The Texas Longhorns escaped Lubbock with a 31-22 win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders on Saturday, giving Texas its third straight victory.
This was the first win of the season for Texas over a ranked opponent and Texas blog Burnt Orange Nation found plenty to cheer about, especially when discussing the Longhorns' play in the red zone on both offense and defense, especially considering their recent troubles there defensively.
The instructional takeaway was the impressive red zone performances by the Longhorn offense and defense. Both Texas Tech and Texas entered the game ranked abysmally in the defensive red zone at 118th and 121st respectively. The much maligned Texas defense had been giving up scores at a 94.29% clip.
In particular, the blog found one play early in the third quarter that could have been a key to the victory.
After a nice pick up of 4 yards on first down, the Red Raider offensive coordinator took the ball away from his hot handed quarterback and went back to his star back Williams out of the pistol formation. Longhorns cornerback Quandre Diggs is playing tight man coverage on the LOS, sniffs the play, rushes from the edge to not only blow up the hole but also make the tackle.
Texas now is 7-2 on the season and 4-2 in the Big 12. They play Iowa State this Saturday at home, but the real challenge will be on Dec. 1 when they travel to Manhattan, Kans to close out the season at undefeated Kansas State.