In light of big picture concerns about the Texas football program, I doubt that many Longhorn fans care all that much about the finer details of Saturday afternoon's loss to the Kansas Jayhawks. For the few who do care, this brief fanpost is for you.

This review is based off of Bill Connelly's Five Factors to winning football games. The five factors are efficiency, explosiveness, field position, turnovers, and finishing drives.

End of half drives and garbage time situations are not included in any of the efficiency, explosiveness, drive finishing, or field position calculations. Overtime is not included in the field position and drive finishing statistics.

This advanced stat glossary will come handy to those of you who are less familiar with the five factors.

Efficiency and Explosiveness

I use yards per successful play to measure explosiveness. I like this statistic because it isolates efficiency from explosiveness by looking at the magnitude of successful plays only.

I have included the explosive percentile to add context to these numbers. (the number in parenthesis). The explosiveness percentile is based on play-by-play data from the 2015 season.

Texas Offense vs. Kansas Defense

The Texas offense had their most miserable performance of the season, managing only 4.4 yards per play against a Kansas defense that entered the game ranked 109th in Def. S&P+.

The Longhorns were reasonably efficient throwing the ball and running the ball on standard downs, but they could not manage any big plays with the exception of Jacory Warrick's 75 yard catch and run for a touchdown on the first offensive play of the game.

While Texas' play on standard downs was disappointing, their performance on passing downs was a complete disaster. The Longhorns were seldom successful when forced into obvious passing situations, and on the two occasions in which they were, they were not picking up large chunks of yardage.

At this point, I am not sure that it is fair to call Sterlin Gilbert's offense a version of the veer-and-shoot. The run blocking schemes are similar and the wide receiver splits look the same, but Texas' refusal to constantly attack defenses down the field runs counter to the main tenet of the offense as it was designed by (*sigh*) Art Briles: namely that it is an offense designed to score on every play.

Kansas Offense vs. Texas Defense

Now, it's time to give credit were credit is due. The Texas defense was outstanding on Saturday, holding Kansas to only 4 yards per play.

The Longhorns stifled Kansas' efficiency on the ground and through the air. The Jayhawks got little traction on standard downs and were subsequently forced into more passing down situations than they would have preferred. Unlike many previous games this season, Texas was able to capitalize once they forced an opponent into obvious passing situations, holding Kansas to a PD SR of only 14%.

Kansas did an okay job of converting successful plays into big plays (particularly on the ground), but it hardly mattered because Texas surrendered so few successful plays.

Field Position

An added benefit of Texas' defensive efficiency is that it kept Kansas pinned back deep in their own territory and gave the Longhorns good field position.

Drive Finishing

Neither team did a great job of finishing drives during regulation. A missed field goal and a D'Onta Foreman fumble capped off a pair of pointless scoring opportunities for the Longhorns.

Turnovers

I guess that it's fitting that the de-facto end of the Charlie Strong era was brought about (in part) by the worst example of Charlie Luck* that I can recall. Kansas recovered 4 of the game's 5 fumbles, intercepted 3 out of 7 defensed passes, and only had 1 of their 9 defensed passes intercepted.

*Credit to nobis on the phrase "Charlie Luck", of course.

Individual Statistics

Kansas

Texas

*Notes: Sacks are counted as passing attempts and are factored into the yards per attempt figure presented with the passing stats.

Opportunity Rate is the percentage of a runner's carries that gains at least 5 yards. It is a measure of a runner's efficiency, although I also like to use success rate to judge a runner's efficiency.

Highlight Yards per Opportunity is a measure of a running back's explosiveness. You can find its definition in the advanced stats glossary that I linked earlier in this post. The national average for highlight yards per carry is about 5 yards. For more context on these rushing stats, I encourage you to check out 2015's rushing stats.

Final Thoughts

The Texas offense was pretty terrible against Kansas, but the defense played more than well enough to secure a victory had the Longhorns experienced anything close to neutral turnover luck. Unfortunately, Texas lost about three touchdowns in turnover luck, and that was enough to cost them a victory despite their massive efficiency and field position advantages.