Longhorns heading in wrong direction
Defense, special teams victimized in win by Cowboys
STILLWATER, Okla. — From the moment Texas hired him almost three years ago, Charlie Strong found himself engaged in a tug-of-war between evidence and belief. He nobly tried to convince the Longhorns of progress they could not yet see, and as recently as last month, it looked like it just might work.
But in the stark sunlight at Boone Pickens Stadium on Saturday afternoon, belief’s knees finally began to buckle.
The official record will show Oklahoma State beat No. 22 Texas 49-31, but the most overwhelming force on display was evidence.
There was evidence that the Longhorns’ defense, historically bad a year ago, continues to get worse instead of better. There was evidence that UT’s special teams, a consistent source of confounding failures, hasn’t run out of new ways to create problems. And there was evidence that as hard as Strong works to mask one of his team’s deficiencies, there always seems to be another waiting to be exposed.
“You lose a game, and it’s bad,” Strong said when asked if Saturday’s defeat felt worse than any of the others. Under evaluation
He now has suffered through 16 of those bad experiences at Texas, with only 13 victories to work as a counterbalance. After the Longhorns soared to No. 11 in the national rankings with the help of a season-opening upset of Notre Dame, he might have thought the misery was behind him, but nightmare trips to California and Oklahoma State wiped all of the optimism away.
Strong’s boss — UT athletic director Mike Perrin — said he didn’t want to make any “big-picture” proclama- tions after Saturday’s game, explaining he plans to “evaluate everything.”
“I’m not evaluating Charlie, per se,” Perrin said.
And how does Strong feel about that?
“Well,” Strong said, “you’re evaluated each and every day here.”
When Strong evaluates howthe Longhorns (2-2, 0-1 Big 12) performed in their first loss at Stillwater since 1997, he probably won’t find much to like.
Strong’s defense, which he had vowed to fix by assuming a greater role in personnel decisions and play-calling, kept missing tackles and blowing assignments and yielded 555 total yards. In the process, it became the first unit in school history to give up at least 45 points in three of its first four games.
Mason Rudolph was the latest quarterback to benefit from UT’s ineptitude, passing for 392 yards and three touchdowns for the Cowboys (3-2, 1-1).
“Right now,” Texas defensive coordinator Vance Bedford said, “we’ve got to slow down a snowball going the wrong direction on defense.”
And even when UT did its best to match Oklahoma State touchdown for touchdown on offense, they were done in by an inexplicable string of errors in the kicking game. The Longhorns had three extra-point attempts blocked — one of them was returned for two points — resulting in a fivepoint swing.
Each of the blocks came up the middle, and Strong said his deep snapper wasn’t big enough to foil Oklahoma State’s strategy of overloading the gap between the center and guard. Cowboys defensive tackle Vincent Taylor repeatedly forced his way up the middle for blocks. Key RBs injured
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, the Longhorns lost the two players who actually dominated Saturday — tailbacks D’Onta Foreman and Chris Warren — to injuries. Warren (106 yards) missed the second half after hurting his knee and was seen on crutches after the game.
Foreman (148 yards) left in the third quarter after pulling what he said was a muscle in his rib cage. He said he expects to play next week against Oklahoma in Dallas.
Last year, the Longhorns shook off an ugly couple of losses to pull off a surprise in the Red River Rivalry game against the Sooners. Strong, searching for a bright side Saturday, insisted that can happen again.
“It’s still about confidence,” Strong said. “You can get that back.”