive line looked exceedingly average against a Kentucky defense giving up an average of 192.66 yards in its three SEC games this year. Texas put up fewer yards on the ground than both Toledo and Eastern Michigan did against Kentucky, a simple summation of how bad things were.

Chip Brown: Quick Takes from Texas' 16-13 overtime victory at Kentucky

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — Just when you thought the Texas offense had found some rhythm with a short-passing game and a commitment to the run in a win over Oklahoma, Steve Sarkisian returned to a slow-developing, deep passing attack that hadn't worked all season behind a flawed offensive line. It didn't work again Saturday night at Kentucky in a 16-13 overtime win at Kentucky in a game in which Texas' offense regressed to its early-season ineptitude.

Instead, it was Kentucky using a quick passing game to its running backs, attacking the perimeter of Texas' defense with an occasional drag route across the middle to pile up yards and time of possession between the 20s before stalling. The result was an overtime game on a Saturday full of upsets.

Thanks to a Mark Stoops' decision to go for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1 in overtime, and a goal-line stand led by Travis Shaw, Michael Taaffe and Liona Lefau as well as a clutch, 45-yard field goal by Mason Shipley in OT, Texas escaped Lexington with a 13-10 win for its first victory in a true road game this season. But if not for a bending-but-not-breaking Texas defense, led by three sacks from Colin Simmons and the goal-line stand in overtime, as well as two big punt returns by Ryan Niblett of 45 yards to the UK 5, setting up a 1-yard Quintrevion Wisner TD run in the first half, and of 43 yards to the UK 42 with 2:36 left to play, the Longhorns would've had no way of moving the ball into scoring position because UT's offense was so inept. Even on the first play of overtime, Texas' Brandon Baker was flagged for holding, forcing Shipley's game-winning field goal to be from 45 yards.

— After completing 21-of-27 last week in a win over Oklahoma, Arch Manning was back to struggling with inaccuracy, finishing 12-of-27 (44%) for 132 yards. Manning missed Ryan Wingo on a couple third-down throws from the pocket in the first half and missed a wide-open Jack Endries 15 yards downfield at the UK 25 from the pocket in the third quarter. Manning missed Emmett Mosley IV on a third-and-5 slant in the fourth quarter with pressure in his face. He threw a ball in the dirt to Wingo on a crosser midway through the fourth quarter.

Manning finally hit a clutch throw to DeAndre Moore for 9 yards on third-and-7 with 1:39 left to the UK 30. But two plays later, Moore caught a pass on second-and-10 and ran out of bounds after a 9-yard gain instead of sliding in bounds and forcing Kentucky to use its final timeout. On third-and-1, Manning couldn't gain a yard, forcing Mason Shipley to kick a 39-yard field goal with 57 seconds left. That was enough time for Kentucky go 46 yards in seven plays and kick a 45-yard field goal to tie the game with :09 left, sending the game into overtime.

— Kentucky's defense had so much success attacking the left interior of Texas' offensive line (right between LG Nick Brooks and C Connor Robertson) that by the time Texas absolutely needed to complete some passes in the fourth quarter, Manning was under siege and seemingly losing confidence by the drive. It's crazy, but Manning seems more accurate throwing the ball when he's on the move than he is throwing from the pocket.

— Kentucky had given up 220 yards rushing on 48 carries to Ole Miss; 131 yards rushing on 30 carries to Eastern Michigan; 178 yards rushing on 48 carries to South Carolina; and 180 yards on 44 carries to Georgia. Texas finished with 47 yards rushing on 28 carries (1.7 ypc). Let that sink in for a second. Texas' inability to sustain any kind of offense resulted in the Texas defense had been on the field almost twice as long (39:23) as the Texas offense (20:37). Kentucky ran 88 plays to Texas' 55 and outgained the Longhorns 395 yards to 179.

 

  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted

(Ian Boyd) Five quick thoughts: Texas needs overtime in Kentucky

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Once again, the Longhorns found winning on the road in the SEC against a physical team to be quite the challenge. Texas rarely held the ball and seldom did anything when they did while Kentucky was allowed to hammer away at the vaunted Longhorn defense with double teams and check down passes. Eventually a lack of scoring by Texas allowed Kentucky to force overtime at home.

