Bryant Vincent and the Fighting General Booty’s come to Austin.

While other teams have had some scares (cough cough Georgia), or only played weak teams (nudge nudge Tennessee, Ole Miss), the Texas Longhorns are through to a No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 poll for the first time since 2008. They will march on through their last non-conference matchup this week against the UL-Monroe Warhawks. There was major concern when starting quarterback Quinn Ewers went down last week, but I believe we are looking at an optimistic return by the Red River Showdown.

Offense

This wide receiver room is Mariana trench levels deep, not to mention Arch Manning stepping in and instantly hushing any haters. According to PFF, Ryan Wingo is currently the second-highest graded receiver in a stacked SEC class off his seven catches on the season for 197 yards. Isaiah Bond, Johntay Cook II, and Matthew Golden have all made their mark as well, ranking as top receivers in the nation in production so far. More specifically, Bond ranks third in the nation in grading on passes behind the line of scrimmage, Golden and Wingo rank seventh and 25th respectively in the short pass game (0-10 yard range). Cook ranks 20th in the intermediate game (10-20 yards), and Wingo ranks 15th on deep passes (20-plus yards).

Below are the PPA metrics for the Longhorns in last week’s game.

One weakness the Longhorns offense had last year was being able to convert in the red zone. Heavily reliant on the speed of Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, the big throws became impossible without the extra space to be able to beat defenders. Things also became unnecessarily challenging with attempting to be tricky in the run game, going to Savion Red over leaning on Jonathon Brooks. Either way, through the first three games we are already seeing an improvement.

The graph below first measures red-zone efficiency, how many trips are converted to scores (either field goal or touchdown). On the Y axis, you will find Eckel Rate, which determines what portion of drives a team can get to the opposing 40-yard line or score a big-time touchdown. This helps us better evaluate offenses outside of the red zone as it perfectly complements the red-zone efficiency by showing us if a team is good at getting downfield to begin with, and kickers can knock down field goals from even outside the red zone nowadays, too.

A big caveat is that I am only displaying the most recent top 20 AP-ranked teams so if a team looks like they are performing poorly, remember it’s in comparison to the best. Furthermore, the point size is correlated with a team’s strength of schedule, so you know how seriously to take their data. For instance, the point for Ole Miss is miniscule because their SOS ranks 125th currently.

We also saw a textbook perfect pass from Manning to Cook in the red zone last week, and we have also seen the ability of Texas to run the ball in, being able to chip away for short yardage at any time, even though we haven’t seen a truly explosive play on the ground yet.

Up front, the Warhawks have a decent run stop rotation with nose tackle Jaylan Ware (3 tackles, 1 stop), defensive tackles Davin Anderson (1, 2) and Dylan Howell (3, 1), edge rusher Kevontay Wells (7, 4), and the ban linebacker Billy Pullen (12, 4). Lack of stopping the run at the second level is what contributes to them ranking 71st in PPA allowed against running the ball.

In the pass rush game, the only defensive member that has had noteworthy production is Dylan Howell (one sack). Pass coverage has been their better game so far led by corners Car’lin Vigers (0 pass breakups, 1 interception) and David Godsey Jr (0, 0). It is well supplemented by free safety Carl Fauntroy Jr (1, 0), strong safety Wydett Williams Jr (1, 1), and spur Travor Randle (0, 0).

Defense

Last week, we saw an improvement up front, racking up three sacks and 12 tackles for loss, stuffing the Roadrunners apart from the lone touchdown scored. Edge Colin Simmons looks to continue to grow at an exponential rate and we are seeing some breakout potential with others in the rotation such as Colton Vasek, Tiaoalli Savea, and Alfred Collins who had a pretty good impression of space eater T’Vondre Sweat last week.

On the flip side, the Horns had one of the best red-zone defenses last year and are already looking great at being a force on the field. PFF currently ranks Texas as having the eighth-toughest schedule so far but if Michigan continues to find itself in shambles, our data through three weeks may be less reliable. Below is the same red zone vs Eckel rate graph but for defense.

UL Monroe’s schedule is 113th in the nation at the moment, which explains why they currently rank 41st in PPA generated on offense. They run the ball a whopping 75 percent of the time, ranking fourth highest of all FBS teams currently. They use a plethora of backs to be able to distribute this workload.

In their backfield, Ahmad Henry’s strength is breaking free and running outside. Meanwhile they turn to James Jones to be the power back for rushes in between the tackles. Taven Curry seems to be their go-to for passing situations, but has only seen targets as a scrambled check down, which would leave me to believe he is their best pass catcher only relative to the other options out of the backfield.

Under center, General Booty (I know right? so insane), has really struggled to get anything going but does better on pure dropbacks rather than play action, in which I would conclude that the Warhawks have difficulty in establishing the run. He seems to have a very similar dropoff in production when under pressure, going 1-of-6 passing and taking three sacks on the nine times that has happened so far this season. He only has 34 dropbacks on the season, and on those his play has really amongst the worst, some might even say he is the general of booty quarterback play. The Longhorns will surely be able to eat up the run and make him uncomfortable on third and long, and maybe we will see a bit more defensive havoc from the secondary in this game.

Wide receiver Davon Wells plays in a similar function to Bond as their best all-around prospect, often used in the screen game and having the best separation. Receivers Jacob Godfrey and Javon Campbell, along with tight end Nate Sullivan, received the majority of their targets in the short range (0-10 yards) and did more damage after the catch.

Below are the PPA metrics for the rest of their offense.

Conclusion

This will be a great opportunity to see Arch Manning establish a rhythm through a whole game unless Trey Owens checks in later on. Manning has already stepped up to the plate confidently, and there is no doubt he will be able to connect with Wingo and Cook seamlessly. I would still like to see more success from Gibson, preferably a 20-plus yard run here or there. There is no doubt the defense will hold their own, I believe it will be the easiest they have faced all year and they have the momentum to deliver another shutout and I am optimistic on seeing at least three takeaways. The current spread for the game is -44.5 according to FanDuel.

PS:

On Quinn/Arch, don’t get me wrong, Arch looks great, however, his stellar performances have come from group-of-five teams so far and must be taken with a grain of salt. There is some arbitrary chance he could break out this year and be the guy, after all, the odds are never zero. But I am pretty firm on Ewers possessing the traits needed to take this version of the team to the natty. The media will continue to push a narrative of a quarterback battle, ESPN even focused a pic of Arch on their AP rankings post to generate this debate. We are all excited to see where Manning can take us in the future,and I will enjoy his performance over the next couple of games, but let’s not forget the going-on three years duo of Sark and Quinn has been a key piece in bringing back this program.