Downfield throws.
I counted three of ~20+ yards:
#1: Gonzalez caught fade out of bounds.
#2: Thrown to Gonzalez on sideline go route, he might have been held.
#3: Overthrow on fade route to Gonzalez.
Interesting that Gonzalez was the target on all the deep balls. Meaningful, or just a small sample size? Also, no deep balls down the middle.
Trick plays.
Jordy again appeared to show good decision making in pulling it down on the WR pass and running for 2 yards. Flea flicker didn't work. Lining Johnson up at QB worked really well. Texas was obviously prepared for the pass plays. However, I think we're still going to catch some teams napping with some trick plays. The thing here is that we're so disciplined in running them, is that we minimize the risk of them turning disastrous through a fumble or INT.
I'm also glad that Texas ran a few trick plays and formations. Mangino likes to pull those out, so hopefully that helps keep us on our toes.
Drops.
I counted three. One each for Murphy, Jordy, and Johnson. Johnson's may have gone for a TD.
Bad throws.
Only a couple that jumped out. Badly overthrew Jordy on a screen on 4th and 1 in first half that may have turned into a TD, and definitely would have gotten a first down. Overthrew a bubble screen that may have gotten 5+ yards.
Game management.
Freeman may not have thrown bombs, but he had a heckuva game. He did everything he was asked to do, and did it well 95% of the time. Protected the ball and made a bunch of completions...many of which were more difficult than they may appear.
Discipline.
One false start penalty on the road in front of 80,000. Especially impressive because of the shifting involved in many of the plays. Not only do the guys shifting have to do it right, but the line has to be patient while they shift. Watching the offense execute from huddle to snap was actually one of the more impressive things to me about this game.
Running game.
Deceptively quiet. Got a bunch of nice runs, and got short yardage on 3rd and short as needed. Probably could have relied on the run more...although success was partly due to the success of the passing game. Johnson is going to blow up in a couple of Big XII games.
McKinney
Yes, he had some nice passes defended and interception/near interceptions. He also:
a) Started slowing up when covering Quan Cosby when McCoy rolled out across the field, letting Cosby get open in the end zone for the first Texas touchdown. He does that next week, and Reesing is gonna burn us.
b) Got beat on a big play on Texas' last touchdown drive when the WR just went over him. He reminds me of ol' Mighty Mouse for the Chiefs. He makes some plays that are impressive, especially due to his size, but the other guys keep picking on him knowing that eventually they're gonna burn him. His INT came on a badly underthrown ball by McCoy.
ku is going to pick on McKinney. Let's hope Reesing underthrows it, too.
ku's going to make us look bad if they...
Get Reesing out of the pocket. He's got the ability to make plays on the move, and this is where most of Texas' big plays came...when McCoy was scrambling. We've gotta be careful to play sound assignments. Get too eager to come up and stop Reesing, and he's gonna throw downfield. Forget to spy him, and he's gonna run for yardage.
ku has some potential to make some big plays here. Let's hope we make some adjustments on D.
We're going to make ku look bad when we...
I may be crazy, but I think we try early to establish the ground game against ku. Even though we were having some success against Texas, we never started relying on it. I think part of our Texas gamecalling was to set ku up to emphasize defending those short outside passes, and I think we're gonna try to establish a running game between the tackles. Given how Johnson was running and how the o-line was blocking, I think it might just work. If we get the running game going, then we start running play action off of it.
