5 takeaways from Texas’ win vs. Rice: Jonathon Brooks looks primed for 2023 breakout

The Texas Longhorns defeated Rice 37-10 Saturday at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, improving to 3-0 in season openers under Steve Sarkisian.

Following a sluggish start, the Longhorns offense rallied for 37 unanswered points, which included three consecutive touchdown drives to open the second half.

Here are five takeaways from the Longhorns’ Week 1 win.

Jonathon Brooks is primed for a 2023 breakout

Brooks just keeps finding the end zone. The sophomore’s 37-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter Saturday was his sixth score in five appearances since Oct. 8 of last season.

On that single play, Brooks matched his 2022 receiving outputs of 37 yards and one touchdown.

Brooks nearly corralled another touchdown near the 13-minute mark of the second quarter Saturday, but he dropped the Ewers goal line pass. The sophomore back would finish with two catches for 42 yards.

The powerful Brooks produced on the ground, too, totaling 52 yards on a team-high 12 rush attempts Saturday.

Brooks and CJ Baxter Jr. were listed as co-starters on the Week 1 depth chart, but it was Brooks who led all Longhorns in carries.

Ewers looks electric, despite deep ball misses

Ewers had a whale of a Week 1, completing 19 of 30 attempts for 260 yards and three passing touchdowns. He added 12 rushing yards and a second-half rushing touchdown on eight attempts. It could have been an even bigger day.

Xavier Worthy, having swapped out his old No. 8 jersey for No. 1, got behind the Rice defense on multiple occasions. Ewers saw him, but couldn’t hit him, underthrowing his star target or leading him out of bounds on three deep ball attempts.

Nevertheless, Ewers tied a career high with four total touchdowns, tying his personal best from last year’s Red River Showdown against Oklahoma.

Fourth down execution could use some work

We’re nitpicking here. Texas mostly dominated their former Southwest Conference foe for a 16th straight head-to-head win.

But the offense’s situational execution was less than stellar Saturday, with a middling 6-for-15 (40%) conversion rate on third downs and two turnovers on downs over the Longhorns’ first six drives of the afternoon.

If you can’t convert on a pair of fourth-and-shorts against Rice in your own building, how are those same situations going to play out on the road against Alabama?

Don’t mess with Texas’ defense

Holy cow, these guys can get after it. Especially the front six. Austin Westlake product Ethan Burke had the best day of anybody up front, tallying 1.5 sacks and four total tackles.

Texas’ defense was stout from top to bottom, registering five tackles for loss and generating three takeaways, two of which came courtesy of the linebacker group.

Senior Jett Bush notched his first takeaway since his freshman campaign of 2019, scooping up a Quinton Jackson fumble near the end of the third quarter. Former Frisco Lone Star standout Jaylan Ford collected his first interception of 2023 after leading all linebackers with four INTs a year ago.

Perhaps most encouraging of all, Rice could not move the ball on the ground at all, managing a meager 27 rushing yards on 25 carries as a team.

Auburn is on point

Each of the Longhorns’ five losses last season came by seven points or fewer. What an asset a reliable kicker can be in such situations, and what an asset Auburn was Saturday against the Owls.

A preseason All-Big 12 second-team selection by Athlon Sports and On3′s Phil Steele, Bert Auburn looks locked in early. The junior kicker converted on 21 of 26 field-goal tries in 2022 (80.8%), the fourth-most accurate season all-time for a Longhorns kicker. He’s off to a 3-for-4 start to this season. His lone miss came on a 56-yard try in the fourth quarter, but he didn’t miss by much.

Auburn knocked down all four of his extra point tries Saturday to move to 62-for-62 on PATs in his college career.

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