Lack of first-down success hurt Texas against Arizona State

The Horns gave up two sacks, a safety, and only managed 30 first-down rushing yards on 10 carries in addition to committing two penalties.

Let’s get this out of the way first — in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers was 10-of-13 passing for 177 yards and two touchdowns on first down against the Arizona State Sun Devils, including the first and final scores of the 39-31 win.

But beyond the passing success of Ewers, Texas was abysmal on first down against Arizona State, giving up two sacks that stymied drives, a safety following a goal-line stand, and only gained 30 yards on 10 carries, excluding the sack yardage. The Horns also committed two penalties for 10 yards on first down that put them off schedule.

“Ultimately, we’ve gotta find a way to be a little bit more efficient on first down — four-yard runs are good for us. That’s okay. I just felt like we just didn’t have enough ops and that was probably the most frustrating thing to where we could really get going,” Sarkisian said after the game.

“I’m looking at Jaydon Blue only had four carries and Tre [Wisner] had 18. But we need to be better, and we gotta analyze that. They were a quick, athletic front that did a nice job, as I said. The safeties were aggressive and they got us on the ground. I give them a lot of credit. They didn’t play for over 20 days and I thought they tackled pretty good tonight.”

On Friday, Sarkisian said that Arizona State didn’t do anything unusual defensively to achieve that success.

“I thought they were very active. I thought they did a good job of running their defense. I didn’t think it was so much of that there was something new or different, but they executed and I thought they won some of their one-on-ones. We’ve got to improve upon that,” Sarkisian said.

The issues started on the second Texas drive when Ewers took what Sarkisian has in the past called a “nonsense sack.” On a run-pass option, the run attached to the play that Sarkisian called featured tight end Gunnar Helm and left guard Hayden Conner pulling across the formation, but Conner couldn’t get to Arizona State defensive end Prince Dorbah, who sacked Ewers before the Texas quarterback could consider throwing the ball away.

The Longhorns went three and out after a four-yard run by Wisner on second down and an incomplete pass on third down when wide receiver Ryan Wingo had his jersey grabbed on his go route by the Sun Devils defender in an attempt to stop a big play that went unflagged.

On the next possession by Texas, Wisner opened the drive with a three-yard run when a missed block by left tackle Kelvin Banks at the second level disrupted the timing enough to allow safety Ghost Rowser to make the play, an example of the aggressive and effective safety play by Arizona State that Sarkisian mentioned.

Able to move the chains on a jet sweep by wide receiver Silas Bolden, the next first down for the Longhorns was a two-yard gain by Wisner on a check down when Ewers didn’t have any receivers open on a shot play. Wisner was brought down by the first defender, cornerback Javan Robinson, who made a sure one-on-one tackle that allowed pursuit to arrive.

A rare successful misdirection throwback screen to Wisner on the third first down drive picked up 24 yards, but the next first down was another unsuccessful run, a two-yard gain by Wisner when Banks and Conner lost control of a combo block as Conner tried to climb.

The final first down of the 13-play drive came inside the 10-yard line and helped stall the drive. Texas tried to run Pin and Pull to the field, but Dorbah walked Helm two yards into the backfield, forcing center Jake Majors to pull underneath Helm, disrupting the timing of the play and the track of Wisner. Majors missed his block and Wisner was tackled for a yard loss.

The Longhorns settled for a field goal after a five-yard gain by Wisner and an unsuccessful speed out route by Golden on which Ewers misfired, one of Sarkisian’s favorite red-zone plays he’d just used to convert a 4th and 2 before the Pin and Pull was blown up.

With Arizona State down 17-3, the Sun Devils went for a 4th and 10 in Longhorns territory outside of field-goal range, setting up an opportunity for Texas to score late in the first half. Instead, Blue was dropped in the backfield on another gap scheme when an Arizona State defender was able to get across the face of Banks and make the tackle for loss.

Texas went three and out and punted.

To start the second half, the Sun Devils ran a delayed blitz for linebacker Caleb McCullough on a play-action pass by the Longhorns and McCullough came free as the interior tried to deal with another blitzed ahead of McCullough.

Texas again went three and out and punted, the third three and out of the game for the Horns.

The next possession went even more poorly for Sarkisian’s team. After a goal-line stand, Texas took over at its own 2-yard line. In 12 personnel and trying to create some space from a Pistol formation, the Longhorns motioned Golden in tight to the formation and ran inside zone, but Golden allowed the Sun Devils nickel back to get across his face with Shamari Simmons hitting Wisner in the end zone and forcing a fumble that Ewers was fortunate to have ricochet straight to him for a safety instead of an Arizona State touchdown.