Unfortunately for the Wildcats, all of their long drives didn’t amount to much actual scoring. A terrific goal line stand by the Texas defense thwarted Kentucky’s overtime possession while the WIldcats’ possessions in regulation mostly stalled out before any damage could be done. And so, Texas survived for another week to get to 5-2 overall (one win from bowl eligibility!) and 2-1 in SEC play. Steve Sarkisian now gets another week to rethink offense and try to get Texas back on track.

Quick thought no. 1: Sark did not stick to the OU blueprint

Interestingly enough, with Oklahoma safely subdued, Sark went back to the previous style of offense. Despite turning to a new center, the Longhorns pulled from a deep bag of different run game schemes and overall formations. The results looked similar to how they looked executing this grab bag offense against other opponents.

It was deep into the game before Texas dialed up the outside zone play which was so profitable against Oklahoma. Instead Texas tried to attack the Kentucky fronts with a variety of inside zone, counter gap schemes, and a heavy dose of power sweeps to the perimeter. With the more varied approach to offense we saw a return to the sloppiness and struggles of the other games.

The Longhorns ran the ball to backs Tre Wisner and Christian Clark 15 times for just 59 yards at 3.9 ypc. Arch Manning was asked on multiple occasions to try and pick up the load but the quarterback run game was sloppier still and plagued by missed assignments and a lack of surprise. Without a run game to bank on, Texas’ protections struggled. Manning was sacked three times, hurried seven more, and took several hits while acquiring some fresh cuts and bruises.

This is not a sustainable way for Texas to play offense this season without incurring some losses or getting Manning injured. They are not skilled and effective enough to execute a larger array of offensive schemes and gameplans, this unit needs the offense to be pared down like it was against the Sooners.

Quick thought no. 2: Niblett wins at Churchill Downs

Texas would surely have lost this game if not for a pair of Ryan Niblett punt returns that created two scoring chances. The increasingly impactful speedster had returns of 45 yards and 43 yards to set up Texas’ sole touchdown and a field goal. Mason Shipley was also crucial to Texas’ win with field goals of 53, 39, and 45 yards, including the game-winner in overtime. 

Punter Jack Bouwmeester was also important to this win with eight punts for 336 yards which pinned the Wildcats inside the 20 six times and included three punts of 50+ yards. This was a defense and special teams win for the Longhorns. The offense did very little to contribute to victory other than avoiding turnovers. The special teams and defense controlled field position and raised the bar too high for Kentucky to clear.

Quick thought no. 3: Ball control vs bend don’t break

Pete Kwiatkowski’s bend-don’t-break defensive stylings met their match in Kentucky’s ball control offense in this contest. The Wildcats held the ball for 39:23 of the game before overtime and they ran 85 plays for 395 yards at 4.6 ypp compared to Texas 52 plays for 171 yards at 3.3 ypp. This also included 26 first downs by the Kentucky offense to just eight for Texas in regulation. Third downs were somehow more even with Kentucky going a modest 7-18 while Texas was 5-15.

So it wasn’t a defensive failing per say that allowed Kentucky to dominate the ball so thoroughly. The short fields enabled by Niblett’s punt returns was an additional factor. However, PK’s bend don’t break approach definitely does not pair well with a high volume of three’n’out possessions of the sort Sark’s offense was generating in this game.

It’s clearly possible to get double teams and push the Texas defense around some this season, but it’s not very efficient in terms of scoring. Texas’ struggles to keep track of Cutter Boley on the scramble is one of the only factors that kept Kentuky in the game. Anthony Hill had 12 tackles on the day with an interception and a break up while Colin Simmons had another huge day with three total sacks, one of which forced a fumble that Kentucky recovered.

It was more of the same in overtime. A perimeter screen out-leveraged the Longhorns outside to get the ball down near the goal line before the Longhorns flooded the field with big humans and stuffed four consecutive attempts by the Wildcats to push the ball across. This was an outstanding defensive performance by the Longhorns to bail the offense out of an abysmal road showing.

