How the Texas run game found its footing vs. Clemson despite key in-game injuries

Two big audibles by Quinn Ewers helped change the game as the Horns dominated in the trenches.

AUSTIN, Texas — It took less than 20 seconds into Steve Sarkisian’s post-game press conference on Saturday for the Texas Longhorns head coach to begin addressing the substance of his team’s 38-24 win over the Clemson Tigers at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in the first-round matchup of the College Football Playoff.

After running for 292 yards and four touchdowns, including 100-yard performances by sophomore Quintrevion Wisner and junior Jaydon Blue, Sarkisian’s focus was unsurprising.

“The story of the game, I think, obviously, is us finding the run game offensively, to have two 100-yard rushers in the game and establishing ourselves on the ground to create balance offensively, I thought, was critical to the game,” Sarkisian said.

With the first quarter consumed by matching 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drives by each team and three plays by Clemson, the Texas running game started to hit in the second quarter when the Horns rushed for 121 yards on 15 carries in the 21-point quarter that created critical separation from the Tigers.

By midway through the quarter, Texas had snapped off two efficient drives that both ended in touchdown runs — a 38-yard run by Blue and a 16-yard run by Wisner.

A 104-yard fourth quarter on the ground was highlighted by Blue’s 77-yard touchdown with 10:48 remaining, the longest run of the season for the Longhorns.

The rushing effort followed through on one of Sarkisian’s top bullet points he shared with the team before the game — “Run to Win.”

“We needed to run the football to win this game and we’re going to need to run the football to advance in these playoffs — that’s what playoff ball is about. So we really challenged them on the run game, from the opening meeting, getting ready for the ball game, to the intent in which we practiced, I thought we had a good plan,” Sarkisian said.

Not only did the success on Saturday come after another poor rushing performance against Georgia with the running backs combining for 53 yards on 21 carries (2.5 ypc), the dominant ground attack in the win over Clemson came after Wisner suffered a knee injury in the first half that limited him to four carries after halftime and two offensive linemen went down — junior right tackle Cam Williams also suffered a knee injury and redshirt senior center Jake Majors was held out for precautionary reasons after he was hit with the illegal blindside block that negated the interception return for a touchdown by the Tigers.

The injuries along the line forced position coach Kyle Flood to lean on his cross-training and depth. Senior left guard Hayden Conner slid over to center, replaced by junior Cole Hutson, who has platooned with junior right guard DJ Campbell. At right tackle, redshirt freshman Trevor Goosby slid over from the left tackle position he played for nearly two games when junior Kelvin Banks was out with an ankle injury.

“I give a lot of credit to Kyle Flood on that, because he’s the master of cross-training these guys and getting them to understand the why we cross-train and we needed it tonight. We’ve needed it here the last month or so of this season, but today, more so than ever of guys being able to play multiple positions,” Sarkisian said.

Texas also leaned on its third-year starter at quarterback to make key decisions before the snap — both touchdown runs by Blue came on audibles by Ewers at the line of scrimmage.

“Quinn handling the run game, and then to use that mechanism at the line of scrimmage of getting that check and then blocking it really well to spring him on those two runs. So there’s a lot that goes into the run game. We always say the run game takes all 11, and I think all 11 did it tonight,” Sarkisian said.

The first crucial audible came early in the second quarter with Texas driving following Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney not to go for a 4th and 1 in Tigers territory. A 31-yard punt helped the Horns win the field-position battle as Sarkisian leaned on the ground game with four consecutive runs gaining 27 yards.

“I think it was maybe two days before the game we gave him that look and we were anticipating it could be one or another call, and we gave him a look, and we were giving it to him early, and so he was checking it really early,” Sarkisian said.

“I said, ‘They might not give it to you this early,’ and we had a motion on it. I said, ‘You might have to check it after the motion and then check the play,’”

In 12 personnel with two tight ends to the field, Ewers utilized the advice of his head coach, waiting until the motion of senior tight end Juan Davis to check into a simple outside zone that by formation allowed Davis to set the edge and senior tight end Gunnar Helm to climb to the second level. Both tight ends made their blocks and Blue did the rest, hitting the sideline and then hitting the jets to speed past the Clemson defense.