The Sun Devils responded with a 10-play drive that took more than six minutes off the clock and resulted in a field goal to cut the deficit to nine points.

Despite getting off schedule on the ensuing drive when Wisner only gained two yards on first down, Ewers connected with Blue on an 11-yard completion on the next play. On Wisner’s two-yard gain in another gap scheme, right guard DJ Campbell wasn’t able to successfully execute his block, stretching the play and allowing the pursuit to bring down the Texas running back just past the line of scrimmage.

After the completion to Blue, the Horns finally had a successful running play on first down on a zone run-pass option that required Wisner to make a defender miss at the line of scrimmage for a six-yard gain. The next play was a seven-yard run by Wisner that picked up the second rushing first down of the game and the first rushing first down of the game by a Longhorns running back.

As Texas began mounting a methodical drive, Ewers found tight end Juan Davis for an eight-yard gain following Wisner’s first-down run, then threw one of his three first-down incompletions trying to target wide receiver Isaiah Bond from the shot zone that went into double coverage and nearly resulted in an interception. Ewers kept the drive alive by delivering a strike to Golden down the sideline for a 29-yard gain.

A three-yard completion to Blue on a swing pass from 21 personnel on first and goal led to Ewers scrambling for a five-yard touchdown on third down to end the 13-play, 76-yard drive.

Just when it looked like Texas was close to putting the game away, star Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo threw a 42-yard touchdown on 4th and 2, setting up a critical possession for the Longhorns.

On the first play from scrimmage, Sarkisian went away from the gap schemes and called an outside zone. Because the Texas offensive linemen were able to avoid allowing penetration and then check and climb to the second level, Wisner was able to show off his patience and find a seam for six yards.

So the first-down play call and the execution of it weren’t issues for Sarkisian and Texas — it was the second-down play call that served as a critical moment in Arizona State’s comeback.

Trying to take the top off the Sun Devils defense, Sarkisian called a shot play to Bond and Ewers forced it into double coverage, leading to an interception that stood as the game’s only turnover by the Longhorns and handing Arizona State some momentum that it quickly capitalized on when Skattebo beat Texas safety Michael Taaffe on a go route for a 62-yard gain that added an extra nine yards into the red zone on a facemask penalty on Taaffe, who was desperate to use any means possible to bring down the sturdy running back.

After the Sun Devils tied the game, a seven-yard completion by Ewers to start the drive was emblematic of his first-down passing success in the Peach Bowl. And the subsequent first-down run by Wisner was also emblematic, going for two yards as Majors and Hutson both missed their blocks badly, leading to a two-yard loss.

A 14-yard completion by Ewers to Golden on 2nd and 12 earned a fresh set of downs, but Hutson immediately put the Horns behind the chains with a false start, leading to the game’s second first-down incompletion by Ewers and a stalled drive that resulted in a missed 48-yard field goal by Auburn.

Trying to win the game after a stop by the Texas defense on the controversial hit by Taaffe that wasn’t ruled targeting, Ewers made two big first-down throws to Golden and Helm for first downs, the second coming after a false start on Conner. After two more completions to Wingo, Sarkisian called another first-down run to Wisner on which two Arizona State defensive linemen created significant displacement of Conner and Majors to inflict another tackle for loss.

Auburn went on to miss another field goal, his only miss of less than 40 yards this year, even though the final play from scrimmage in regulation for Texas was Ewers centering the ball for his kicker.

Ultimately, the lack of success running the ball on first downs, combined with the two breakdowns that caused first-down sacks and the two late false-start penalties, put Texas in too many unmanageable third downs, contributing to offensive struggles that kept the Longhorns from putting the game away at numerous moments.

With Sarkisian preferring the major in outside zone, the surprising aspect of his first-down play calling against Arizona State was his reliance on gap schemes. On those plays, the Texas offensive line, along with Helm and Golden, took turns making errors in execution.

“At the end of the day first- and second-down wins are really important for us to try to minimize some of the third-and-long situations that you can get yourself into — that’s when we’re at our best,” Sarkisian said.

“For them, I just thought they executed what they do on defense and they did it better than we did for a lot of that ball game.”

Against Arizona State, Texas was narrowly able to overcome those deficiencies.

Against Ohio State, similar deficiencies will almost certainly end the season.