Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

November 05, 2018 at 9:13 pm.

Horns face crucial road game at Texas Tech

Texas coach Tom Herman said he had a lot of pride and frustration about the Longhorns’ close losses to Oklahoma State and West Virginia over the past two Saturdays but added that he and his team are ready to go back to work to elevate the latter emotion.

The Longhorns, which remained 15th in the latest Associated Press rankings, have no time or, Herman said, any inclination to pout or wallow in self-pity after losing 42-41 to West Virginia at home last Saturday on a gutsy two-point conversion by the Mountaineers.

“I’m proud and frustrated at the same time,” Herman said on Monday during his regular media availability.

“I’m so proud of the way that we fought two weeks ago in Stillwater. I’m extremely proud of the level of intensity and physicality that we continue to play with. That is something that will never waver in this program. I’m extremely proud of that.

“I’m certainly frustrated that we couldn’t close the deal this past weekend, got off to such a poor start the weekend prior.”

Instead, Texas will focus on overcoming several key injuries that affected the proficiency of its defense and finding a way to regain its swagger on that side of the ball after two down weeks that resulted in two setbacks.

Herman said the defense has been tentative in the losses to Oklahoma State and West Virginia.

“For whatever reason we haven’t cut it loose at times,” Herman said.

“That’s on us to figure out why. Maybe it’s an uncertainty. Yeah, just playing tentative at times. The easiest way to alleviate some of that is to trim down your call sheet a little bit, and make sure that guys are ultimately confident in what we’re doing. Not that they haven’t been.”

Herman added that the coaching staff would try to uncover every stone and find the way to get the Texas defense back to making stops and forcing turnovers.

“We’ve got to just have more precision,” Herman said. “We’ve got to coach our guys to fit our gaps more precisely and make sure we’re playing a lot more disciplined.”

The Longhorns (6-3, 4-2 in Big 12 play) no longer control their own destiny to reach the Big 12 championship game. Texas’ three losses this season have come by an average of three points per contest, and Herman and his staff are continuing to preach about how the attention to every detail in the team’s preparation and during the games can make the difference.

“The communication of that has been done throughout the two years in our program,” Herman said. “We’ve got to continue to coach it better and drive home those points.

“I don’t think there’s a guy in that locker room that would tell you we don’t understand that everything matters, and what’s necessary to win close ballgames. We’ve experienced it. We have been able to do it, so it’s not like it’s something that we haven’t done. We just need to do it more consistently.”