Behold: Texas Executes A Mesh Concept As Poorly As You’ll Ever See

The mesh concept is an Air Raid staple that remains prevalent across college football, occupying a spot in virtually every playbook, if not every single playbook.

For Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian, who doesn’t have any Air Raid influences in his background, it’s not a common call, but Sarkisian did dial it up early in the third quarter of Saturday’s win over the Ole Miss Rebels on a 3rd and 3 as the Longhorns tried to find their footing after the sack-fumble.

And, let me tell you, this is about as ugly as it gets all around.

Hopefully Mike Leach was fishing somewhere in the great beyond and didn’t see it, because otherwise he was rolling over in his grave.

It’s a RB Bunch version with a formation into the boundary that uses freshman wide receiver Jermaine Bishop and fifth-year tight end Michael Masunas as the crossers, one area where this play goes really wrong.

The typical teaching point for the crosser is five or six yards of depth and Bishop gets that right, so the larger issue is probably the timing of the play — Masunas uses a stutter release, but Bishop doesn’t. He’s just right into his route trying to beat his man defender, but because he’s so fast, Masunas never has a chance to get the depth he needs. So instead of getting the rub that makes the mesh concept such an enduring man-beater, Bishop and Masunas almost run into each other.

The overall spacing on the play just doesn’t work, either, as junior wide receiver Ryan Wingo runs his stop route only two yards deeper than the mesh point because he’s got a defender sitting on his back.

The wheel route by fifth-year running back Raleek Brown never has a chance with a defender over the top and another picking Brown up quickly in coverage.

Behind center, senior quarterback Arch Manning gets sped up because the left side of the offensive line hasn’t handled an end-tackle twist at all with sophomore left guard Dylan Sikorski and senior left tackle Andre Cojoe getting hung up on the tackle, who does a nice job of splitting them. Fifth-year center Connor Robertson isn’t occupied and should be able to help, but he doesn’t have his eyes right and heads in the other direction.

So the timing of the play never really has a chance, causing Manning to lose his footwork and throw the ball to where Bishop might be if he’d been able to actually clear the tight end.

The check down is to the field with junior wide receiver Emmet Mosley V in motion, but Manning’s breakdown in footwork doesn’t give him a chance to flip the ball out there, leading to a three and out and a 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive by Ole Miss and, ultimately, a wasted quarter for the Longhorns.

If Manning does get it out to the flat? Mosley is one on one with the safety, who may make the tackle to force a fourth down or may give up a huge play.

The play call makes sense — it’s a good call for the down and distance and it works against man and zone coverages, but if Sarkisian wants to keep it on his call sheet, Texas is going to need to rep it more often in practice to actually get the mesh right.

Otherwise, it’s just a mess concept.