Quick thought no. 4: Arch Manning on the road

Arch Manning will inevitably take a lot of the blame for Texas’ malaise on offense. There were multiple occasions where we saw glimpses of earlier season Manning, such as when he threw a few open crossers at Ryan Wingo’s feet or sailed a ball over a wide open Jack Endries‘ head.

Manning also had pressure in his face early and often, had no run game to support his efforts, and still manaaged to hang in and deliver a few big throws down the stretch to help secure the win. One throw was a sideline toss which resulted in DeAndre Moore going out of bounds, stopping the clock and buying time for the Wildcats to launch their best drive of the game and force overtime. Why Texas was throwing to the sideline in that context, I couldn’t tell you. It set up a 3rd-and-short where another poorly executed quarterback run was stuffed, forcing a Texas field goal with nearly a full minute left for Kentucky.

A lot of this season has resembled some moments from early in 2010 when Texas tried to mix in a pro-style run game with the old spread sets with Garrett Gilbert at the helm, did none of it particularly well, and buried their young signal-caller under the pressure of trying to carry it all. Manning has stood taller than Gilbert that year and generated a lot more wins. He also has a better defense helping him stave off disaster. Still, it’s hard not to notice the similarities in how a highly touted young passer has been set up to fail by the surrounding structure at Texas.

Overall, this was a gutsy performance on the road by Manning but not a good one other than his ability to avoid turnovers. He finished 12-27 for 132 yards at a dismal 4.9 ypa with 11 carries in the run game for -1 yards. Sark needs to get him back into a coherent offense with a functioning run game.

Quick thought no. 5: Texas has the wrong sort of identity

The Longhorn identity this season has been to play outstanding defense every week and stumble their way on offense to a middling performance that’s either just enough or not quite. That’s not the identity Texas was aiming to create this season, nor the one we anticipated this offseason, but seven games in they’ve been pretty consistent in this description. Sark brings pretty different gameplans from week to week, a collection of various plays that don’t overlap much with one another.

This offensive line and tight end group is not old or skilled enough to execute it all and so we see wild fluctuations between competence and penalty-ridden disasters from play to play. I’m not sure why Sark didn’t take the success against Oklahoma as an indicator to change his approach and opt for more consistency in scheme and system. It feels like he’s trying to play-call his way through it all until Texas can start to catch up on offense. This road game, as well some of the results this weekend in which Texas’ next two opponents (Mississippi State and Vanderbilt) showed a lot of competence, suggest a third loss is likely to win the race against the Longhorn offense.

Sam Khan Jr.: No. 21 Texas survives Kentucky in OT despite lackluster offensive showing

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Texas escaped a rock fight with Kentucky on Saturday night, squeezing out a 16-13 overtime road SEC win after a stellar defensive effort and a game-winning field goal from Mason Shipley. The win keeps the No. 21 Longhorns’ slim College Football Playoff hopes alive, a week after Texas (5-2, 2-1 SEC) toppled rival Oklahoma.

Texas held Kentucky (2-4, 0-4) to just 4.6 yards per play and one touchdown, enabling an anemic Longhorns’ offense to do just enough to escape Lexington with the victory. Texas’ defense racked up 11 tackles for loss, five sacks, an interception and produced a critical goal-line stand in overtime when Kentucky opted against a field goal and went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1.

That stop made the offense’s job academic: don’t turn it over and let Shipley do the rest, which he did, connecting on a 45-yard field goal to send Texas home victorious. The Longhorns are relieved to leave Lexington with a win, and they should be. SEC road wins are usually difficult, regardless of records. But the victory also laid bare glaring issues and leaves fans and alumni wondering: Why does Texas’ offense look so inept?

Texas gained just 179 yards on Saturday, the lowest offensive yardage output of the 62-game Steve Sarkisian era. It was only the second time in Sarkisian’s five seasons at Texas that the Longhorns failed to reach 200 yards. Their previous low was a 199-yard showing in a 17-10 home loss to TCU in 2022. The running game was virtually nonexistent. Texas finished with just 47 rushing yards and averaged 1.7 yards per attempt.

