After a restful bye week, Texas has its eyes set on Florida as it prepares for Saturday’s home game. The Longhorns are focused particularly on reviving the offense’s confidence.
“As a team, our mojo offensively is one thing I want to get back,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said. “Whether you want to call it our sense of urgency, our intent, the way we go about our business.”
In the last two games, Texas racked up a combined 18 penalties, a majority coming from the offensive side of the ball. In addition, there have been major inconsistencies in the offensive game in the past couple of matchups.
After coming back from injury, junior quarterback Quinn Ewers has not played at his usual high caliber. While he has still been able to put some games to bed, such as Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, he continues to have issues with accuracy, downfield passing and performance during half of the game.
The offensive line is struggling while trying to keep pressure off of Ewers, which wasn’t something Texas fans had to worry about at the beginning of the season. Junior offensive lineman Kelvin Banks Jr. said that while the line has to step up and work hard, they should not try to go above and beyond.
“Go out there and do what you’ve been coached to do, don’t do nothing more and don’t do nothing less,” Banks said. “Just go out there and do what you do in practice … just not trying to overdo it, because when you start overdoing things is when things start to go left.”
While spectators and people on social media may try to point the blame for the deterioration of the Longhorn’s offensive efficiency on a single player, both Sarkisian and his players know that it takes every player on the field to make an impact. In practice this week they will be working on improving these inconsistencies, while also striving to bring more intensity for their Florida matchup.
“It all starts in practice,” senior tight end Gunnar Helm said. “It takes all 11 of us on every play, and we know that. We’re starting to play a lot better with each other, and in my opinion, we just got to stop starting slow. And that’s nobody’s fault, per se. Just as an offense it takes all 11.”
To shake the dust off the offense the past few weeks, Sarkisian said he has seen the team’s confidence grow in its run game on top of what he already considers a strong throwing offense. However, he is still adamant that the team’s best performance on the field is yet to come and said that while the offense hasn’t looked its best, they just need to see what they are capable of.
“They need to see one fly out of the park,” Sarkisian said, referencing baseball and basketball terminology. “I think if we can find a little of that mojo (in the offense), I think it’s going to spark our confidence and really kick us into high gear. I don’t necessarily feel like we’ve lost it. I think our guys are working hard. They know they’re good. They just want to see one go in the bucket … to really get going again.”
