Texas (3-2 overall, 2-0 in Big 12) squeaked by Kansas State (3-2, 1-1) on Saturday 40-34 in double overtime Saturday night. Here are four observations:
Sam Ehlinger ain’t your average true freshman.
As if that wasn’t already obvious when he led a last-minute go-ahead touchdown drive at USC three weeks ago, Ehlinger showed he possesses a grit, toughness and talent that’s rare among first-year college players.
The 19-year-old former Austin Westlake star regrouped after under-throwing a deep ball on the first play of the game for an interception. He didn’t turn the ball over the rest of the game and finished with 380 yards and two touchdowns on 30-of-50 passing. He also rumbled for 107 yards on the ground by putting his shoulders down, never sliding and taking it to a physical Kansas State defense. It was an impressive performance.
This is the Texas offense Tom Herman envisioned.
I don’t know how much of that can be contributed to Ehlinger (probably quite a bit), but this was a far better offensive performance that we saw against Iowa State last Thursday. They’ve said Ehlinger is the type of player who inspires his teammates, and that certainly seemed to be the case with the offensive line, which was not a weakness despite starting two inexperienced tackles in Derek Kerstetter and Denzel Okafor. The Longhorns had 152 more total yards than Kansas State (546-394) and 17 more first downs (32-15).
A quarterback change threw Texas’s defense off guard.
It’s common for a defensive game plan to be centered around taking away what the opposing offense does best. For Kansas State, that’s running the ball, and the Longhorns made that near impossible for the first 40 minutes of the game. The Wildcats gained just 28 yards on their first 19 carries, but then sophomore Alex Delton went in for starter Jesse Ertz, and the more-athletic Delton began slicing up the Texas defense. Delton rushed for 65 yards and a touchdown on his first five carries to rally Kansas State back into a 27-24 lead.
The Longhorns ruined Bill Snyder’s 78th birthday.
The legendary Kansas State coach was born Oct. 7, 1939, which was also a Saturday. Former Dripping Springs coach Howard Ballard actually played for Snyder when he was an offensive coordinator at Austin College (Sherman, TX) in 1974-75. Ballard said Snyder was really smart at scheming offensively and was the kind of coach you wanted to play hard for just because of the way he treated people.
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