Texas RB Jaydon Blue after career performance vs. ULM: ‘I should have played a lot better than I did’

The junior starter is still searching for a complete performance.

AUSTIN, Texas — On Saturday against the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks, Texas Longhorns junior running back Jaydon Blue set career highs in carries (25), rushing yards (124), and rushing touchdowns (three). Blue had a receiving touchdown, too.

On Monday morning, Blue walked out of his position meeting, went up to Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, and told him, “Man, I should have played a lot better than I did.”

It’s the type of mentality that Sarkisian said typifies his No. 1-ranked team. For Blue, his relentless approach to improvement reflects a hard-earned maturity after spending an offseason gaining hard-earned weight in an effort to increase his durability and run more effectively between the tackles.

Returning from an ankle injury sustained against Michigan that kept him out of the UTSA game, Blue ran for 63 of his 124 yards inside the tackles and forced four missed tackles. With all three rushing touchdowns coming from one or two yards out, Blue’s ability to pick up difficult yardage in the red zone stood out. But during a Monday afternoon meeting with the media, Blue insisted that he’s uninterested in analyzing the things he did well.

“I look at the film to see the things that I need to work on or the things that I didn’t do as well. So, it’s just having a mentality of trying to get better day in and day out,” Blue said.

The Texas starter said he left some yardage on the field and pointed to three dropped passes as an area for improvement. One drop, a screen pass late in the first quarter, was set up for a big gain.

Another missed connection with redshirt freshman quarterback Arch Manning came on a wheel route just before halftime that should have gone for a 69-yard touchdown had Manning not overthrown the pass.

Manning’s next attempt went off Blue’s hand for his second interception.

Other areas show notable growth, including pass protection, the second law after ball security for running backs coach Tashard Choice, who made his career in the NFL as a third-down back and occasionally shows his players clips of his own efforts picking up blitzers.

“He emphasizes us protecting the quarterback because if we can’t take protect the quarterback then we can’t play, so I think I’ve improved a lot and it has to do with Coach Choice and me just learning from from the guys that played in front of me in the previous years,” Blue said.

The biggest influences were Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson, who have translated their pass protection skills to the next level. Robinson went viral on Sunday for his block on a long pass.

“Seeing them being able to pick up blitzes like that in NFL is just really big for me because it gives me a lot of confidence that I played in the same room as those guys and that they set the bar for this room,” Blue said.

The bigger headline is that Blue has forced 12 missed tackles on 45 with 148 of his 203 yards coming after contact, a testament to his improved a strength. It’s also an indictment of the Texas interior and perimeter blocking, which is struggling to provide the type of running lanes that Blue can exploit for huge gains with his elite speed.

One red-zone play provided a stark example — Blue forced two missed tackles, but the first was to avoid a big loss and the second was at the line of scrimmage. The result was one of the more impressive five-yard runs a running back can produce, but the goal for the Texas offense is to put Blue in positions where one broken tackles leads to a long touchdown.

Consider that a work in progress as Blue progresses to becoming an all-around back with the durability to handle the heaviest workloads of his football career.