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The first theme of today’s Film Don’t Lie will be evaluating K-State’s use of the blitz on defense. I’m going to chart each Wildcat blitz below, giving you who blitzed and the result of the play.

Here... we... go!

1 – Safety Kendall Adams blitzed on a 3rd-and-1; Texas picked up first down on a 3-yard gain.

2 – Nickel back Cre Moore blitzed from the slot and almost created a turnover on zone read but Texas recovered.

3 – Linebacker Jayd Kirby blitzes, quarterback Sam Ehlinger runs for 15 yards to vacated area for first down.

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4 – Kirby and Adams show blitz pre-snap, Texas audibles, Kirby and Adams still blitz, UT completes 21-yard pass for first down.

5 – Jayd Kirby blitzes (not really shown pre-snap), Ehlinger runs to vacated spot for 21 yards.

6 – Cornerback D.J. Reed shows corner blitz, doesn’t back out, Texas ends up holding on this play (not related to Reed’s blitz).

7 – Kirby shows blitz pre-snap, doesn’t back out, Texas runs screen against blitz and picks up 14 yards and first down.

8 – Kirby and nickel back Johnathan Durham both show blitz before play, 5-yard completion.

9 – Kirby and Adams show blitz, they come, incomplete pass thanks to great play by safety Denzel Goolsby.

10 – Kirby, Durham, Goolsby show blitz and come, Texas audibles to shovel pass, Texas RB drops it/Tanner Wood is right there to help break it up.

11 – Kirby and Sullivan show blitz. Texas calls timeout. K-State comes out with same exact look, blitz works and gets pressure, Ehlinger throws it away.

12 – Kirby and Adams show blitz, they come, Ehlinger gets pressured and can’t complete throw in back of end zone.

13 – Kirby and Tanking show blitz, they both come, Ehlinger has to throw it away.

14 – Durham and Kirby show blitz, don’t back out, Ehlinger throws slant to vacated spot for first down on 3rd-and-4.

15 – Kirby delayed blitz, timed perfectly, K-State gets into the backfield but can’t make the sack. Ehlinger scrambles for 6 yards.

16 – Kirby and Durham show blitz pre-snap, both come and Texas throws incomplete on a hurried throw. Ends drive and forces field goal.

17 – Kirby and Adams show blitz pre-snap, Ehlinger sees it, blitz comes and Ehlinger runs into it for 15-yard gain and first down.

18 – Kirby and Durham show blitz per snap, no back out, Ehlinger sees it and completes for 8 yards.

19 – Kirby and Durhamn show blitz, Ehlinger sees it and throws a slant for 13 yards.

20 – Trent Tanking and Kirby both show blitz, Ehlinger runs for 9 yards.

So, a few notes here.

1. You obviously see Jayd Kirby’s name here a lot. Bluntly, Kirby didn’t have a great game, but it would be a mistake to read above and think that any play that doesn’t work is Kirby’s fault. Kirby’s job isn’t to sack the quarterback every time he blitzes - it’s to help disrupt a play. And, a number of times, that happened. If you’re going to be upset, it should be at how often the blitz comes from the same source – although K-State did move Kirby around a lot.

2. Most of these blitzes were shown pre-snap. Not all, but the majority.

3. I’d say Texas “won” 12 of these plays (60%) while K-State got the better of eight (40%)

Now, let’s look at the times K-State showed a blitz and then backed off.

1 – Goolsby showed blitz, backed out, Texas picked up a first down on a 6-yard shovel pass.

2 – Kirby shows blitz, backs out pre-snap, Ehlinger forced to throw it away.

3 – Kirby shows, backs out, 5-yard run by Texas.

4 – Tanking and Kirby show blitz, back out when Texas splits back out wide, Ehlinger runs for 8 yards

5 – Kirby shows blitz, he backs out of it. Texas completes a throw for 7 yards.

6 – Kirby shows blitz, but he doesn’t come. Texas audibles to screen expecting the blitz and still executes screen for first down, even though the Wildcats back out.

