North Texas allowed one sack in its season opener at Indiana, and Neal Brown did not put that one on the offensive line. Tayven Jackson held the football too long, Brown said, giving the Hoosiers enough time to turn one of their pressure looks into an eight-yard loss. It was one of the few times all afternoon that a defense coming off a national championship season with 46 sacks was able to get Jackson on the ground.
“The sack was on him,” Brown said. “We allowed one sack in the game. That was really on him holding on to it. So we got to eliminate those negative plays, but I thought he’s accurate with the ball. You talk about an intense situation for him. I thought he handled it extremely well.”
Jackson completed 22 of 28 passes for 192 yards in his first start at North Texas. PFF had him 19 of 22 for 150 yards from a clean pocket and 3 of 6 for 42 yards when pressured. Indiana blitzed him on 17 of his 30 dropbacks, but the Hoosiers rarely turned those extra rushers into the kind of negative plays that could kill a North Texas possession. Jackson averaged 5.4 yards per attempt when Indiana blitzed compared with 8.8 when it did not. The Mean Green were not consistently beating pressure with explosive throws. They were keeping it from wrecking plays in the first place.
That mattered because pressure had been one of the clearest problems in Jackson’s game before he arrived in Denton. He completed 37.3 percent of his passes when pressured at UCF last season, according to PFF, with a 50.9 percent adjusted completion rate and 4.9 yards per attempt. He was sacked 15 times and finished with eight turnover-worthy plays on those snaps. Indiana had every reason to test him. North Texas spent much of the afternoon making sure Jackson did not have to play the same kind of game.
“I thought he was efficient with the ball,” Brown said. “If you look at his completion percentage, I thought he ran the ball effectively.”
Brown gave Jackson several ways to handle what Indiana was showing him. North Texas used the backs as immediate outlets when the Hoosiers brought pressure, incorporated Jackson into the run game when defenders vacated space and moved his launch point enough that Indiana could not spend the afternoon attacking the same spot behind the offensive line. Jahiem White was one of the most important pieces of that plan. He carried 14 times for 61 yards and caught seven passes for another 36, giving him 21 touches and 97 yards from scrimmage. His longest reception went for only 11 yards, but the short catches gave Jackson somewhere to go before Indiana’s rush had time to affect him.
One third-down snap in the first half showed how North Texas wanted to handle those looks. Indiana threatened pressure and brought a corner. White was available outside, Jackson recognized the space left by the extra rusher and got him the football before the pressure arrived. White turned the completion into a first down. North Texas did not need the protection to hold for three or four seconds. The answer was built into the play.
Jackson’s legs gave the Mean Green another one. On third-and-7, Indiana crowded the line before changing the picture after the snap. North Texas pulled a blocker across the formation, Jackson kept the football and ran for 17 yards. Indiana had committed bodies toward the line to create uncertainty, but Jackson used the space behind the pressure to move the chains.
His final rushing total was only 22 net yards, in part because the sack counted against it, but North Texas did not need Jackson to pile up rushing yards for that element to matter. The possibility of him keeping the football changed the way Indiana could attack the pocket. Brown also moved Jackson away from interior pressure with play action, rollouts and other moving-pocket concepts. Instead of allowing the Hoosiers to repeatedly rush a stationary quarterback from the same angles, North Texas made the front account for where Jackson might end up.
The result was not a big passing afternoon. It was an efficient one. Jackson completed 78.6 percent of his passes. North Texas gained 367 yards, two more than Indiana, and held the ball for 37 minutes, 22 seconds. The Mean Green ran 67 plays to Indiana’s 46, rushed for 152 yards and converted six of 15 third downs.
The 52-16 final came from what happened after those drives were sustained. North Texas moved the football often enough to keep the game competitive into the second half but repeatedly came away with field goals instead of touchdowns. Indiana averaged 7.9 yards per play, created explosive scoring opportunities and finished drives. North Texas averaged 5.5 yards per play and did not.
Brown thought the run game left more on the field.
“I felt like we had around 350, 360 total yards, 152 yards rushing,” Brown said. “Really felt like we probably left 40, 50 yards out there that we could have had versus a quality opponent. So we’ve got to continue to get better, but we want to run the football. There’s no question about it.”
That balance will remain part of the plan against UNLV. North Texas finished the opener with 38 rushing attempts and 29 official passes, and Brown said the called plays were even closer to an even split once scrambles and other plays were accounted for.
“I think we have to,” Brown said. “We were, I think, almost exactly 50-50. We ran like 67, 68 plays on Saturday. I think 34 of them or 33 of them, I can’t remember, were called pass plays. So we were pretty balanced. I think that’s what we’ll be for the remainder of the season.”
