Breaking down Texas spring pass game battles

Spring game scrimmages are rarely a good preview of a team’s run game or run defense. Especially at Texas where the Longhorns tend to enjoy putting on a passing show for the fans who attend. Steve Sarkisian would rather let fans sweat out the state of their defense but have excitement for the quarterbacks and offense than to blitz and attack his own side of the ball in an exhibition.

Consequently we got a fair bit of drop-8 coverage and very rare flexing of the defense’s capacity for bringing pass-rush with a deep corps of Edges. Yet despite the vanilla gameplans, scripted sets, and alternating personnel matchups we still got to see Texas run base passing offense against base passing defense.

How did things look on either side during those moments? The capacity of this offense for higher level passing offense or passing defense is going to ultimately determine whether they can make a playoff run so how they handle the little things running base concepts is meaningful. I’ve picked out a few clips to break down beyond the obvious touchdown passes we all saw.

3rd and 3: Arch makes something happen

Some of the most interesting clips during the game featured Arch Manning at quarterback, not only for finally seeing the famous passer in action but also because he drew the better defensive units with players we’ll actually see this fall.

Here’s an example of Manning converting a 3rd-and-3 with the famous “mesh-rail” passing concept against the defense.

The progression on this pass is the rail route by the running back, then the shallow cross heading toward the flat vacated by the running back’s clear out route, then the curl route in the middle of the field. The defense is playing man coverage, which this concept is theoretically designed to beat. Two things happen which thwart the offensive execution.

First, Ryan Niblett (#18) runs into Amari Niblack (#18) who’s supposed to be creating a “rub” for him to use in getting free of Jaylon Guilbeau (#3) who followed him from the slot. He should be running under Niblack to hit the flat as quickly as possible. Second, while Niblett does still get some separation from Guilbeau, the drop by Michael Taaffe allows David Gbenda (#33) to pick him up and eliminate that option. The trade-offs and matching by the defense on this are all very good, the only chance for the offense would have been Niblett quickly breaking free under the rub and dodging a Gbenda tackle for a first. Or, there’s always the fallback against man coverage, which is the quarterback scramble.

Manning scrambles inside and picks up the needed three yards, demonstrating the ultimate college trump card for a quarterback. One wonders how that might have gone though if the D-line had a better interior pass-rushing duo than Tia Savea and Sydir Mitchell.

1st and 10: Coverage sack

Manning was less fortunate on another snap later in the game.

This is like the inverse of the other play, where Manning was set up to run a man coverage-beater against man coverage on a high leverage 3rd down. This time the offense is flooding the boundary with routes on a snap where the defense is dropping eight into coverage and dropping the Buck (#11 with the black penny, Colin Simmons) into the boundary.

Simmons mostly did some spot dropping in this scrimmage and didn’t always show awareness of where the receivers were but on this snap he did a great job carrying the tight end up for the cornerback and then coming off to keep the running back from getting outside of him. Everything is being communicated and handed off here and there’s nowhere to go with the ball as Manning’s eyes movement simply triggers the defenders to take away the next window.

The scramble had a decent chance except Jaray Bledsoe (#94) gets outside to force Arch back inside and Ethan Burke (#91) is there in pursuit to apply the two-hand touch rule tackle. This is a peak at the best possible version of the 2024 Longhorn defense. One in which the back seven becomes proficient enough in different base coverages to allow a talented front four to get pressure the traditional way.

3rd-and-16: A dropped opportunity

Finally we get a four-man rush with pass-rushers on this 3rd-and-16 for Manning. They run Hoss-Y Juke, a favorite concept in the NFL which Tom Brady and the Patriots used during their 2010s Super Bowl runs. You have slot fades to either side, hitch routes outside, and someone dangerous in the slot running the “juke” route, hopefully isolated on a linebacker.

The left tackle here is Jaydon Chatman (#75) and Justice Finkley (#1) nearly had him beat. On the other side, Simmons gives Cameron Williams (#56) at right tackle some trouble with the speed rush but the lineman manages to guide him far enough upfield for Manning to step up and make a throw.

The Longhorns are in man coverage with will linebacker Morice Blackwell on bottom matched up on the running back. The best option for picking up a first down would be the slot fade in the boundary but cornerback Gavin Holmes erases Isaiah Bond at the line of scrimmage and the deep safety was shaded there anyways. Guilbeau had less help on the wide side but is in great position against DeAndre Moore‘s fade route. Safety Andrew Mukuba drifts too far inside carrying the juke route slot Matthew Golden (#2) to linebacker Liona Lefau (#18) and the pivot back outside has him beat. Beat badly enough for a first down? Impossible to know for sure as Golden drops it. Probably not.

Manning was very sharp in the dropback passing game, getting through reads quickly and demonstrating the footwork and release to hit the windows as they were open. Overall the defense actually did a pretty good job of covering progressions and forcing check downs, save for the three deep bombs which included a blown coverage and two instances of cornerbacks simply getting beat over the top. Manning’s high completion rate was a result of consistently getting to check downs on time.

Take out the three bombs and Manning was a workmanlike 18-23 for 159 yards at 6.9 ypa. That’d have been a strong showing by the pass defense.

When the defense is in nickel with a 3rd corner like Jahdae Barron or Guilbeau on the slot and a capable coverage man like Mukuba or Williams on the fourth receiver, these single-high man/match coverages they showed in spring could be very formidable. Combined with a base pass-rush and cleaner play against deep shots and you have a promising foundation on defense.

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