The dubious officiating and special teams disaster drew the headlines, but the real reason a 27-24 late fourth quarter lead turned into a 30-27 loss for Texas to No. 20 Oklahoma State was the Cowboys’ ability to collapse the Longhorns’ offensive line time and again in the second half. And the reason that happened was the precipitous drop off from starting right tackle Kent Perkins to his backup Marcus Hutchins.
Oklahoma State defensive end - and future NFL player - Emmanuel Ogbah consistently evaded Hutchins or pushed him into Jerrod Heard‘s lap, contributing to an offensive slide that saw the Longhorns follow an 11-play, 97-yard touchdown drive by closing the game with six punts (four three-and-outs), a turnover on downs, and an interception. Six of those drives traveled less than 10 yards.
Those were rushing-only stats I tweeted earlier. UT total with Perkins: 43 plays, 301 yards (7 ypp). Without: 16 plays, minus-11 yards.
— Mike Finger (@mikefinger) September 27, 2015
On Monday, fellow offensive lineman Sedrick Flowers called out Hutchins’ apparent lack of preparation. Though he didn’t mention Hutchins by name, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who he was talking about.
“I think what happened is a lack of preparation by the backup,” Flowers told the Austin American-Statesman. “I feel as though he didn’t foresee (an injury). I don’t think he took that into consideration when he was preparing. He just saw this week as another week that he wasn’t gonna play. If he would have taken more time in practice and film review, took it more seriously, then it would have been different.
“You can’t use ‘I had no reps’ as an excuse.”
Luckily for Texas, Perkins hasn’t been ruled out of Saturday’s game with TCU - a game where the Longhorns enter as the biggest underdogs they’ve been since Mack Brown‘s first season. Charlie Strong listed Perkins as day-to-day. “KP is a big deal for our offense,” running back Johnathan Gray told the paper. “That might have hurt us. We can’t afford to lose guys like him. We need him to help us.”