and this did make the game a lot easier than it could have been for the young DBs. I have read in a bunch of places (I think maybe even BON) that Muschamp’s style is – while aggressive – still more focused on subtler forms of pressure. As a result, I did get the sense from the stands that there was not a whole lot going on in terms of real pressure (e.g. sacks), but I still think they got the job done commendably.

However, while controlling the LOS and pressuring Smith is one thing, doing so against Sam Bradford and his band of big uglies or a scrambler like Chase Daniel is something else entirely. I don’t think, based on what I saw last night, that the Horns are ready to take on a real O-Line just yet, but they’ll get there.

The Longhorns’ kiddie corps in the secondary impressed FAU quarterback Rusty Smith, who struggled through a 15-for-31 passing performance.

“They looked young, but they were very talented, I’ll give them that,” Smith said. “And their front four really did a number on us tonight. They pressured me well. We knew they would have great athletes and they did.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/notebook?page=notebook/gamedayFinal081

Muschamp on defensive pressure against FAU, from Chip Brown, “Texas Starts To Form and Identity” article on orangebloods.com (posted August 31).

“With all the slide protection, they eliminated a lot of our pressure,” Muschamp said. "The big play they hit in the first half, we pressured. They maxed it, and they hit (Cortez) Gent in the middle of the field (for 33 yards on third-and-7). We stayed doubled on him most of the game. That was the one play we weren’t.

“We made some adjustments. We stayed out of the pressure (in the second half) because of their protections and because of our double coverage on the X (Gent).”

You can see plenty of pressure being brought on Smith, he was throwing across his body, off his back foot, checking down for no gain. He is well coached and knows to get rid of the ball quickly. Sacks are great, the emotion, the momentum, but pressure creates turnovers as well in the form of picks or merely forcing punts. You don’t see a lot of statue 6’5’’ stand-in-the pocket QBs anymore who will just take the sack or lack mobility. He was rolling out, getting out of the pocket etc.

Personally i would have liked to see a sack but it didnt seem to be a glaring point of concern. They couldn’t run, they had no choice but to throw quick passes.

….when moving a QB by a rush, upset an offense. More and more in the Big 12 we have mobile QB’s that can be efficient throwing even when the there isn’t any real pocket.
The real measure of a good rush is a speed rush that can get to the Qb before the receivers have settled into their patterns. With the level of complexities of the best offenses in the conference, they can adjust to the type of pressure the Horns applied to FAU. For a rush to move that quick, the D line has to get around the blocks and not take on the block. It looked to me like to many times the Defensive line tried to rush over the blocker.

We see another sign of maladjustment of the defense this year, 255 passing yards and 37 yards rushing. I would be worrying less about the rush and more about the pass. The top tier of teams in Division I are passing teams and to hang with that competition the horns need to have a defense that can stop a passing offense more than it needs a strong rushing defense. In fact I suspect a good pass stopping secondary will be a decent run stopping group. It makes more sense to configure the whole defense to stop the pass first and not worrying about the rush.

I spent most of my time watching the DBs and LBs from the stands. However I thought the line did a great job. Henry Melton looked like a completely different player and I kept double checking because he looked like Lamarr Houston out there. On several occasions Melton slipped through two blockers and either put pressure on the QB or forced the RB to pick a different hole. Without the benefit of DVR it’s hard to tell what I missed, but from the looks of it I thought the line was pretty solid.

But I wished to see a little bit more. I wanted to see some sacks, but in their defense, the FAU quarterback often released the ball pretty quickly, sometimes just to avoid the sack. They did put on some good pressure to force some bad throws, and they obviously gobbled up the running game.

I don’t think they got that much help from the blitzers, though. A couple of times, not even Kindle could shed his blocker and get to the QB. All in all, a good performance, but I guess us greedy fans wanted to see a little more.

By the way, anyone else nearly faint when Orakpo went down? Man. Don’t scare us like that.