After their first loss of the season last week, Steve Sarkisian and the Texas Longhorns bounced back Saturday with a final score of 27-24 against a good Vanderbilt team.

The Longhorns led by one by 14 during the game and by 11 at halftime, but the lead slowly began to dwindle as the Texas offense failed to find the end zone in the second half.

Although a win is also a win, the team made a very undisciplined impression and continued to shoot itself in the foot. Not to disparage Vanderbilt, but Texas missed a lot of opportunities to close the door on this game.

But on the plus side, Texas still had some good positives about the game.

Sitting on the bench against Georgia and throwing a tipped pass that ended up in an interception on his first throw Saturday against Vanderbilt brought many fans online and brought back the quarterback controversy. But it didn’t take long for Ewers to silence them.

After the interception on the first drive, Ewers completed 17 consecutive passes and threw three touchdowns during that span, giving Texas a multi-score lead late in the second quarter.

Ewers finished with 288 yards, completed 27 of his 37 passes and threw three touchdowns.

It’s a very impressive statistical line, but Ewers threw another pick later in the game and it just didn’t look like the same Ewers before the injury. His footwork looked awkward and he still didn’t seem comfortable escaping the pocket. I’m not saying he’s still hurt, but if you watch the Michigan game, you’ll see Quinn Ewers much more confident.

Some of these takeaways will be very obvious. One of the glaring issues Saturday for the Longhorns was the discipline of the offensive line.

They didn’t allow seven sacks like they did in the Georgia game, but they still gave up four and nine tackles for losses. What was really bad was how the momentum was destroyed on multiple drives due to holding calls.

Some examples included the holding penalty on third-and-1 early in the fourth quarter, which eliminated a fourth down and ultimately took Texas out of the field goal to make it a two-score game. On the next drive, Texas was assessed another holding penalty on the first play of the drive, which helped result in another punt.

With the experience on the O-Line you simply can’t keep making mistakes. Vandy’s defensive line has been subpar all year; they had just 14 sacks for the season, which was second-to-last in the SEC. The offensive line will have to do more if Texas wants to compete for the top of the SEC.

The running game was great. There’s something mesmerizing about watching Tre Wisner and Jaydon Blue dodge defenders in open space.

The Texas running back room had just 1.1 yards per rush attempt against Georgia, the worst in the Sarkisian era. Against Vanderbilt, Wisner had 79 rushing yards on 17 attempts and 39 receiving yards on five receptions. Blue had 47 yards on 10 attempts, while also adding 24 yards on three receptions.

There is special emphasis on Blue’s improvement, especially as he showed explosiveness not only on check-downs, but also on hand-offs after failing to get a single rush attempt last week.

Blue has so much speed and elusiveness that he is not involved in the run game. He helped demonstrate his value to the team today after a week of questions about what his role is.

It was so important to the team that the rushing game rebounded the way they did. Texas missed the explosive plays against Georgia. Neither Blue nor Wisner found the end zone, but they helped create many scoring opportunities, such as Wisner’s 20-yard run on third-and-7 to help set up a field goal in the third quarter. Blue also had a huge 23-yard gain on a third-and-9 when Texas led 24-17 late in the fourth. That drive also ended in a field goal.

The Longhorns may have the fastest offensive core in football. You can find players at all skill offensive positions who can run after the catch. Deandre Moore Jr., who was the top receiver for Texas today, had a nice catch near the line of scrimmage, which he carried 27 yards to the end zone, breaking a tackle along the way. Jaydon Blue took a dump off on a 2nd and 16 to the first down marker after breaking a defender’s ankles at the line of scrimmage. Gunnar Helm, who has had a great YAC all season, made a great catch and converted a third-and-7 before gaining another 15 yards upfield.

Some fans may be annoyed by the constant use of quick screen passes that Sarkisian implements in his offense. But Texas’ biggest strength on offense is taking advantage of open space. Once wide receiver Isaiah Bond returns, the team will have another speedster who can play in the open field.

Converting turnovers into points was a big focus for the team after Georgia quarterback Carson Beck was intercepted three times and failed to get any points.

Once again, Texas’ defense was phenomenal at creating turnovers. But once again, the Texas offense was unable to capitalize. This time they scored at least three points less than the turnover, which is helpful considering they won by three. That was on Pavia’s second interception when linebacker Liona Lefau gave Texas ideal field position, putting them on Vanderbilt’s 29-yard line.

Additionally, Ewers and the offense don’t help the defense all that much either when they turn the ball over multiple times on the Texas end. 14 of the 24 points scored by Vanderbilt came on interceptions that gave Vanderbilt field position, starting at Texas’s 38 and 31. You can’t blame this play for being even remotely close to the defense.

It may be surprising, but I think this win will set Texas up for success. They’ve been beaten before, but they haven’t really been in a close game all year. Despite all the mistakes, the Longhorns still had the upper hand and got the job done. This learning experience will be very valuable to the team and can show that even if Texas can’t play their best football, the team can be scrappy enough to win close games.

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