Double Coverage Vol. 5, Issue 4

THE DAILY TEXAN PRESENTS:

Sept. 17, 2010 Vol.5, Issue 4

–Blake Gideon and the Texas secondary grow from 2008’s Lubbock mistakes. | page 4

–The Longhorn defense plans to answer Raider fans’ taunts with sacks. | page 8

MISTAKESMOVING PASTTHEIR

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Friday, September 17, 20102

theLINEUP

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THE DAILY TEXAN PRESENTS:

Double Coverage Editor……………Colby M. White Design Editor…………………….Mustafa SaifuddinPhoto Editor……………………………Derek StoutPage designers....Simonetta Nieto, Martina GeronimoCopy Editors……….....……Cristina Herrera Daily Texan Sports Editor………………Dan HurwitzWriters……Will Anderson, Sameer Bhuchar,............................................Alexandra Carreno,…………...........................…Austin Laymance,......................................................Jordan Godwin, ..................................…......…Laken Litman, …………………....................……Jonathan Parrett

The Daily Texan’s Double Coverage is printed the Friday before every Texas football game and twice during OU week.

PATIENT HIGGINSTyrell Higgins’ long path to Texas starter took him back home to overcome self-doubt.

page 3

QUIETING SKEPTICSKansas’ upset victory last week takes head coach Turner Gill from scapegoat to hero.

6

REGULARS

GAMEStoWATCH7page 5 MATCHups

PLAYERStoWATCH1511 POWER RANKINGS

!!!!

EDITOR’S NOTE

SAME PASS!HAPPY TECHUsually known for his run-heavy playbooks, new Texas Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville is still throwing.

14

Texas defensive tackle Tyrell

Higgins watches from the

sidelines during a preseason

practice.

Derek StoutDaily Texan Staff

Cover photo: Caleb Bryant Miller

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Friday, September 17, 2010 3

2-0 (0-0 Big 12)last game: 34-7 win vs. Wyoming

2-0 (0-0 Big 12)last game: 52-17 win @ New Mexico

Jones AT&T Stadium, LubbockABC, 7 p.m.

No. 6 Texas Texas Tech@

preview

HIGGINS continues on page 14

By Jordan GodwinDaily Texan Staff

Junior defens ive tack le Tyrell Higgins heard his name called, and his eyes immediate-ly filled with tears as his team-mates jumped up and celebrat-ed around him.

It was a pinnacle moment of clarity and truth for a player who came to Texas clouded by his own confusion and doubt. When he first arrived in the fall of 2007, overwhelmed by the talent of the Longhorns, he convinced himself he was undersized and not ath-letic enough for Texas.

“He made some poor deci-sions,” said head coach Mack Brown. “He really and truly got himself in a bind.”

So Higgins walked away from it all and went back home to Schertz, near San Antonio.

“I had to go back and re-find myself,” Higgins said. “I had to go back and find the truth.”

Higgins, once a top recruit who received dozens of schol-arships to schools around the country, walked away from his scholarship at Texas to instead take classes at St. Philip’s Com-munity College in spring 2008. But while he was there, less than two hours from the bright lights at Texas, he never doubt-ed his return.

“I knew I was coming back the day I left,” Higgins said.

When Higgins returned in fall 2008, coaches told him he would have to walk on to the team and earn his way back. He started on the practice squad and slowly be-gan to work his way up, but he didn’t play as a redshirt sopho-more. He appeared in five games

last season, made three tackles, had a sack and a tackle for loss. But he didn’t fully blossom until this spring.

In one practice, Higgins bat-ted and then intercepted a pass off quarterback Garrett Gil-bert and tried to run it back for a touchdown, but coaches blew the whistle before he scored. The play sent a message to the coach-es that he had completely ban-ished the demons of his past.

“Since he came back,” Brown said, “he’s done everything right.”

Because of his improved play, Higgins earned a starting spot at defensive tackle. He’s replac-ing last year’s standout, Lama-rr Houston, and represents the new order in the high-profile line of Texas defensive tackles

3

Higgins returns to Horns humbled a! er time away

Texas’ Tyrell Higgins, in the starting lineup after spending

spring 2008 at a community college, jokes

with teammates during a

preseason practice.

Derek StoutDaily Texan Staff

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By Laken LitmanDaily Texan Staff

Having a balanced offensive attack has been No. 1 on head coach Mack Brown’s to-do list since the spring.

Heading into this season, the coaches knew it wouldn’t have been fair to assume quarterback Garrett Gilbert could pick up the spread offense left for him by Colt McCoy. Instead, the game plan changed to mold the new start-ing quarterback, and a running game of sorts was implement-ed. Now Gilbert spends about 50 percent of his time in the shotgun and about 50 percent under cen-ter … at least that’s the goal.

“We want to be 50-50 to a T,” Brown said.

Against Wyoming last week, the Longhorns were in the shot-gun 58 percent of the time and under center 42 percent, and rushed 29 times and attempted 35 passes. That’s fairly even for just the second game of the sea-son. Some of the runs were made from the gun, like junior running back Fozzy Whittaker’s 39-yard touchdown in the second quar-ter and Cody Johnson’s rushing touchdown late in the third quar-ter, which Brown likes to do to

confuse defenses.“We want to be able to run

the same plays we’d run from under center out of the gun,” Brown said.

