Old Southwest Conference rivals Texas and Arkansas met once again at the Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium. However, the Longhorns seemingly left their offense back at home in Austin, resulting in a lopsided 31-7 loss to the Razorbacks.
With Texas mustering only 59 total yards, sophomore quarterback Tyrone Swoopes struggled nearly the entire game collecting only 57 passing yards, while rushing for minus-32 yards. Swoopes did have one successful drive - despite the stats saying otherwise - in the second quarter to put the Longhorns on the board for the first time with a 9-yard touchdown run, gaining most on the teams' yardage for the game on the single drive. In the postgame new conference, Swoopes said it was a matter of the offense simply not executing plays against Arkansas' defense.
"We just didn't execute," Swoopes said. "At the end of the day, its what you got to do. You got to protect, you got to get a push, and the receivers got to run their routes and help the line, the backs have to run hard."
The running game proved to be no match for Arkansas as well, with the tailback duo of Malcolm Brown and Johnathan Grey combining for 34 yards. The rushing attack was mostly abandoned after Texas fell behind early in the game.
"It's a mystery to me," head coach Charlie Strong said about being unprepared despite having a month to get ready for Arkansas. "It should never happen. When you go out and you practice for that long, you have to go out and practice. I saw them go through the motion. You don't act like you don't want to be there. I think that's the way that we like to get things done. I don't know if they were kind of used to the way I like to do things. That's probably part of it."
Unfortunately for Texas, the offense wasn't just bad, it was close to being historically bad. The Longhorns nearly finished below the 50 total-yard mark, the team's lowest in it's history, set in 1943 against Southwestern. However a late fourth-quarter drive - that was eventually capped by an interception from Swoopes - gained enough yards to barely pass the all-time low.
"We didn't execute on offense," Strong said. "When we have one bad play, it leads to another bad play and its like we can regain our focus, we can't get back on track. Nobody's making a play, we aren't blocking anybody, we're not running ball, we're not protecting the quarterback. There's no playmakers."
The loss, dropping Texas to 6-7 on the season, was the Longhorns' second-straight blowout loss after TCU walloped them at home 48-10 on Thanksgiving more than a month prior. Also, the game marked the second straight time Texas was defeated heavily in its own state in the postseason as Oregon won 30-7 in last season's Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, former head coach Mack Brown's final game.
"The last two games is just so frustrating," Strong said. "Cause you look at the TCU game, you look at this game and that's not an indication of what this football team is and what this football team is all about."
After the game, an understandably frustrated Strong stressed the importance of getting Texas' football program back on track.
"At some point, too, we got to develop and we've got to get the pride back into this program. Texas has got to mean something, right now it doesn't mean much," Strong said. "We have to play with passion, you got to play with energy, you have to have an edge to you. We don't have that right now."
Senior linebacker Jordan Hicks, who played his last game for the Longhorns in the Texas Bowl loss, wants Texas to return to its glory days and stressed that point with the team's younger players on the roster.
"We went 6-[7], which definitely is not our standard, but at the same time we were facing a great team, an SEC team, with a great opportunity to go out there and prove a point and it's just disappointing, especially as a senior to go out like that," Hicks said. "You've got to hang high, you've got to continue to work, you've got to tell these young guys don't end like that in the future. ... You've got to keep working to get this program back where it's supposed to be."
Needless to say, Swoopes first season as the starting quarterback, starting 12 or the Longhorns' 13 games, was rocky at best. While at times the sophomore showed some promise, inconsistency marred his first season with the offensive reigns at Texas. Strong stressed next season will be an open competition for the starting quarterback job, along with every other position.
"We got to get better at that position," Strong said about Swoopes' level of play. "We got a young man committed and you'd like to go get another one if we can. It's going to be a competition, there's going to be competition at all positions. I mean, where can we lay our hat on right now?"
Strong, since the day he took over for Brown as head coach of the Longhorns, has expressed his desire to up the standard at Texas. With a 6-7 record in his inaugural season that saw him dismiss nine players, Strong feels he and the rest of the coaching staff have some work to do to continue to right the ship.
"That is not the standard here, it will never be the standard here and that should never ever happen at the University of Texas," Strong said. "You have to play better, you have to coach better, you have to get your players to go play, and we didn't get that done."
Follow Shawn Ramsey on Twitter: @ShawnPRamsey
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