No. 10 Texas’ opponent on Saturday night was Louisiana Tech but the minds of many in Austin probably were looking ahead to the matchup against No. 6 LSU in the same stadium next week. For just a little bit early on, it seemed like the Longhorns were too.
Eventually though, Tom Herman’s team shook off a relatively slow start and dispatched the Bulldogs 45-14 to turn the page on their season opener and move onto a week full of cleaning up little issues before the big showdown.
Quarterback Sam Ehlinger did look sharp in his first action since declaring that UT was indeed “back,” throwing for 276 yards and four touchdowns in about three quarters worth of work. He had a fairly light load carrying the ball as one would expect in a game against an overmatched CUSA team and rushed just eight times for 34 yards before giving way to backup Casey Thompson.
10 different receivers wound up catching a pass, highlighted by two scores from Brennan Eagles and one touchdown apiece from Devin Duvernay and Collin Johnson. The rushing attack was limited given the number of injuries in the backfield but Keaontay Ingram shook off his training camp injury to rush for 78 yards and a trip to the end zone.
LaTech was able to move the ball on their trip to the state capital though, putting up 413 yards of total offense and looked feisty until the final minutes. QB J’Mar Smith threw for 331 of those yards and tossed a pair of touchdowns against one interception. Given that the Bulldogs couldn’t really run the football effectively, it wasn’t a bad outing against a team ranked in the top 10 on the road.
The eyes of Texas -- and the nation -- will, however, be looking ahead to next week after LSU breezed past Georgia Southern 55-4 earlier in the night over in Baton Rouge. The old regional rivals both took care of business as expected even if the Longhorns needed a little bit more time to get going to open their highly anticipated 2019 campaign.