{"id":851689,"date":"2026-09-18T03:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T03:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851689\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T03:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T03:58:20","slug":"inside-texas-wr-ryan-wingos-dropped-td-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851689\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Texas WR Ryan Wingo\u2019s dropped TD pass"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Mama, there it goes through those hands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Texas Longhorns junior wide receiver Ryan Wingo spent the offseason working on improving his pass-catching ability after dropping seven passes in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">After some signs of hard-fought redemption in the season opening win over Texas State, Wingo regressed against Ohio State, stymying an early chance at forging some momentum in the second quarter when he dropped a would-be, 30-yard touchdown catch as head coach Steve Sarkisian dialed up a nice concept from the green zone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The play worked as designed and quarterback Arch Manning delivered an accurate pass to Wingo despite having to reset his feet, but the ball went right through Wingo\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cWe worked really hard with Ryan and a lot of our receivers of, when we catch the football, we catch the football in front of our eyes, and we don\u2019t let the ball pass our eyes, and in that instance, the ball passed his eyes. That\u2019s a much tougher catch to make,\u201d Sarkisian said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cThat wasn\u2019t the reason that Sark recruited me,\u201d Wingo said of his drops after the season opener. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the reason that C Jack [Chris Jackson] recruited me here. I felt like I was doing them a disservice.\u201c<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">But it\u2019s still a problem that Wingo hasn\u2019t fixed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Despite the lack of execution, the concept is one that Sarkisian will likely return to at some point this season and a prime example of how the Texas head coach takes a popular concept, in this case the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.coachdancasey.com\/new-blog\/you-should-steal-lincoln-rileys-shallow-sting-concept\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shallow sting<\/a>\u201d adopted from Lincoln Riley\u2019s offense, then adds his own take on it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The two most important actions are the post route from the boundary to clear the deep safety on that hash and create the room for the primary target \u2014 in this case, it\u2019s Wingo operating from a tight split to the field running a crossing route that turns up the seam once he hits his landmark at the hash marks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Sarkisian refined the concept by employing play action while operating from a two-back set that draws the attention of the linebackers and the hole player in the inverted Tampa 2 favored by Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, his own take on the three-safety flyover defense popularized by Iowa State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The motion man is fifth-year running back Raleek Brown across the formation and then in orbit motion to the field to create extra misdirection on top of the play-action fake by Manning. Brown is a check down for Manning, who also has senior running back Hollywood Brown on a check release to ensure a clean pocket. The run fake is further improved by the Power bluff with junior right guard Brandon Baker pulling to pick up any blitzers trying to impact Manning\u2019s delivery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Some versions of the concept use the Y tight end running a route up the middle, but because it\u2019s a long-developing play, Sarkisian kept senior Spencer Shannon in the backfield to provide extra blocking and take advantage of his best skill instead of asking him to be a pass threat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">So while the drop by Wingo is a disappointing continuation of that trend, how Sarkisian tweaked the concept and chose the right time to call it gives some real insight into why the Longhorns head coach is so respected by his peers \u2014 Roadrunners head coach Jeff Traylor said this week that Sarkisian is one of 25 coaches whose touchdowns he watches every week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI think all of us that coach offense \u2014 and I spend most of my time on the offensive side of the ball \u2014 we all have a little bit of Sark\u2019s offense in our offense,\u201d Traylor told Horns247. \u201cWe we all copy Sark. I mean, Sark does a wonderful job of disguising his stuff, his play-action pass, his sell cuts, his post game, his RPO game, his screen game, his protections. Sark is on another level for play calling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Mama, there it goes through those hands. Texas Longhorns junior wide receiver Ryan Wingo spent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99,41661],"class_list":["post-851689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-texas-longhorns-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}