Texas Longhorns

AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas defense, which has suffered many blows in the past few weeks, just took another to the gut.

Jackson Jeffcoat is out. Gone for the season. He tore his pectoral muscle. This time it was the right one. Last year it was the left one. So much for Texas having the top two defensive ends in the Big 12. Instead Texas is just left with big questions at a time when it is searching for answers.

The foremost is: Can Cedric Reed or Reggie Wilson even come close to producing at Jeffcoat’s level? The answer is no. If they could, they would have had the starting spot.

Wilson showed a flash against Ole Miss when he jumped a diving blocker and sacked Bo Wallace.

Jeffcoat does stuff like that every game. The junior had four sacks, 11 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery for a touchdown already this season. Reed and Wilson have a combined five tackles for loss and one sack.

But Jeffcoat’s game went beyond stats. He, along with bookend Alex Okafor, was able to pin in quarterbacks and shrink their options. The reason Geno Smith was unable to roll the pocket and therefore roll Texas was because he had Jeffcoat to his left and Okafor to his right every time he dropped back. It was the combined pressure of the two that forced Smith to take four sacks and be stripped of the ball twice.

Without that type of pressure the Texas secondary, which already has issues in coverage, is susceptible to being picked apart by a quarterback like Baylor’s Nick Florence. Florence, the FBS leader in total offense, just so happens to be the next QB Texas faces.

The Longhorns might consider pulling the redshirt off someone like Shiro Davis in order to get more speed on the edge. But, as Texas has proven in the past two losses, it is very tough to play fast as a defensive player when you do not know where you are going.

Without Jeffcoat, Texas, a team that has allowed 111 points and more than 1,100 yards in the past two games, might be wondering where it is going.

Ash not ruled out
Texas has prepared itself since the spring to use two quarterbacks. Now the Longhorns might have to do just that.

While quarterback David Ash has not been ruled out with a bruise to his non-throwing wrist, he has not been cleared to play, either. That means Texas might once again be turning to backup Case McCoy.

The junior, who was 3-2 as a starter in 2011, lost out on the starting job after what was an eight-month competition. But the Texas coaches qualified their selection of Ash by stating, repeatedly, that they felt McCoy was more than an adequate backup and that they would not hesitate to play him.

Well, now the time might have come and it might be against Baylor, which happens to be the last team McCoy started against. In that game, McCoy was responsible for five turnovers. That, as much as anything, is what led to his demotion.

The coaching staff could not abide a quarterback who played fast and loose with the ball. They wanted a game manager. Ash better fit that role. McCoy, on the other hand, is much more of a draw-it-up-in-the-dirt player.

But McCoy has matured. He has added 15-20 pounds and put more zip on his intermediate throws as well as length on deep throws.

If he is the quarterback, it is almost a certainty that co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin will play it close to the vest and try to get McCoy to distribute the ball to playmakers such as Daje Johnson, Marquise Goodwin and Johnathan Gray. That has been when Texas is at its best. And to beat Baylor, a team that is No. 2 in total offense and No. 4 in scoring offense, Texas’ offense will have to be at its best.

Nothing short of a great win for Texas tonight. Definitely felt a lot like David Ash took some big steps toward maturity in the Longhorns' first road trip of 2012.

He completed 15 consecutive passes from the first to third quarters, and showed some big improvement as the Longhorns rolled over Ole Miss, 66-31.

Time for some instant analysis:

It was over when: Texas opened the second half with a dominant drive, going 78 yards in seven plays and capping it with a powerful D.J. Monroe 10-yard touchdown run. That put the Longhorns up 38-10 and took even more energy out of an amped crowd at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Any idea of an upset ended when Texas asserted itself to open the half and prevented the Rebels from gaining any momentum.

Gameball goes to: Ash. Did we just see his career breakout game? Ole Miss' secondary looked ragged for much of the game, but Ash, a sophomore, played the best game of his career, and showed plenty of promise that he could be depended on later in the season. He finished 19-of-23 for 326 yards, four touchdowns and still has yet to throw his first interception of 2012. Did anyone think we could see this kind of performance out of Ash this early in the season?

Stat of the game: Texas won the turnover battle, 3-0. That included an interception from Steve Edmond that opened the game's scoring. He returned a Bo Wallace pass 22 yards for a touchdown.

Unsung hero of the game: Texas' offensive line. The big uglies up front gave David Ash all day to throw, and the holes were roomy and frequent for Texas' rushing attack all night long. The focus in this game will be on Ash's performance, but the offensive line deserves plenty of credit, too.

