It was probably the most depressing Monday press conference of the entire season. After the fiasco in Gainesville this weekend and an exit from the top 25 in the AP Poll, the mood was appropriate.
The members of the Texas football team — both players and coaches — know they didn’t play to any sort of standard this past weekend after getting overpowered by Florida 29–21. As soon as one problem was fixed on the offense, another seemed to arise.
Luckily, the defense is fixable despite having its worst game of the season.
“We definitely didn’t play to our standard,” junior linebacker Liona Lefau said. “There’s still some leakage in our run defense, then we didn’t execute as well as we wanted to in our pass defense.”
Texas allowed Florida to rack up a total of 457 yards, 159 of which were on the ground, and convert on 50% of its third downs. Florida sophomore running back Jadan Baugh ran wherever he pleased through Texas’ interior for 107 yards and one touchdown.
Saturday was a low point — particularly for the interior — but there’s comfort in knowing that, at least defensively, this team has recently seen better days.
For example, Ohio State, still No. 1 after beating Texas, only scored twice against the Longhorns in their late August matchup. Ohio State’s star sophomore wide receiver Jeremiah Smith had no explosive plays, with just one catch for three yards, and senior running back CJ Donaldson had just 67 rushing yards.
It’s no wonder the same defense that held Ohio State looks different with a key player missing in the secondary. Texas junior defensive back Malik Muhammad is still listed as questionable after missing this weekend, marking a significant absence downfield.
“We missed his presence,” Texas junior linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. said. “We know he’s an elite player, and hopefully we can get him back on in next week.”
Muhammad’s absence on the field was evident with Florida players, sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway’s 298 passing yards for 21 completions and two touchdowns, and true freshman receiver Dallas Wilson racking up 111 yards and two touchdowns.
With Muhammad potentially out again against Oklahoma, Texas’ secondary will need to step up. That starts, however, with the interior being able to actually get its hands on the run game and actually put pressure on the quarterback.
“Little things here and there that we weren’t executing on, and (Florida was) doing a good job of exploiting where we were messing up in our run defense,” Lefau said. “We’re more than capable of fixing that and doing a better job of stepping forward.”
The standard of play was there before. Texas’ defense was never the problem before this disaster against Florida — the Longhorns were even named as the holders of the best defensive stop rating in the country. Unlike Texas’ offense, Sarkisian isn’t looking at a fixer-upper on this side of the ball.
But if Oklahoma’s redshirt junior quarterback John Mateer is playing this weekend, every man will need to step back up to that standard.
“I feel like we’ll erase this game on Monday, and we’re getting ready to execute and get ready for this game next week,” Hill said. “We don’t want it to affect the next week … we want to go out there and go execute and handle our business to the best of our ability.”