7 – Play of the game – Kirby and Elijah Sullivan both show blitz. Sullivan comes, Kirby backs out. Kirby misses tackle on crossing route, but K-State forces fumble at the 40-yard line (just past first-down marker) Wildcats have five players looking at the ball, Texas has one, and Longhorns recover. Ball bounces right to Texas. If K-State recovers this fumble, the Wildcats win and everybody feels 100% different. Football is a funny game.

So, let’s analyze a little bit here.

To the “K-State never shows blitz and backs out” crowd (of which I was a member), the Wildcats did so actually just over 33 percent of the time compared to the times they actually blitzed. And, considering K-State didn’t “show” blitz on all of its actual blitzes, it’s fair to say K-State probably backed out of shown blitzes anywhere from 35-40 percent of the time. This surprised me.

Also, it’s a small sample size (seven plays) but the Wildcats were at their worst defensively when showing blitz and backing out. I have Texas winning 86 percent of these plays. Now, part of the reason you’d do this isn’t just to “win” the play but to create confusion in a true freshman quarterback. That’s something K-State never accomplished, which makes me think it may have been wiser to show and back out of blitzes as much as 50 percent of the time. Still, I was wrong here - K-State did a better job of this than I originally thought.

How about the plays when K-State didn’t blitz? I charted every one, but for the sake of your time, I’m not going to include every snap. Overall, I had Texas’ offense “winning” right at 73 percent of the plays where K-State didn’t blitz.

For what it’s worth, here are the final numbers. Texas won 86 percent of the plays where K-State showed blitz and backed out. The Longhorns were successful on 73 percent of the snaps when K-State didn’t blitz, and 60 percent of the time when the Wildcats actually did blitz.

A couple of things to point out here.

For starters, don’t freak out about the high percentages of Texas success rate. Obviously, the numbers aren’t great for the Wildcats, but the offense is almost always going to grade out at a win on more plays than the defense on a play-by-play basis. Especially against a defense that intentionally chooses to allow small gains in an effort to avoid the big play. The way K-State chooses to play, the Wildcats only have to win a relatively small percentage of the plays defensively to keep the opponent from scoring touchdowns.

And in reality, K-State’s red zone defense was very good. In a lot of ways, this was the kind of defensive game K-State wants to play - for better or worse. Limit big plays, keep things in front of you, shut things down in the red zone. Giving up 27 in regulation at Texas isn’t awful by any stretch, especially giving up six in the second half.

The problem was simply that the defense was not good in the last five minutes of the second quarter or in the two overtimes – which is, sadly, when you could say it mattered most. K-State was in control at the end of both halves and couldn’t hold on either time, despite many chances to do so.

OFFENSE

Let’s move to offense and first check out the two quarterbacks.

First, briefly on Jesse Ertz – he played a lot better than I remember, probably out of my excitement for what I saw from Alex Delton. On his 18 pass attempts I only counted three bad throws, and for the most part he was very, very accurate on a big stage playing at less than 100 percent. People should be appreciative of the effort he put forth (and I think they are, for the record) and impressed with what he was able to accomplish without being a major threat running the football.

Personally, I’ll be surprised if Ertz doesn’t start against TCU (not saying that’s what I’d do, we’ll save that for a later …), but I do want to chart each snap we saw from Delton where he either carried the ball or threw a pass since it’s our first real chance to evaluate the sophomore from Hays.

Play 1 – 16-yard run, showed a combo of patience and explosiveness – got everything possible on this play.

Play 2 – Delton runs right for a yard, nothing more there, no real opportunity to cut it up earlier or make something happen.

Play 3 – Delton waits and then bursts left for a touchdown. Again, great vision and burst – explosiveness. His running style immediately reminds me of Daniel Sams.

Play 4 – Delton is patient, breaks a tackle, runs right for 12 yards. Shows patience, explosiveness and ability to break tackles on just four carries so far.

Play 5 – Delton starts left, hops back to middle of the field and picks up 11 yards. He’s got a bit of an ability to jump-cut, not something you see all the time.

Play 6 – He drops back, throws pass to Zuber that appears to be caught. Ruled incomplete. Ball is thrown in a good spot. Tough catch, but thrown away from UT defender and only K-State has chance to make catch.

