The Fighting Turtles

Well….that, folks, was not great. 

I’m trying to console myself with all of the things you say when you lose your season opener.

•           We have a lot of room to improve.
•           There’s a lot of football left to play.
•           They just needed to get those first game nerves out of the way.

It was pretty brutal to watch.  It took Maryland 6 plays to get seven on the board.  That was bad.  Somehow a moment later Ehlinger connected with Duvernay for a 39 yard TD pass. Unfortunately a mere 25 seconds later, Maryland threw a deep 60+ yard bomb for a TD.

Less than five minutes into the second quarter, Maryland was up 24-7.  At that point, the Texas offense started to do something they have almost consistently been good at.  A fast paced, hurry up offense that went on to score two touchdowns going into the half.   I’ll point out that we failed a 2 point conversion going into the half, but in all fairness our D had forced a safety moments before, so I’ll let it slide.   This means going into the half it was 22 Texas to Maryland 24.

Then there was the longest third quarter in the history of time.  A storm/rain delay was able to squash any momentum the longhorns had built up (including the only score of the quarter, a Texas TD) and a 29-24 lead for Texas became a 29-34 loss.

In the fourth quarter, Texas went back to doing what Texas does.  Taking forever at the line to snap the ball. Running up the middle on 3rd and 8.  And I hate to even say it but with a minute left to go and the ball on the Maryland 33, Ehlinger in a desperate move threw an interception inside the 2 minute mark. In fact, the second this happened I stood up, raised my hands in the air and said "there it is."

Also concerning was the inability to defend against the deep pass.  We need to work on that.

I’m pretty sure my last post referenced my desire to not be upset that he’s done that at some really inopportune times.  I'm still working on it. 

All that said.  It always could have been worse.   At least we didn’t give up 51 points to them this year. 

The Tre Watson fumble near the end of the 4^th was not great.  In fact the three turnovers in the last four minutes were not great.  10 penalties for 102 yards was really not great.

Despite two interceptions, I'm still sticking with Ehlinger as the guy.  I think it's important that even after that terrible two-interception last four minutes, we keep him at starter.  He'll never develop the confidence he needs if he is terrified that having a bad game is going to cost him the start. 

We have a lot to get together in the next week.  We open to Tulsa at home next week, and after that is a gauntlet of terror including TCU/K-State/USC/OU.