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The Texas Longhorns escaped with a 31-22 road win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders on Saturday. The quarterback position has been a contentious one for Texas, but this week David Ash had an efficient game for the Longhorns, completing 11 of 19 passes for 264 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.
Ash's performance delighted Burnt Orange Nation's Wescott Eberts:
After struggling against Kansas, one of the major storylines was the play of quarterback David Ash, who started off hot in the first half, connecting on two long passes to Mike Magic Davis, one of which went for 75 yards on the first play of the first second-quarter possession.
All told, the two connected four times for 165 yards and two touchdowns, while Ash rebounded from his poor performance last week to survive shaky third-quarter play, completing 11-of-19 passes for 264 yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions, and picking up 25 yards on a handful of scrambles.
If the prevalent feeling after the Baylor win was relief, if there was anger after the Kansas game because of the flat performance, the feeling now has to be absolute elation after the 'Horns played their best game in weeks. In fact, it's probably been a month, since the win in Stillwater, since Texas has looked this sharp.
The Longhorns are hopeful that Ash can continue to play at the level he did against Texas Tech, and possibly even improve off of this performance.
A reason that Ash was so successful against the Red Raiders was due to the game plan put in place by Texas' offensive coordinator. It was one of the keys to the victory that Barking Carnival mentioned:
The Texas offense struck the perfect balance between maintaining a strong run identity and aggressively attacking downfield in the passing game. And he did it with deception Throughout the game, Harsin repeatedly ran out of spread passing formations and threw deep on 1st down out of run formations. Texas Tech was caught cheating on formational keys on a half dozen instances and Texas made a quality Red Raiders defense pay.
This was one of the best games that Texas has played all year, so look for the Longhorns to want to build off of this going forward. Going up against Iowa State next week should provide another chance for Ash and the offense to have a good performance.