“So that’s just time together, time on task, he and I, and him trusting when we tell him certain things like that, that it might happen that way, him trusting it and then executing it, so kind of cool moment, because that’s having a three-year starter who’s been in your system and is very comfortable doing that type of stuff,” Sarkisian said.

The second audible came early in the fourth quarter after Clemson scored a touchdown to cut the deficit to a single score. In a similar look, Texas had both tight ends lined up to the field and used the motion by Davis to trigger the audible by Ewers. This time it was Banks climbing to the second level to make a key block while Hutson and freshman wide receiver Ryan Wingo also had strong efforts.

Blue did his part, too, ensuring that the football was secure when a Clemson player opted to punch at it instead of making a tackle near the line of scrimmage.

And although Texas likes to use outside zone as the base running play, getting into it in different ways like the audibles by Ewers, when the ground attack is clicking for the Longhorns, they’re able to execute their gap schemes as well.

Midway through the second quarter, Wisner found the end zone from 16 yards on Pin and Pull, a gap scheme that in this particular iteration pull the center and right guard, getting the athletic linemen for the Longhorns into space with mismatches against smaller players.

For Campbell, that meant getting to bring his heavy hands against a cornerback responsible for setting the edge, an opportunity created by the pre-snap motion. The cornerback ended up on his backside and Wisner ended up in the paint.

Sarkisian also unveiled a wrinkle to another staple play — split zone. Because it’s not slow developing or reliant on misdirection in the backfield like some of the plays that were blown up by the Bulldogs, this look was effective because it faked looking to the sidelines for a “Check with Me” adjustment and used a bubble screen to the field with senior tight end Juan Davis running a seam route to occupy defenders on the pass portion of the run-pass option.

Because Texas likes to fake the bubble screen and get a would-be blocker vertical, a play that has produced multiple touchdowns this season, opponents have to be particularly careful with that route combination, opening up room for the running back on this split zone.

It’s also a smart area of the field for Sarkisian to make this play call, just outside the red zone, in which the Horns struggled in each of the last two games — picking up an explosive play in this area increases the chances of success inside the red zone.

When the ball was snapped, the fake “Check with me” fooled multiple Tigers defenders into looking to their own sideline in the pre-snap battle of adjustments, and therefore several steps out of position by the time they reacted to the snap.

Wisner, on his longest run of the second half, showed off his vision by finding the cutback lane and still had enough change of direction and explosiveness to beat the defender in the hole.

Texas ultimately settled for a field goal after failing to execute at the goal line, but the play still provided a nice look at what makes Sarkisian one of the best play designers in college football.

Sarkisian also emphasizes game-changing speed and his trust in Blue both finally paid off in a big way after an ankle injury against Michigan limited Blue’s explosiveness and subsequent issues with ball security limited his opportunities in the running game during the middle of the season.

But in a telling example of perseverance and ability to rise above adversity — traits that define the team overall — the 146 rushing yards for Blue set his career high while his 77-yard touchdown run stands as the third-longest run in College Football Playoff history.

“I gave him a big hug and just told him how proud I was of him. I touched on the team adversity coming out of Atlanta, and we talked about individual adversity last night as well, and to think about that young man fighting through the ankle injury earlier in the season, having some fumble issues, but continuing to practice well, continuing to be a really good teammate, the intent over the last few weeks and month of the way he’s been practicing for him to have the night like he had tonight or today, just really proud of him,” Sarkisian said.

“In this day and age, especially on social media, our guys can get on there and they’re going to read the worst things ever that people want to say about them. I’m sure there was plenty of stuff that people wanted to say to him with not holding on to the ball, but the fact that, between Coach Choice, myself, our staff, his teammates believed in him, and then he was able to continue to work and improve his game, and then have a game like this in the playoff, just really proud of him. I think that is kind of symbolic of everybody on our team — everybody’s been dealing with stuff. We’ve been dealing with injuries and all sorts of things, but I know one thing about our team, that we respond when times get tough, and Jaydon was a great example of that.”