Play 7 – Completes pass to Schoen. Forces Schoen to stop route, but could have been on purpose. Found an opening in the zone and assured himself the completion. Good throw and decision.

Play 8 – Delton starts right, hops left, immediately accelerates and runs through tackles. Reads blocks so well. Gains 18 yards on this play.

Play 9 – He starts left, hops right, gets two yards. He maybe could have stayed left and had a chance for a big play, but it’s no sure thing there.

Play 10 – Delton starts left, goes to the middle, fights for extra yardage and gets four yards. Tough run for a smallish QB.

Play 11 – Center Adam Holtorf misses a block on a play that looked very promising. Think Delton has a chance to pop right and score, but Texas blows it up in the backfield. Settle for a field goal to go up 3 late instead of 7.

Play 12 – Delton runs left, but there’s nothing there. Lucky to get back to line of scrimmage.

Play 13 – Delton barely misses Schoen on a deep out on third down. This is a tough throw and could have been caught, but it would have been a very tough catch. If this pass is completed, K-State probably wins. Would have been a first down near midfield with the lead and four minutes left. Just a game of inches. A pretty good throw, a pretty good effort from Schoen, just not quite perfect enough.

Play 14 – Run left, nothing really develops, just a 2-yard gain.

Play 15 – Delton is patient, waits for blocks, hops left and bursts into the end zone for a touchdown.

Play 16 – Well-thrown bubble screen out to Zuber for a gain of 7 yards. Nice job of identifying and executing the throw. Delton’s poise is evident.

Play 17 – A misfire to Schoen, but not an awful throw. He picked the right receiver, showed good movement in the pocket and set his feet before he threw, just slightly overthrown. Interesting note on this play was an easy roughing the passer call missed. Much more blatant than the one called on Reggie Walker earlier. Contact directly to Delton’s head and a step after the ball was thrown. Would have been a huge call and gave K-State a first down around the 20 and at least would have put K-State back in field goal range, and with another chance to score a touchdown.

Delton’s performance was very, very impressive. To me, the choice is easy – you start Delton against TCU. The offense certainly didn’t perform worse under Delton, and it’s not like Texas didn’t spend the entire week preparing for the same designed quarterback runs they saw from Delton.

I was surprised at his ability as a passer. He doesn’t have a great arm from a pure strength/accuracy perspective (probably the third best on the team behind Thompson and Ertz), but it’s not a liability by any stretch. I think the more surprising thing was his poise, comfort moving around in the pocket and decision making with such little experience. I actually think he’ll do a good job of avoiding turnovers and protecting the football – something that should earn him the trust of the coaches.

And, yeah, he's a difference-maker carrying the football.

A healthy Jesse Ertz is easily K-State’s best quarterback. But he’s not healthy. Delton should start, or at least play 50 percent - or more - of the snaps if K-State does choose to go with Ertz.

One question I was asked about the offense and I was interested to chart was how often K-State sent out its running backs and/or tight ends into routes. One point of clarity - K-State ran a lot of bubble screens that don’t really call for the back/tight end to go out into a route. So that kind of messed with the numbers a little bit.

Still, here are those notes:

K-State sent either a running back (fullback or tailback) OR tight end out on 40 percent of its called pass plays Saturday night. But here’s what’s interesting – after doing so on 60 percent of the first half pass attempts, the Wildcats sent out either a back or tight end only 20 percent of the time on its last half pass attempts.

As things got tight, K-State went almost exclusively to running bubble screens or keeping the running back and tight end in the formation to block. The results weren’t good, either, as the Wildcats rolled up the vast majority of their passing yards in the first half before changing to this strategy.

I fear in reading back what I wrote it could come off as criticizing the K-State coaching staff, but that wasn’t really my intent. If K-State recovers the late fumble, the Wildcats win. If Delton hits Schoen on a key third down, K-State wins. I could go on and on. The Wildcats were easily well enough prepared to win a road game against a good team in a tough environment – with a backup quarterback playing many of the snaps. There was a lot of good the group obviously did. However, there were questionable things as well.

GENERAL THOUGHTS

D.J. Reed was excellent. It wasn’t just the interception on the first play – which was a great play – but his work throughout the whole game. So impressive.