What Texas learned: The offense can look like a juggernaut from time to time. We haven't seen an offensive performance like this from Texas in a long, long time. Texas hadn't scored this many points since the Big 12 title game in 2005, and the next game ended with the Longhorns hoisting a national championship trophy. It's too soon to have any talk close to that, but Ash's development makes that power running game up front even tougher to stop. His difficult freshman season seemed pretty far in the rearview mirror tonight.

What Ole Miss learned: The defense has a long way to go. Receivers were open all day, and when Ash put the ball in the air, the Rebels defensive backs never seemed to be able to find it. The front seven were dominated, and the Longhorns made this win look easy. Could be a long season in Oxford for Hugh Freeze's first season.

OXFORD, Miss. -- Texas took to the road for the first time this season and also took to making some big plays. The Longhorns exploded for 31 first-half points, their most of the season, and led 31-10 at halftime. Texas has scored 14 points off two interceptions.

Stat of the half: Texas has had most of its success on the ground. The Longhorns rushed 22 times for 182 yards. Included in that total is Marquise Goodwin's 69-yard run. That is the longest run from scrimmage for a Texas player since Jamaal Charles went for 75 against Oklahoma State in 2007.

Player of the half: Quarterback David Ash threw two touchdown passes and engineered four scoring drives for Texas. The sophomore hit on a 47-yard pass to Goodwin, the longest pass play for Texas since the Baylor game in 2011. It was Ash's second-longest throw at Texas. He hit for 48 yards against Iowa State.

What's working for Texas: The Longhorns are getting solid defensive pressure on quarterback Bo Wallace. Texas has three sacks and both of Wallace's interceptions came when the quarterback was under duress.

What is not working for Texas: The Longhorns have been unable to stop Ole Miss on third down. Make that long third downs. The Rebels converted third downs of 18 and 17 yards on their two scoring drives. The first was a 30-yard pass play to set up a touchdown. The second came on a personal foul called on Jordan Hicks.

What Texas needs to do to keep winning: If the Longhorns continue to run the ball, they should continue to control the game. The Ole Miss defensive line has had trouble even staying in front of the offensive line of Texas. And the Texas defensive line has spent most of the night in the backfield of Ole Miss.

AUSTIN, Texas -- When Hugh Freeze met with Dan Werner this winter, the new Ole Miss head coach was in search of the right man to run his offense. He needed a new quarterback, too.

So Freeze broke out some film. He told Werner these were a few guys he’d considered pursuing.

When they started rolling tape of a familiar junior college kid, Werner stopped the search.

“I saw his film and said, ‘Let’s go get him,’” said Werner, the Rebels’ offensive coordinator. “He didn’t tell me who any of them were.”

Freeze agreed, and he had an in. A year earlier, the kid was his third-string quarterback at Arkansas State. Werner got the job and together they set their sights on their new signal caller.

Ole Miss wanted Bo Wallace more than anyone else. That’s why he chose the Rebels over Mississippi State, Indiana and Baylor.

Had Texas wanted him, there’s a chance Wallace could’ve been a Longhorns this weekend in Oxford. For one week in January, that was at least a distinct possibility.

Texas’ unsettled quarterback situation prompted offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin to make the call. This wasn’t a quick-fix move or one to bolster depth, Harsin says now. He was looking for “the right situation at that time.”
Wallace said he had two or three conversations with Harsin during that week. No offer, no visit, nothing more than that.

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AUSTIN, Texas -- Longhorns and dairy products don’t mix.

Just ask Texas strong safety Adrian Phillips, who thinks the Longhorns defense ate the cheese attached to the complacency trap prior to its mediocre performance against Wyoming in their season opener.

“We might have been feeling ourselves a little bit,” Phillips said. “We had people out and about telling us how good were are. Last week we kind of ate the cheese and Wyoming got after us.”

It led senior All-American safety Kenny Vaccaro to call out the defense for reading too many press clippings about how vaunted Texas’ defense was supposed to be.

“Honestly, we need to get our head out of the magazine and play hard,” he said after the Longhorns beat Wyoming 37-17.

If articles were read this week, the Longhorns defense made sure they were about the 66 points New Mexico scored in its season opener. The focus paid dividends as Texas dominated the Lobos’ triple-option attack in a 45-0 shutout. It was the program’s third shutout in the last 87 games.

“This week we made sure that we were going to go back to the basics and not worry about what anyone says because at the end of the day this is our defense,” Phillips said. “We are going to do what we have to, to come out with the win.”

On Saturday, that largely consisted of being disciplined on reads to try and contain a New Mexico run game that rushed for 347 yards and five touchdowns against Southern last week.

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