Texas 23, Baylor 17: What We Learned

????????????????????????????????????Another signature win. If I told you before the season that Texas would knock off Baylor and Oklahoma, most Texas fans would guess the Longhorns had a turnaround season. It shows the inconsistency that comes with a young team still learning how to play under a new regime. Charlie Strong’s record at Texas doesn’t look good at all, and time will start to run out on his era in Austin if he doesn’t start competing for Big 12 and national championships. Still, wins over Oklahoma and Baylor will be huge on the recruiting trail and should show fans that Strong deserves at least another year to prove he can be the coach for a long time. Adjustments. It didn’t look like Baylor’s offense was capable of making it a game in the second half, trailing 20-0 after 30 minutes of game action. Baylor abandoned the passing attack, concentrating on pounding the ball at the Longhorn defense. It worked for much of the second half. The Bears defense made adjustments to stop Texas and the Baylor offense pulled it to 20-17 before the Longhorns eventually made a field goal and forced a game-clinching turnover. The Longhorns won, but the staffs didn’t make a ton of adjustments. Texas played not to lose in the second half and it almost cost Charlie Strong’s team another signature victory. The Longhorn offense proved as ineffective as Baylor’s for the latter half of the game. Injuries. It was hard to watch this game and not be reminded of the injuries that hampered both programs throughout the season. The storyline throughout was the loss of another quarterback during the game, as Chris Johnson went down, forcing Art Briles to use his fourth quarterback. Eventually, Briles moved away from his normal, balanced attack to a run game. Texas isn’t short on injuries, especially on defense. Baylor took advantage of those injuries in the second half by pounding away at a front-seven missing players like Hassan Ridgeway and Malik Jefferson. The Bears split wide receivers wide and forced Texas’ defense to play with seven in the box, taking advantage of the lack of depth along the Longhorn defensive line and at linebacker.