Texas game grades - Start of the Dearmon Era

What an amazing game to watch! If this is the way the Dearmon era will be, tune in folks because it will be a lot of fun! Yes, it was a loss, but it wasn’t decided until the last seconds of the game. Carter Stanley was outstanding and Pooka was his spectacular self. Lots of highlights on offense, multiple leads, outscoring Texas in the second half, 15 points in the last 7 minutes, 4th down conversions, 2 point conversion, amazing catch by Charlot, etc.

QB/Carter Stanley (Grade: A+) – 310 yards and 4 TD's (plus 65 yards rushing). No interceptions or fumbles. Scrambled and ran the ball well. Tough, gritty, smart are just a few superlatives. Stanley had some amazing throws.
RB's (Grade: A+) – Pooka being Pooka. 190 yards and 2 touchdowns. Stanley was the second leading rusher. Would question the lack of production from other backs.

WR's/TE's (Grade: A) – Stanley targeted 10 different players in the game. Parchment, Robison, Charlot, Lassiter all looked great and made some spectacular plays, A Few dropped balls, but some of that was Texas defense.

Offensive Line (Grade: A) – With the overall production of the offense, hard to knock the line. One sack, 4 QB hurries, and a couple of penalties, but good night for the O-line.

Defense (Grade B-) – 3 sacks, 1 interception which led to a touchdown, 1 fumble recovery, also 2 quarterback hurries. Finally, the fact that they gave up 50 points, had troubles stopping Ehlinger, and couldn’t make the stops on that last Texas drive really hurt.

Special Teams/Kicking (Grade C+) – The missed assignment on the PAT that led to the block and conversion, as well as, the missed field goals hurt. Additionally, there were a few of kickoffs that went out of bounds.

Coaches (Grade: A)- Amazing turn around on offense. The betting line was a 21.5 spread which KU bested by 19.5 points. Converted multiple third downs and two 4th downs. 569 yards and six touchdowns. Any questions about whether Miles would let Dearmon run the offense were put to rest by the new OC working down on the field giving orders directly to Stanley and the rest of the offense. The start of the Dearmon era was dazzling and had 90,000+ Texas fans at the Darrell K Royal Stadium stunned.

Next – Texas Tech at KU.

Discouraged?! I'm 100% encouraged! Yes, it would have been nice to have won the Coastal Carolina, West Virginia, and Texas games. However, KU did a hard reset with promoting Brent Dearmon half way through the season.

Positive take aways from the Texas game:
- Beat spread by 19.5 points. KU went into the game being 21.5 underdogs.
- KU went into a top 15 teams home and took the game to the last 8 seconds in front of 95,000+ Texas fans!
- This was the highest point total Texas allowed this season.
- Almost 600 total yards and 6 touchdowns. I'll take that any week. Scored 15 points in the last 7 minutes of the game.

No, that game was a wild ride that I'm happy to be on with this team that no one expected to do much this season. As for me, I'll let you know if I'm disappointed after the second half of the season.