Brown is patient and says he isn’t going to revert to his old spread offensive ways just yet.

“We want to get back to bal-ance,” Brown said. “There’s go-ing to be some days your quar-terback is having a tough day or the weather dictates you can’t throw it every time, and we want to win all of our games and I feel that we need to be more balanced than we have been in the past two years to win them all. We had the most accurate quarterback in college football history and two receiv-ers that are playing really well in the NFL, but you won’t al-ways have that luxury.”

After these first two weeks, Texas is ranked 44th nationally in rushing offense with a total of 364 rush yards, but Brown is go-ing to keep chugging along until the run game runs out of steam.

“We’re not into numbers, we’re into winning games,” Brown said. “We feel like [being 50-50] is what’s best for us long term and that’s why we’re changing.

Texas looking for balance with inexperienced QB


By Laken LitmanDaily Texan Staff

The Longhorns’ last memory of playing in Lubbock is a black hole – literally. After Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree connected on a last-second, game-winning touch-down in 2008, Texas Tech fans, dressed in their blackout attire, swarmed the field like killer bees.

That fateful night, when Texas Tech beat Texas 39-33, ending the Longhorns’ hopes of playing in the Big 12 Championship game and possibly the National Champion-ship game, actually hasn’t haunted the players.

Junior safety Blake Gideon dropped an interception in the dwindling minutes that would have solidified a Texas win that night, and he’s over it. Senior cor-nerback Curtis Brown and former Longhorn Earl Thomas were mark-ing Crabtree on that final play and let him sneak into the end zone, and they’ve moved on as well.

“I don’t think about not being able to hang on to the ball,” Gide-on said. “Years from now when I’m done playing football, I’ll

think about it and be like, ‘Awww man! I messed up,’ but for right now, there are so many other guys counting on me and we all play this game for each other. I owe it to all the guys in the locker room to put that in the past and play this game this week.”

In 2008, Gideon and Thomas were true freshman and Brown was a sophomore. They made rookie mistakes that they’ve since learned from and don’t dwell upon.

“That was a big stepping stone in my college experience in becom-ing a football player,” Brown said. “It was a devastating play, but that said, it made me work harder and mature these past years to get to the point I am at today.”

The blame can not be given to any one player. Throughout the whole game, Texas Tech outplayed and outcoached Texas, mentally and physically.

“I remember asking the team after the game, ‘Raise your hand if you played perfect. Raise your hand if you played great.’ And there weren’t any hands raised,” said head coach Mack Brown. “We

said that we don’t ever want to hear [about the last play and the inter-ception] mentioned again because if you’re gonna talk about those, we need to bring out everybody’s mistakes, including mine, through-out the game.”

After that locker room spiel, the game was never spoken of again.

Gideon said that the team didn’t watch tape from that game this week because they al-ready have enough motivation playing an in-state conference team and knowing what kind of crowd is going to be at the game on Saturday. He said that the best part about playing in Lub-bock are the fans because they study their opponents and find out random facts about each player that make for excellent trash talk material.

“Those Texas Tech fans, they re-search you and know stuff about you from high school. It’s actually really funny, the things they yell,” Gideon said. “But it’s all part of it. That’s what makes it fun. That’s what gets all of us going. That’s col-lege football for you.”

In the Mack Brown era, Texas is 3-6 in Lubbock, but the Long-horns will draw a blank slate on Saturday.

“It’s just another 100-yard foot-

ball field,” Curtis Brown said. “The environment there is crazy and I’m ready for that feeling again – to be on their field and play against their crowd and their team.”

4

Andrew Rogers | Daily Texan Staff

Texas’ Blake Gideon drops vital interception in 2008 against Texas Tech.

Longhorns bury memories of 2008

Friday, September 17, 2010 5matchups 5

Freshman Mike Davis displayed his big play capability with a 104-yard performance, in-cluding a 45-yard touchdown grab in just his second game in a Texas uniform. If Davis can follow up his breakout game with a solid out-ing in Lubbock, the offense should be more dynamic. Seniors Lyle Leong and Detron Lewis lead the Tech receivers and have com-bined for 340 yards and six scores.

Senior Taylor Potts is off to a strong start for another potent Red Raider offense. He set personal records in pass completions (46) and attempts (62) against Texas in 2009. Gar-ret Gilbert looked better in his second start as he showed his scrambling ability while mak-ing plays outside the pocket. But Potts had the Longhorns’ number last year when he completed over 74 percent of his throws.

MATCHups— By Austin Laymance | Daily Texan Staff

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QUARTERBACK RUNNING BACK RECEIVERS OFFENSIVE LINEFozzy Whittaker steps into the starting role, making him the third starter at tailback in as many games. Whittaker’s electric 39-yard scamper into the end zone against Wyoming kickstarted the Texas offense in last week’s first half as he averaged 8.9 yards per carry. Baron Batch and Eric Stephens split carries in the Tech backfield, but neither has broken off a run for longer than 14 yards.