Running backs Quintrevion Wisner and Christian Clark combined for 15 carries and just 50 yards. The passing game never got into a rhythm, as quarterback Arch Manning finished 12-of-27 passing for 132 yards and no touchdown passes. He distributed the ball to seven receivers, but none reached 40 receiving yards on Saturday.

And the offensive line had its hands full again, as it has often this year. The Longhorns’ line, which was shorthanded without starting center Cole Hutson and guard Connor Stroh, allowed three sacks and seven quarterback hurries on Saturday night. Texas has allowed quarterback pressure on 42.4 percent of dropbacks this season, which is the fifth-highest rate in the country, according to TruMedia.

Why the Longhorns’ offense is struggling

How is this the offense that Sarkisian, one of the most respected offensive minds in the sport, has produced in his fifth year on the job after multiple top-10 recruiting classes? One of the most evident issues with the Longhorns is a lack of explosive playmakers akin to what they’ve had on the Forty Acres the last four years. The offensive talent appears capable, but not elite. There is no Bijan Robinson in the backfield. There is no Xavier Worthy or Matthew Golden at receiver. Who among Texas’ offensive skill position players strikes fear in SEC defensive coordinators the way those NFL Draft picks did?

All five starters on the offensive line are homegrown recruits. Only one of them had significant starting experience before this season — right guard DJ Campbell — after four of Texas’ 2024 starters departed. Three were drafted, and the other exhausted his eligibility. Some wonder if Texas should have tapped into the transfer portal to bring in veteran linemen, but Sarkisian said earlier this month the current personnel are “more than capable.”

Texas has a young offense and that explains some of the growing pains. Of the 11 typical offensive starters, only four — Wisner, Campbell, receiver DeAndrew Moore and tight end Jack Endries — came into the season with double-digit career starts and Endries’ starts came at his previous stop, Cal.

Although inexperience can explain away some of the miscues, it doesn’t absolve what we saw on Saturday. In the Longhorns’ seventh game of the season, the offense doesn’t look markedly better than it was in the Week 1 loss to Ohio State. It looked like it had regressed, a surprising development after having a competent showing against an elite Oklahoma defense a week prior.

Manning, after playing a clean, mistake-free game against the Sooners, missed several throws against Kentucky. He missed an open Wingo on a crossing route in the first half and a wide-open Endries late in the game that could have kept a drive alive. The lack of any explosive runs allowed Kentucky to tee off on Manning. And Sarkisian’s offense, which relies heavily on play action passing, is harder to execute when there’s no run game for defenders to respect.

The one player who did make things happen with the ball in his hands was Ryan Niblett, who returned two punts for 88 yards, both of which set Texas up with good field position that the Longhorns converted into points. Niblett, who was recruited as a receiver but has also played running back and on special teams in his Texas career, may be someone to work into the game plan more as the Longhorns search for answers.

In the meantime, Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense continues to answer the bell. That unit has carried the Longhorns time and again in the last four years and the veteran presence of guys like linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and safety Michael Taaffe has been invaluable. The defense looks prepared to carry the Longhorns as long as it must.

But Texas needs to find its offensive identity. The last five teams the Longhorns face — Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas A&M — all average 30-plus points per game. Sarkisian, who serves as the team’s play caller, needs to find answers and soon, before the preseason No. 1 team is knocked out of CFP contention entirely.

 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted (edited)

We went away from everything that worked well against at Oklahoma. Sark should have focused on getting the team to get good at outside zone again and instead rolled out the Ohio St game plan.  Now here we are getting to start over again on trying to find an offensive identity. 

Edited by Newy25
Posted

I guess part of the reason for the OZ plan against OU is Venables is known to be weak against it.

So perhaps the thinking was what worked against OU isn't gonna work against anyone else, or Kentucky.  But that seems to be overthink.

And maybe Tre was overworked/injured and perceived to be the only reliable RB, especially for OZ running.

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