No. 6 Texas 22, No. 21 LSU 21: Three things we learned
· Yahoo Sports
In an instantly-iconic 22-21 win over the No. 21 LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, the No. 6 Texas Longhorns pulled ahead with a well-designed four-yard touchdown pass from Arch Manning to Raleek Brown with four seconds remaining to secure a fast-track to the College Football Playoff with two games remaining.
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Texas may have figured out how to winThe clock-management decisions at the end of the game were puzzling, to say the least, but when push came to shove, Texas had its best offensive drive of the game as time expired. When Raleek Brown ran into the end zone to give the Horns the go-ahead touchdown, it felt cathartic after the 2019 game in Austin when a running back dropped a pivotal four-down touchdown pass.
When it was time to win, Texas went 58 yards in 12 plays and took all but the final ticks off the clock, coming a week after the Longhorns went on the road and put away a top-25 team decisively. It was ugly. It was frustrating. It was confusing. But when the clock struck zeroes, Texas went into one of the toughest environments in the country and came away with a win, keeping all its goals alive for the year.
The offense is the limiting factorWe already knew this, so it’s cheating to include it here, but it showed up in prime time against LSU. The Tigers and quarterback Sam Leavitt tried to give the Longhorns the game, but Texas gave it right back. Twice, Texas answered an LSU interception with an interception of its own, both of which led to opposing touchdowns. That was nearly the difference in the game — LSU scored 14 points off turnovers and Texas scored zero. If you flip even one of those empty frames into a touchdown, this is a much different contest.
The offensive line struggled with pressures all night, but Steve Sarkisian seemed content to let Arch deal with a collapsing pocket on long-developing plays. They moved far away from the screens and quick game that served them so well against Missouri, and it showed — the offense sputtered and flailed while the defense did its best to hold on. It was far from the best defensive performance we’ve seen from Will Muschamp’s unit, but they held more often than not and forced LSU to punt four times to close the game, which was more of a difference than even the offense.
Texas has to fix the offensive lineIt’s not going to be this year because the cake is fully baked and you have the personnel you have and you obviously don’t plan for your first-round tackle to go down for the year, but the offensive line was comically bad against LSU, and it hampered the offense. The middle of the line got pushed back almost every time they went into pass protection, and Princewill Umanmielen may have seen more resistance from a blocking dummy than from the Texas tackles. The Horns spent a pretty penny this offseason to bolster the offensive line and with two games left in the regular season, it feels like wasted money.
LSU stuffed Texas on 22 percent of their runs and sacked Manning four times, putting Texas behind the chains almost immediately when they took over. Texas averaged 3.3 yards per carry and couldn’t get the run game going, alongside the disruptive plays in the passing game. Plain and simple, Texas has to find solutions in the offseason. Whatever happens at the end of this year, Sarkisian cannot afford to have another season hampered by the offensive line.