The big boys up front for the Longhorns are doing an excellent job protecting Gilbert and have yet to allow a sack. The Red Raider offensive line slimmed down in the off-sea-son as the coaching staff wanted quick-foot-ed linemen with Tech switching to a faster-paced offense. But Texas has been solid in the trenches thus far and it should be the same story this week.

The Red Raider defensive backs are an op-portunistic group that has intercepted five passes in just two games — half of their to-tal last season. Blake Gideon and the Long-horn secondary look to erase the heartbreak of their last visit to Jones AT&T Stadium. They have improved as a unit in the two years since and will have a chip on their shoulders in this game.

Sam Acho anchored another strong perfor-mance by the Texas front four and set the tone early with three tackles for loss, a sack and three quarterback hurries. Nose tackle Colby Whitlock is one of the best defensive linemen in the country and has started 38 consecutive games for the Red Raiders. Texas will use its quickness off the snap to disrupt the timing of the Tech offense.

Tech linebacker Brian Duncan was named to the preseason watch lists for several defen-sive awards, including the nation’s top line-backer and defensive player. He is the team leader in sacks (4) and tackles for loss (5) for the Red Raiders. Keenan Robinson and Em-manuel Acho have been solid in both games for Texas but their ability to defend the pass could be the difference on Saturday.

Eric Stephens ran wild on kick returns against Texas a season ago and set the single season record for kick-return yards for Texas Tech as a freshman. Stephens nearly returned a kickoff for a score in Tech’s second game. Justin Tucker was per-fect on two field goal tries and sent the ball into the end zone for three touchbacks last week for the Longhorns.

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New Raiders’ coach keeps pass-happy styleBy Alexandra Carreno

Daily Texan StaffTurner Gill is a nice guy. Some

might even say too nice.So how does a guy that is too

nice properly coach a football team? Unconventionally.

The new Kansas head coach is different. He has outlawed curs-ing during practice. He is focusing on developing young men just as much as developing football play-ers. Gill believes in his players and wants them to believe as well. If there was ever a chance for Kan-sas football to revamp its person-ality, it is now.

“When [the players] go to a job interview, I want them to know how to talk and present them-selves in a proper way,” Gill said in an interview with Sports Illus-trated in early August. “My re-sponsibility is to coach football, but I look at it as teaching disci-pline. If you are disciplined, you will be disciplined on the field, in the classroom [and] in society. I am preparing young men for life with football and life without it.”

Of course, there will always

be critics. The Jayhawks’ more-than-embarrassing first week loss against North Dakota gave skep-tics and cynics alike all the reason to criticize Gill’s easy going atti-tude. Fans booed his squad, and Bison head coach Craig Bohl ac-cused the Jayhawks of being unim-pressive.

True to his personality, Gill re-sponded to questions after the game in the only way he knew how — calmly and rationally.

“One game,” Gill told the press after his team lost 6-3 to North Dakota. “It’s one game. That’s the way I look at it. It’s the first game, too. That [puts] it in a differ-ent perspective. It’s the first ball-game. Again, until you play a foot-ball game, you don’t know where you’re at.”

Now fastforward to last Satur-day. The shocking 28-25 defeat of No. 15 Georgia Tech was exactly what Kansas and Gill needed to win credibility. Kansas catapult-ed itself from the punch line of ev-eryone’s jokes to a squad that re-gained everything they had lost in week one and more.

With Gill at the reigns, the Jawhawks’ 11-month losing streak was finally snapped.

“We played like we were ranked in the top 15,” Kansas’, redshirt freshman, quarterback Jordan Webb said afterward. “Not them.”

Constantly criticized in week one for his poor coaching deci-sions, Gill has silenced doubters after his decision to start redshirt Webb and later playing true fresh-man running back James Sims, worked to the team’s advantage. Webb threw for three touchdowns and Sims recorded 101 yards.

“A lot of us said if he’s will-ing to go to bat for us every day, we’re going to bat for him,” tight end Tim Biere told reporters after the win.

Gill proved his critics wrong. He showed doubters that being nice and being able to properly coach a football team can go hand-in-hand.

“Each person has to go and be who they are,” Gill said. “This is who I am.”

Maybe nice guys really do win big in the long run.

By Austin LaymanceDaily Texan Staff

Tommy Tuberville built his rep-utation on his run-oriented offense at Auburn behind some of the na-tions’s top tailbacks. But now that he’s inherited the high-flying Red Raider offense left behind by Mike Leach, he has stayed true to the Raiders’ aerial attack.

In victories over Southern Methodist and New Mexico, the Raiders threw the ball 53 and 41 times respectively.

But that doesn’t mean Tuber-ville hasn’t brought along his own imprints and philosophies to the Red Raider offense.

Tuberville and his staff empha-sized a fast paced “NASCAR” of-fense during the off-season. The offensive line features a slimmer and quicker look as the group lost weight over the summer to keep up with the Raiders new up-tem-po scheme.

The play calls will now come from the sidelines in Tuberville’s system, a far cry from Leach’s days when the quarterbacks ran the offense.

Tuberville has also shown a commitment to the running game, something that was at times non-

existent in Tech’s games under Leach. The Red Raiders had 36 rushing attempts last week on the road in New Mexico, with two backs getting double-digit carries.