Paul Guenther gives North Texas another pressure problem Saturday, but not the same one Indiana presented.
UNLV finished its 21-6 win at Hawai‘i with five sacks, seven tackles for loss, seven pass breakups, two forced fumbles and an interception. Micah Alejado completed 17 of 43 passes for 176 yards. Hawai‘i ran 76 plays, gained 294 yards and averaged 3.9 yards per snap without scoring a touchdown.
The five sacks matter. How UNLV created them matters more for Jackson.
Hawai‘i found answers to the Rebels’ pressure early. When UNLV crowded the line of scrimmage, Alejado got the football outside quickly. When a defender came free off the edge, the ball was sometimes gone before he could get there. When UNLV walked linebackers into the A gaps, Hawai‘i attacked the space created away from them. For stretches of the first half, the quick game gave the Rainbow Warriors a way to play through the pressure looks.
Guenther kept showing them anyway.
Tre Fulton eventually arrived untouched on a second-quarter possession. UNLV again gave Hawai‘i a pressure look, but this time the Rainbow Warriors did not account for Fulton and Alejado did not have the same immediate throw available. Fulton dropped him for an eight-yard loss and turned the possession into third-and-long. Hawai‘i had already shown how it intended to answer those fronts. UNLV changed where the problem came from.
That is the part of the matchup that makes Saturday different for Jackson. Indiana blitzed him on more than half his dropbacks, and North Texas repeatedly gave him somewhere to go before the extra rusher could win. Guenther can show Jackson a similar pre-snap picture without giving him the same answer after the ball is snapped.
UNLV showed another version of it late at Hawai‘i. The Rebels presented pressure before rushing only three and dropping eight into coverage. Alejado avoided the first part of the rush but could not find an available throw. Kenji Scanlan stayed with the play long enough to finish the sack. The pressure presentation affected Alejado before the snap. The coverage made him hold the football afterward.
That is almost the opposite of what Brown accomplished at Indiana. North Texas wanted Jackson’s first answer available quickly enough that the rush could not affect him. UNLV showed against Hawai‘i that it could threaten pressure, take away the quick answer and force the quarterback to stay in the play long enough for the rush to matter.
Guenther also has several players he can use to create those looks. UNLV’s six sacks through two games have come from four defenders. Fulton and Kal-El Togafau have two apiece, while Elias Rudolph and Scanlan each have one. Fulton can enter the pressure from the secondary. Togafau and Rudolph can attack from the edge. Scanlan’s sack at Hawai‘i showed UNLV does not always have to send extra rushers to get home.
North Texas does not have to keep Jackson completely clean for the offense to function. Indiana pressured him and blitzed him repeatedly, and the Mean Green still moved the football. The larger question is what those plays produce after Jackson gets to his answer.
His 5.4 yards per attempt against Indiana’s blitz is part of that picture. North Texas kept the pressure from destroying possessions, but it did not consistently punish the Hoosiers with explosive plays when they sent extra rushers. Jackson could take the short completion, keep the offense on schedule and move to the next down. That can work against UNLV if the Mean Green continue running the football and stay out of obvious passing situations.
It also gives the Rebels a path to defending them. If UNLV can make Jackson live underneath, tackle White and North Texas’ other short options and force the Mean Green to put together long possessions, Guenther does not need another five-sack afternoon to get what he wants. Jackson can complete a high percentage of his passes without North Texas creating enough explosive plays to turn those completions into touchdowns.
Hawai‘i provided an example. The Rainbow Warriors ran 76 plays, produced 20 first downs and possessed the football for more than 32 minutes. They never reached the end zone.
North Texas has more answers available to it. White can become an immediate outlet out of the backfield. Jackson can run when defenders vacate space. Brown can move the pocket and force UNLV’s rushers to find Jackson instead of attacking the same spot snap after snap. White figures to remain central to that plan after touching the football 21 times against Indiana.
“Jim White has been our most effective player so far on offense through camp into this point,” Brown said. “So we’ve got to continue to get him going.”
Jackson’s first start gave North Texas a workable foundation. He was accurate, took one sack against a defense that blitzed him on more than half his dropbacks and helped the Mean Green possess the football for more than 37 minutes. The next step is turning that efficiency into more points while facing a defense capable of changing the answer after the snap.
“I think it’s really kind of a foundation game for him,” Brown said. “We’ll continue to put more on his plate the longer we go.”
UNLV’s test is whether Guenther can make that next part of Jackson’s development happen Saturday.