The Texas Longhorns fell 51-41 to the Maryland Terrapins to spoil the debut of Tom Herman. Where do the Longhorns go from here after the first game?
There’s a lot to clean up.
You can use words like weird, interesting and eventful to describe but the one I’ll use here is: sloppy.
The problems on special teams that had reared its head during the Charlie Strong era were back again on full display. The offensive line (which we’ll get to) had its own issues and in the end there were simply too many mistakes
Credit the Longhorns to keeping themselves in it after facing a 27-7 deficit in the first half but it’s not a position that they want to find themselves in every week.
The Longhorns offensive line had a rough afternoon.
Speaking of the offensive line, the Longhorns front line had their hands full all day with the Maryland front. Shane Buechele spent a lot of Saturday scrambling for his life and even though he made some good throws in the second half, he never looked completely comfortable in the pocket.
That will definitely be something that Herman will have to address moving forward.
Houston area products shine.
If it weren’t for the efforts of former Houston Lamar product Holton Hill and Manvel receiver Reggie Hemphill-Mapps, the final score could have been much worse.
Hill had the opening score off of a pick-six and also returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown at a point where the game could have really gotten away from the Longhorns down 27-7.
As for Reggie Hemphill-Mapps, he brought the Longhorns back within three in the third quarter thanks a 91-yard punt return. The former Manvel standout got it back to the point where maybe, just maybe, the Longhorns would crawl their way back. On a day where the Longhorns didn’t have too many bright spots, the two Houston area talents did what they could to give Texas a chance.
In the end, there were simply too many mistakes.
Whether it was the three offensive pass interference penalties or breakdowns in protection or even the missed opportunities in defense, the Longhorns just didn’t play well enough to win. Maryland was able to run the ball well and just couldn’t contain Tyrrell Prigrome or Kasim Hill after Prigrome went down in injury. Herman had said during the offseason that the transition would take time and after their performance on Saturday, that theory may be holding true.
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