With all the adjustments the Red Raiders have made under Tuberville, the coach said he was pleased with their progress so far.

“You can see our guys getting better and better with more con-fidence,” Tuberville said. “The light is starting to click on for all these guys.”

But Tuberville’s influence has reached more than just the offen-sive side of the ball.

The Red Raiders’ defense switched to the same 3-4 scheme used by Texas defensive coordina-tor Will Muschamp. Muschamp oversaw the defense under Tuber-ville for two years at Auburn be-fore coming to Texas.

Tuberville knows his defense still needs time to adjust to the new philosophy. They have been inconsistent in two games, inter-cepting five passes yet surrender-ing 380 yards per game.

“It’s a complex defense,” Tuber-ville said. “This is not a defense where you just go out, line up and play.”

Jayhawks upset silences coach’s critics

Friday, September 17, 2010 77 Games2watch

— By Jon Parrett | Daily Texan StaffGAMEStoWATCH

2-0 (0-0 Big Ten)last game: 35-7 win

vs. Iowa St.

2-0 (0-0 Pac-10)last game: 52-6 winvs. Citadel

Arizona Stadium, Tuscon, Ariz.ESPN, 9:30 p.m.

No. 9 Iowa No. 24 Arizona@(2-0, 0-0 ACC)

last game: 58-21 win vs. Presbyterian

(2-0, 1-0 SEC)last game: 17-14 win@ Mississippi St.

Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn, Ala.ESPN, 6 p.m.

Clemson No. 16 Auburn@(2-0, 0-0 SEC)

last game: 31-7 win vs. Louisiana-Monroe

(1-1, 0-1 SEC)last game: 17-6 loss @ South Carolina

Sanford Stadium, Atlanta, Ga.ESPN, 11 a.m.

No. 12 Arkansas Georgia@(1-1)

last game: 28-24 lossvs. Michigan

(2-0, 0-0 Big Ten)last game: 30-17 win vs. Florida Atlantic

Spartan Stadium, East Lansing, Mich.ABC, 7 p.m.

Notre Dame Michigan St.@

It’s tough to judge how good the Wild-cats are this season, as Toledo and The Citadel aren’t the most competitive of opponents. Still, their offense has been clicking, and quarterback Nick Foles will look to carry the momentum against a stout Iowa defense. Look for Foles to hook up early and often with wide receiver Juron Criner, who already has 236 receiving yards on the season.

The majority of Iowa’s touchdowns this season have come within the red zone, so it will be interesting to see if they can open up their offense for big plays against Arizona. Sophomore Adam Robinson has carried the load for the Hawkeyes thus far this season and will look to build off back-to-back 100-yard rushing performances, the Wildcats have allowed a touchdown yet.

Clemson has yet to be tested this season after two blowout wins at home against North Texas and Presbyterian. Quarterback Kyle Parker hasn’t had much of a chance to play yet this year, so it’ll be interesting to see if sitting him during the end of those routes will hurt his timing. The Tigers’ defense will get a boost with linebacker Brandon Maye returning to the lineup after sitting out two weeks because of knee surgery. Defensive tackle Jarvis Jenkins also returns to the start-ing lineup, after missing last week’s game against Presbyterian with a knee sprain.

Auburn’s freshman running back Mike Dyer may get the start on Saturday for the injured Mario Fannin, but he won’t be the only tailback who sees action against Clem-son. Sophomore Onterio McCalebb, the fast-er of the two, will also get carries, and will be featured more in Auburn’s option offense.

Georgia’s offense struggled to put the ball in the end zone last week against South Carolina and couldn’t seem to stay on the field, going 3-for-11 on third down conver-sions. Wide receiver Kris Durham has filled in nicely for the suspended A.J. Green, to-taling 159 yards on eight receptions through the first two games. Georgia’s defense will need to improve against the run, as they were cut up for 189 yards last week.

It’s no secret that Arkansas’ offense goes through quarterback Ryan Mallett, but the trick has been figuring out is how to stop him. Mallett’s thrown for more than 700 yards and six touchdowns this season, and the Razorbacks already have three play-ers with more than 100 yards receiving on the year. The Hogs will look to not slip up on the road against Georgia with Alabama looming next week.

Notre Dame faces their third Big Ten opponent in a row this week after com-ing off a heartbreaking home loss at the hands of Michigan. Quarterback Dayne Crist missed most of the first half af-ter injuring his head diving into the end zone, but returned after halftime and is expected to play on Saturday.

Michigan State will need to shore up their defense against Notre Dame as repli-cating the mediocre performances against Western Michigan and Florida Atlantic won’t keep them in the game. The Spar-tans will use the running game to con-trol the clock and keep the Notre Dame offense off the field. Running back Edwin Baker already has 300 yards on the season and will get the bulk of the carries on Sat-urday for a run offense that ranks 11th in the country.

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By Jordan GodwinDaily Texan Sta!

Fans wearing red and black gave fans wearing burnt orange their absolute best West Texas hell.

They spit at them, heckled them, poured beer on them and burned Colt McCoy in ef! gy in the parking lot, boisterously celebrating their triumph over Texas. Moments earlier, they prematurely rushed the ! eld with seconds of game clock remaining after a heroic touch-down drive upset top-ranked Texas.

