Texas at Kansas Football Preview: Which Longhorns Team Will Show Up?

It's Senior Day for Kansas on Saturday against a Texas team that sparked the Jayhawks rise last season.

A year after the game that served as the catalyst for this program resurgence, featured Jalon Daniels’ breakout performance of the year, and sparked the fan-base and Applebee’s sensation that is Jared Casey, Texas is now coming to Lawrence on senior day seeking revenge as Kansas looks for one more win inside The Booth in 2022.

Opponent Overview

Team: Texas

Record: 6-4

Line: Texas -9 (opened Texas -7)

Team Form

The Longhorns’ season is a bit of a rollercoaster. Texas rolled in its opener and then took Alabama to the wire. Two games later, it lost to Texas Tech in overtime. Then it responded with two wins in a row, including a 49-0 shelling of Oklahoma. But that was followed up with a series of ups and downs on the coaster: a narrow win against Iowa State, a loss to Oklahoma State, a win against K-State, and a loss to TCU.

The latest drop against TCU also included a plummeting of the offense. After scoring 30+ points in six of its previous seven games (the other was 24 in a win against ISU), Texas only managed 10 against the Horned Frogs. In doing so, the Longhorns didn’t even rack up 200 total yards and went 1-13 on third down. TCU is undefeated and very good, but its defense had given up at least 24 points in every Big 12 game before that.

Players to Watch

Freshman Quinn Ewers has had as wild of a season as the Longhorns have as a team. He was off to a great start against Alabama before being knocked out of the game, and then came back to throw four touchdowns against Oklahoma. But since then, he has only thrown for more than 200 yards once (against Oklahoma State) and in that game, he completed just 39% of his passes and was picked off three times.

The most dangerous weapon on Texas’ offense is running back Bijan Robinson. Robinson is leading the conference in rushes (204) and rushing yards (1,158), while ranking third in rushing touchdowns (12). As if that’s not enough, he is also a threat in the passing game, having caught 19 passes for 314 yards and two receiving touchdowns. Somehow, TCU held Robinson 29 yards on 12 carries, which was the first time he was held below 100 yards since the Alabama game. Kansas fans will need to hope that TCU offered some sort of blueprint to slow him down.

Meanwhile, the Longhorns have a three-headed monster at receiver. Xavier Worthy, Ja’Tavion Sanders, and Jordan Whittington all have more than 500 yards receiving and at least 37 receptions. Worthy is the biggest touchdown threat with nine, but you can guarantee one of those three is finding the end zone through the air as no other receivers have caught a touchdown pass this year.

On defense, Jaylan Ford is everywhere. The junior linebacker is tied for the most total tackles in the Big 12 at 91, has eight tackles for loss, two sacks, two picks, three forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries. He does it all.

Matchups to Watch

If Jalon Daniels does play, the quarterback battle between he and Ewers will be a major talking point. But success might come down to the running game. The Kansas defense is going to have its hands full with Robinson and struggled mightily to contain Texas Tech last week, giving up 264 yards and four touchdowns. Ewers has proven that he will go through spurts where he’s inaccurate and will make mistakes, but Kansas has to control Robinson to make Ewers put the offense on his shoulders and convert on third and long.

Meanwhile, Devin Neal is on an absolute tear. As Kansas football called out, Neal is the first Jayhawk since June Henley in 1996 to gain more than 190 yards on the ground in back-to-back games. But the Longhorns are only allowing an average of 3.4 yards per rush and 127 yards per game. Neal is going to be public enemy No. 1 for the Longhorns defense, so it will be critical for him to continue having success and not put too much on Daniels in his first game back.

Prediction

I’m not surprised that Texas is favored here, but I am surprised that the line is up to nine. Texas is 2-2 in its past four games and hasn’t won either by more than a touchdown. And Kansas is a different team at home. The Jayhawks are 4-1 at The Booth and 2-3 on the road.

If Jalon Daniels can play and is able to acclimate pretty quickly, I like the Hawks’ chances. But the defense is going to have to show it can stop the run and make life harder on opposing offenses than it did in Lubbock. I would guess this is a one-score game in either direction, and given what I’ve seen from Ewers lately, I’ll give a slight edge to Kansas at home.

Kansas 38, Texas 35

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