Really nice goal-line stand with roughly a minute left in the first quarter, defense recovered from giving up the big play and was perfect in this scenario – everyone showed discipline in this spot and did their jobs.

The first touchdown from Ertz to Schoen was perfectly done, all-around. Throw was perfect, route was perfect and Schoen wasn’t anywhere near getting caught by a starting safety for the Texas defense. He’s plenty fast.

Overall, Schoen was tremendous. One-handed catch was amazing to go along with the two scores. Needs to be a starter going forward, as does Isaiah Zuber with Byron Pringle and Dominique Heath seeing plenty of reps as the third and fourth receivers.

Elijah Sullivan had a HUGE hit on a kickoff – great to see him engaged on special teams when not seeing as many snaps on defense as I’m sure he’d like to have.

K-State twice had 10-point leads in the first half, and both times promptly gave up touchdowns to let Texas back in. Wildcats really failed to win the game in this sequence. Easily the better team 22-25 minutes of the first half, then went into halftime trailing.

Two tough replay calls against K-State. One gave Texas a big completion in the final minute of the first half to set up a TD. Was initially ruled incomplete, hard to see enough on film to overturn the call. Then Zuber appears to make a catch late in the third quarter that’s ruled incomplete on the field. Replay looks like a catch and it’s not overturned in K-State’s favor. You’d like to think one of those should go your way.

Texas just didn’t make mistakes offensively. Reacted well to anything K-State did and made plays. To be fair, K-State rarely did anything to confuse the Longhorns or a true freshman QB. This game impressed me from Texas, and I think the Longhorns are only going to get better.

As good as Reed was, Duke Shelley was almost as impressive. He’s played really, really well in K-State’s last two games. If these two are going to play at this level, it’s time to let them play a little more press man coverage. Virtually all of Texas’ big plays came when they had free releases and then used their size/speed combo to get a bunch of yards after the catch.

Tough call on Reggie Walker on roughing the passer. Ultimately, Texas doesn’t score on this drive or get points. In that sense, maybe it doesn’t matter. However, it did help change field position.

Last offensive drive was bad on every level – to be blunt. The switch to Ertz was interesting to begin with, then you come out running, look to be playing for OT. Then you complete a pass to get a first down, and it now appears you should try and get into field goal range if you’re going to be throwing – which you just did. Then you run again, and now you wait seven seconds after the play is dead to call a timeout. Let’s just go ahead and chart each play of the drive and the possible thought process.

Play 1 – run with Alex Barnes, playing for overtime unless you bust a huge run, get 5 yards.

Play 2 – pass (now playing for field goal?), get first down and out of bounds, now obviously playing for FG, right?

Play 3 – run up the middle of the field (playing for OT again with that call?) then let seven seconds run off the clock, call timeout - playing for FG, now? You can feel the indecisiveness on this play and sequence.

I feel like at this point, you’ve changed your mind four times on this drive.

Play 4 – Call a pass with only downfield routes – clearly playing for a field goal now despite letting time run off the clock after a run to the middle of the field.

Play 5 – Again, call passes with only downfield routes – playing for field goal, throw an interception.

I know, it comes off as criticizing coaching again – and I didn’t think the coaching cost K-State the game. That said, this sequence is hard for me to defend.

Finally, the holding calls on the second overtime series. Abdul Beecham absolutely held. It was the right call. Just a huge penalty, too, to wipe out a first down inside the 10. The call on Winston Dimel was silly, however. Had nothing to do with the play and wasn’t blatant – honestly can’t believe it was called in that situation and especially after a hold was called the previous play.

One good thing: K-State has at least one quarterback worth being excited about for years to come. Alex Delton has all sorts of potential. And, he may even have the potential to spark the team this season if Jesse Ertz can’t get back to full strength. And no, I haven’t forgotten about Skylar Thompson - at all.

One bad thing: The last drive of regulation was indefensible.

Overall thoughts: I think Texas is a good team, and K-State just took the Longhorns to two overtimes in a night game on their home field with multiple chances to win the contest. It’s not time to jump off the ship. I believe the Wildcats rally this week and knock off TCU, probably putting them at the top of the Big 12 Conference standings.