The last time the Longhorns left Lubbock, they were branded with their only loss of the 2008 season and a lasting impression of Texas Tech fans. Many of the players from that game have graduated and moved on from Texas, but for those on the roster who will return to Jones AT&T Stadium on Saturday, they anticipate another rowdy crowd.

On Monday, senior defensive end Sam Acho was asked why the fans in Lubbock are so crazy.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Acho said. “It would probably be a good case study.”

Some of the Longhorns grinned when asked about the environment in Lubbock, some became jittery, but for most members of the Texas defense, they’re embracing it.

“Lubbock is an awesome place to play,” Gideon said. “That’s how I look at it.”

Gideon and the rest of the defense are pre-pared to ! ght ! re with ! re on Saturday. To send a message to the fans in the stadium, they’ll have to start by abusing the Red Raiders offense. Last week against Wyoming, Gideon delivered several crushing blows to receivers. He speared a player so hard on one play, of! -cials threw a yellow " ag because Gideon used his helmet and was “targeting” the receiver.

“I don’t even know what that means,”

Gideon said. “Of course, I was trying to hit him so I guess I was targeting. But regardless of the call, other teams see it on the tape and trust me, receivers aren’t going to want to take that hit.”

At times in 2008, the Texas defense was labeled a ! nesse group in Will Muschamp’s ! rst season as defense coordinator. But two years later, Muschamp has rede! ned the man-tra of the Texas defense, and the Longhorns have quickly earned the reputation of a physi-cal team that plays with a mean streak.

From the start, Muschamp raised players’ eyebrows when he said, “There’s no such thing as cover corners in my defense,” meaning cor-nerbacks are going to be physical and do more than simply cover their receivers. That wasn’t yet a resonating mindset the last time Texas

was in Lubbock when the Red Raiders threw for 474 yards.

This weekend, the hard-nosed secondary of Gideon and Christian Scott at safety and bruis-ers Chykie and Curtis Brown at corner looks to get in the heads of the Red Raider’s receivers.

“As a defense, we want to have that edge and be physical,” Gideon said.

When Texas hosted the Red Raiders last season, the quarterback pressure helped slow Texas Tech’s explosive offense. The Longhorns sacked Tech quarterback Taylor Potts three times, and Texas coach Mack Brown expects that to be another major factor.

“You’ve got to be able to put pressure on the quarterback and get some sacks,” Brown said. “You can’t let Tech stand back there and throw like they did in 2008.”

Whether it includes rattling the receivers or hitting the quarterback, Texas’ defense will have to make a statement early in the game to prevent the Texas Tech offense from taking control. Muschamp tells his players to stay off of the other team’s highlight tape, and that’s the exact opposite of what happened two years ago.

But the veteran players that were there for that game have already warned the younger players what they should expect.

“Whenever Saturdays roll around, especially when we come to town, they take it very seri-ously,” Gideon said. “They’ll be yelling all kinds of stuff at you – personal stuff.”

But no matter how ugly the crowd gets, the Longhorns defense can either win or lose the game for Texas.

By Will AndersonDaily Texan Sta!

Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp walked away from practice on Tuesday with a black sleeveless T-shirt over his white undershirt. The back of the shirt showed a bird with a football clutched in its talons, while the front had two small words printed in burnt orange: “ball hawk.”

Muschamp loves turnovers and he loves handing out the ball hawk shirts whenever his defense makes an intercep-tion or recovers a fumble.

“The ball hawks on the team, they get shirts,” said defensive tackle Kheeston Randall. “I’ve got a few … It’s a little friendly competition we all have. We all want to be the best on the team.”

Defensive end Sam Acho has the most shirts so far. Freshman Jackson Jeffcoat got one on Tuesday for making an intercep-tion in practice. Randall plans to have the most by season’s end. Muschamp hands them out whenever he can; the only prob-lem is that the Longhorns have forced just two turnovers in games this season, a small number compared to the unit’s FBS-leading 37 turnovers in 2009.

“We always want to try to strip balls, catch interceptions, get big hits to force fumbles — it’s just anything we can do to affect the opponent,” Randall said. “It just starts with practice.”

Muschamp is clear with his players: He wants the defense to force at least three turnovers per game. Last week, Texas didn’t force a single one against Wyoming, a team that gave up a fumble and an inter-ception to Southern Utah in week one.

Next up is Texas Tech, which has given up a single fumble in each of its ! rst two games against SMU and New Mexico respectively.

“We’re always talking about turnovers: forcing turnovers, forcing interceptions,” said safety Christian Scott. “We feel like it will be really important for an away game at Lubbock.”

The problem started in preseason camp when the defense had trouble forcing turnovers against the ! rst-team offense. Texas runs through ball-stripping drills each practice, and Muschamp said work-ing on turnovers is “a major emphasis every day, regardless of how well we do the previous game.”

But so far, that hasn’t translated into game-day results.

“Anybody that’s a ball handler, they have defensive guys trying to rip it out,” said running back Fozzy Whittaker about practice. “They work on creating turn-overs all the time … So I’m excited to see what they’re going to do this Saturday.”

