Initial thoughts from Texas’ 31-23 loss to West Virginia

Another week, another loss for the 4-7 Texas Longhorns, who are no longer bowl eligible after dropping their sixth consecutive game.

At this point, what more can be said? Here’s a few initial thoughts from Texas’ latest loss.

Goodbye, bowl game. As noted, with their latest loss, the Longhorns won’t earn a bowl bid in Steve Sarkisian’s first season. We’ve reach a low where Texas fans could probably do without watching a extra game this season, but the several extra practices could have been significant for whatever young talent still in Austin next season. But now, Texas’ season will end next Friday, and likely with a seventh consecutive loss.

Give Keilan Robinson the ball. For a Texas offense with so few weapons, it’s been concerning with how little the Alabama transfer has been involved this season — Nick Saban even remarked that Robinson would be playing a lot has he remained in Tuscaloosa. On Saturday, though, after tallying just nine touches all season, Robinson was a rare bright spot in an otherwise brutal performance. He turned his nine carries into a career-high 111 yards and one touchdown, and also grabbed a 16-yard catch. Texas completely failed to utilize him his season, but it’s clear he can be a factor in some sense. Sark and his staff have to figure out just how to use him going forward, because they’re going to need him in 2022.

The Texas secondary is incredibly bad. Twice Texas was in position to get off the field on third and really long, only to see the secondary allow a huge chunk play to move the chains en route to scores. Elsewhere, they were just essentially non-existent, providing almost no real pressure for a WVU receiver group that mostly looked like it was playing against air. Texas has several areas to address in recruiting and the transfer portal, and the secondary is near the top of that list, maybe behind only the offensive line.

The Texas defense as a whole remains a problem. Allowing chunk plays, missing tackles, the general inability to pressure the quarterback or get off the field — WVU was 12-of-20 on third down. More notably, they still can’t play complementary football. When the offense finally stared producing in the second half to make it a game, the defense would let West Virginia answer right back, keeping the offense in a hole with zero margin for error. You simply can’t win games like that, and that’s a significant reason Texas’ record is what it is.

Texas football is a prime example of Murphy’s law. Everything that can go wrong will, and has. This might be the worst Texas team of my lifetime.