Coaches don’t know why the numbers are down. Head coach Mack Brown saw the same problem in 2008, when Texas had the defen-sive talent but only ! nished with 16 forced turnovers.

“We’ve done the same drills. Everything’s exactly the same. So I just think it’s on the guys to knock a ball loose, strip a ball and I don’t think you can be more conscious of it than we are,” Brown said. “We need some turnovers, and we need them on the other end so we can have some short ! elds offensively.”

There’s no reason to panic just yet — at this point last year Texas had forced only four turnovers. But the possibility certainly has coaches worried.

“It’s always a concern. You’ve got to get turnovers. That’s a key part of the game,” Muschamp said. “We know how to do it. It’s just a matter of putting some together back-to-back and having some guys get some hands on some balls and doing a better job of ! nishing plays on the back end.”

Coordinator Muschamp’s emphasis on ‘ball hawks’ hasn’t paid o! yet for Horns Derek Stout | Daily Texan Sta!

Above, Texas’ Sam Acho forces Rice quarterback Taylor McHargue to fumble. Left, Linebacker Keenan Robinson reaches out for McHargue while being held.

Safety Kenny Vaccaro and linebacker Keenan Robinson lead a swarm

of Texas players as they tackle Wyoming’s

Alvester Alexander.

Lauren GersonDaily Texan Sta!

Texas expects raucous crowd for team’s return to black hole; plan to put pressure on Tech

the best answer to a rowdy crowd

‘‘You’ve got to get turnovers. That’s a key part of the game. We know how to do it. It’s just a matter of putting some togeth-er back-to-back and having some guys

get some hands on some balls.” — Will Muschamp Defensive coordinator

PHYSICAL DEFENSE

Up-and-down Jayhawks get behind running game

The Jayhawks are the North’s enigma. They lost their first game to North Dakota State of the Mis-souri Valley Conference, then turned around and pulled out the 28-25 upset against then-No. 15 Georgia Tech. Their victory was especially surprising because it was redshirt freshman quarter-back Jordan Webb’s first start and he threw for three touchdowns. But Webb is cautious about giv-ing his well-rounded perfor-mance too much weight for the future. He is simply focusing on the next task ahead.

“You take every football season one game at a time,” Webbsaid. “But it’s definitely a huge win.”

Kansas revamped their run-ning game with freshman run-ning back and Irving native James Sims, who logged 17 car-ries for 101 yards and a touch-down against the Yellow Jackets.

Georgia Tech quarterback Joshua Nesbitt probably thinks that if Kansas plays as angry as they did against them, then the Jayhawks may have turned their season around.

“They came out mad,” Nes-bitt said. “You could tell that they came out mad from losing their last game and they came out hungry.”

Who knows if Kansas’ new swagger is here to stay. However, the Kansas athletic department has been chronicling the Jayhawk football team in a “Hard Knocks”- like online television show titled “The Gridiron,” which can be watched on YouTube. The drama it presents makes you think that they’re still angry.

Pelini still finding errors despite impressive wins

The Cornhuskers cannot please head coach Bo Pelini.

Pelini was mad at the defense ,despite winning 49-10 against Western Kentucky in week one. Then Nebraska handily beat Idaho 38-17 and the offense got an earful

“They got a good you-know-what chewing,” Pelini said after the game.

He may have been mad, but no one can deny that Nebraska has finally found a quarterback to get the job done, if not through the air, then on the ground. Taylor Martinez threw for 106 yards and

ran for 157 yards and two touch-downs last week.

Pelini’s anger probably stems from the four turnovers that his offense committed. But de-spite that, their relentless defense stepped in to bail the offense out.

There is no doubting the raw talent on this Nebraska team, and they are the obvious front runners of the conference. They will continue to terrorize oppo-nents throughout the season, making the buildup to their mar-quee match-up against Texas on Oct. 16 that much more exciting.

Buffaloes keep confidence after embarrassing loss

If Nebraska is the clear front-runner then the Colorado is the clear opposite.

Last week against California, the Buffaloes were down 14-0 in the first quarter and 31-0 by half time. In the end, they managed to muster a measly seven points in the third quarter. Colorado only managed 73 yards on the ground to California’s 159 yards.

Despite this, Colorado’s senior receiver Scotty McKnight still be-lieves in his squad.

“We have confidence and we know that we can be a very, very good football team,” McK-night said.

Head coach Dan Hawkins also believes his team is ready to turn things around. He said after their Tuesday practice that the team had made “a step in the right di-rection.”

H o w e v e r, C o l o r a d o i s plagued with injuries at nickel-back, where they lost their sec-ond starter in two weeks, mak-ing winning next week against Hawaii that much harder, yet that much more important.

“I think a little bit of that is gaining support back from fans,” McKnight said of their upcoming game against Hawaii. “I think people are kind of down general-ly [about] the team.”


— By Sameer Bhuchar | Daily Texan Staff

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BIG 12 NORTH CONF. OVERALL

Kansas St. 0-0 2-0

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— By Sameer Bhuchar | Daily Texan StaffBIG 12 POWER RANKINGS

The offense may still be finding its rhythm, but the No. 6 Longhorns defense has not missed a beat. Opponents have little chance of racking up meaningful yards against Texas with Sam Acho seemingly always in the offensive backfield.

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After almost dropping their week one game against unranked Utah State, many thought the No. 7 Sooners had gone soft. That quickly changed after Landry Jones torched the Florida State defense for 380 yards and four touchdowns.

Who cares if they can’t pass the ball? If Taylor Martinez and the rest of the No. 8 Cornhuskers run for as many yards as they did against Idaho (360 yards) in every game, Nebraska will sweep the porous Big 12 North defenses with ease.

The Aggies, while posting huge offensive numbers, have remained stagnant in the rankings because they’ve only played weak teams. They’ll continue their anti-gauntlet schedule Saturday with the Sun Belt’s Florida International.

The Tigers can attribute jumping two spots higher in the rankings to their defense. Missouri has already snagged six interceptions through its first two games.

Quarterback Taylor Potts continues to terrorize defensive backs with his accurate arm, but the true test of his abilities will come on Saturday when he faces a tough Texas secondary.

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Star quarterback Robert Griffin led the team in passing and rushing yards last week against Buffalo and will have to duplicate that against No. 4 TCU on Saturday.

Senior running back Daniel Thomas had another big game last Saturday, rushing for 137 yards. The Wildcats still need to establish a consistent passing game to take the pressure off Thomas.

Iowa State came down from the high of a week one victory, getting handled by No. 9 Iowa. Things won’t get easier for the Cyclones as their schedule will continue to work against them.

The Buffaloes got a rude welcome from future Pac-10 pals California, losing 52-7. Colorado ranks near the bottom in almost every meaningful team statistic. That miserable performance has got fans asking, “Is it 2011 yet?”

Oklahoma State is averaging 53 points per game, the fourth highest in the nation. But they are also giving up 27.5 points a game, the 84th best in the nation.

The Jayhawks make the biggest jump of the week from dead last to eighth place. Turner Gill’s squad rebounded from an embarrassing week one loss to stun No. 15 Georgia Tech behind a solid outing from freshman quarterback Jordan Webb.

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OU’s Jones bounces back with near-record outing

Rebounding from an uninspir-ing season opener, Oklahoma’s Landry Jones finally silenced critics last weekend with an im-pressive outing against Florida State. In a reversal from the first week, the sophomore quarter-back threw for 380 yards, com-pleting 30 of 40 passes and earn-ing him a Big 12 Offensive Play-er of the Week award.

“You draw confidence from these games,” Jones told USA Today. “But you also have to keep a level head, not think-ing that we’re just God’s gift to football as an offense. I came out this week with a lot of confi-dence, prepared really good and it showed here out on the field.”

Jones’ noteworthy 321-yard first half came just short of sur-passing the 350-yard record cur-rently held by former quarter-back Sam Bradford.

The Sooners’ win last Satur-day pushed their winning streak to 32 games, the nation’s longest active home winning streak.

“We still have to come out and practice the way we prac-ticed this week,” Jones said. “If we do that … we should be able to do this every week.”

Bears working toward potential upset over TCU

It has been 14 years since Baylor and TCU belonged to the same conference. While the Southwest Conference no longer exists, the intrastate rivalry has never been stronger, especially in a season when the Bears and Horned Frogs both enter the game undefeated.

“We’re not looking at it as a chance to make a statement or get attention, we’re just looking at it to fight hard to get another win,” third-year head coach Art Briles told CBSSports.com. “That’s what we’re trying to fight to get this year, to get Ws.”

But the potential for an upset will always linger and no other time would be more opportune for the Bears than tomorrow.

Baylor arrives in Fort Worth as a team who has yet to give up a defensive touchdown this season. In their two most recent outings, the Bears rolled over unranked opponents.

The Bears face their first true test of the season tomorrow, and while the road to improvement is in their sight, they must get past the Horned Frogs.

“We understand TCU has an outstanding program and been a very successful team over the past decade, but we’re go-ing up there to try and improve this team.”

OSU’s Weeden prepared to fight through injury

Oklahoma State’s Brandon Weeden knows a thing or two about being under pressure. A former baseball pitcher, he for-went his second-round pick by the New York Yankees, to con-tinue with football.

But Weeden has at times let himself succumb to the pressure. In his second career start last Saturday against Troy, Weeden fumbled twice and threw two interceptions.

“I feel like I let the team down at times. I put us in some bad sit-uations, and I feel bad about it,” Weeden told the press Monday.

Questions about the condition of the quarterback’s thumb, es-pecially after he displayed evi-dent pain last Saturday, are sur-rounding Weeden, but in a press conference Monday the quarter-back assured all that it was only a minor sprain which would not keep him from playing his best against Tulsa tomorrow.

Weeden will feel the pressure tomorrow to show critics that he is in fact healthy enough to play, but will he allow himself to crumble under it?

“It could be sticking way out here and I’m playing,” Weeden said. “I only have so many chances to play college football. I have 10 games left this year and 12 or 13 next year. I’m go-ing to fight through it, no matter how bad it hurts.”


— By Alexandra Carreno | Daily Texan Staff

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HIGGINS: Emotions pour as star earns scholarship

that played in the NFL. From Roy Miller to Derek Lokey to Houston, Higgins (6-3, 285) has high expectations alongside Kheeston Randall.

As a vote of confidence and to reward Higgins’ long jour-ney back to the field, the coach-es announced a week before the season started that Higgins would get his scholarship back.

It was an emotional announce-ment he didn’t see coming, and he couldn’t help crying in front of his celebrating teammates.

But despite his monumental comeback, he’s not taking ad-vantage of anything that comes his way — he remembers where that got him three years ago.

“It just humbles me even more,” Higgins said. “I have to take all of this with a grain of salt and play to my potential.”

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From page 3

By Jon ParrettDaily Texan Staff

Last season, Michigan quarter-back Denard Robinson watched from the sideline as fellow fresh-man Tate Forcier led the Wolver-ines to a last-minute win over Notre Dame. Last week, it was Robinson’s turn.

Robinson threw for 244 yards and a touchdown and ran for 258 yards and two more scores in Michigan’s thrilling 28-24 vic-tory over the Irish in South Bend. Robinson capped off his impres-sive performance with a 12-play, 72-yard drive that ended with him running in the game-winning touchdown from two yards out with 27 seconds left on the clock.

“Denard is special, we know that,” Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez said during a press conference Monday. “He’s shown the country that.”

Robinson became only the ninth quarterback in NCAA his-tory to both throw and run for 200 yards in a single game. He set school records for total of-fense and rushing yards in a sin-gle game by a quarterback in the season opener against Con-necticut, then broke both re-cords against Notre Dame. He’s nabbed back-to-back Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week and Walter Camp Player of the Week honors.

One honor Robinson could see at season’s end is the Heis-man Trophy. He jumped on nearly everybody’s watch list af-ter last week’s game. But Robin-son has managed to stay humble so far, and says he isn’t listening

to all the hype. He doesn’t even have cable TV.

“Denard is probably the best person that can have all this,” Michigan center David Molk said. “He actually doesn’t like it. He’s not going to get taken [in].”

Heisman hype is great, but the real focus is on winning games, and Robinson may be doing too much for Michigan’s offense. He accounted for 502 of Michigan’s 532 yards last week and has car-ried the ball at least 28 times in each of Michigan’s games, an as-toundingly high number for a quarterback.

“That’s a lot of carries for a quarterback, and that’s a lot more than we anticipated, but we’re going to do whatever we’ve got to do to win the game,” Rodri-guez said. “If we’ve got to run Denard 28 times, 30 times to win, he can handle it.”

Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson runs around Notre Dame defenders with his best Heisman pose.

Sam Wolson Associated Press

Robinson racks up yards, awardsQB’s last-minute win puts him into nation’sHeisman conversation

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Leong and Potts, high school teammates in Abilene, have connected for five touchdowns in the Raiders’ first two games. Le-ong started the season with a bang, hauling in 11 catches for 142 yards and career-high three scores in the season opener against Southern Methodist at home.

Last week in New Mexico, Leong stayed hot, catching five balls for 75 yards and two touchdowns. The senior leads Tech in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. Leong and Potts hooked up for a pair of scores last year against Texas with Leong grabbing six catches for 80 yards.

He has quickly become Potts’ favorite target and will be look-ing to find the endzone against Texas and extend his scoring streak to five games. Leong has stepped up so far this season to lead the Tech receiving corps, so expect the Longhorns to focus on limiting his touches come game day.

PLYSWAT 15

— By Austin Laymance | Daily Texan StaffPLAYERStoWATCH

For web exclusive stories, videos, photo galleriesand more, go to

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Lyle Leong, WR

The sophomore tailback from Mansfield was named a Big 12 Player of the Week for his performance on special teams after recording 175 kick-return yards in the Raider’s 52-17 win over New Mexico last week. Stephens returned a first quarter kick for 97 yards to set up a Tech score. He had a school-record 182 return-yards against Texas last season.

Stephens is a known threat in the return game, but he has also made strides on the offensive side of the ball in his second season with the Red Raiders. He set career highs last week with 46 yards rushing, including a 3-yard touch-down run in the first quarter, and 43 yards receiving. Stephens also scored from three yards out in Tech’s first game against SMU and is tied for the team lead in rushing touchdowns with two. The Texas special teamers must stay in their lanes on kick-offs this week, or Stephens just might return one to the house.

Eric Stephens, RB/KR

Potts leads yet another prolific Red Raider offense into Saturday’s game in Lubbock. The senior from Abilene has already amassed 652 passing yards and seven touchdown passes in just two games for Texas Tech this season. Potts was effective last year against the Longhorns, throwing for 420 yards and three touchdowns while completing a career-high 46 passes.

He has looked solid in the pocket again this season for a Raider offense that seemed to find its identity under new head coach Tommy Tuberville last week against New Mexi-co. Standing tall at 6-foot-5-inches, Potts has the size needed to see over the line and pick out the open receiver in Tech’s pass-heavy offense, No. 11 in the nation in passing yards. Potts has yet to throw an interception in 87 pass attempts this season. Potts was the back-up the last time Texas came to Lubbock and will be looking forward to facing the Horns on his home turf for the first time.

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