Texas coach Charlie Strong benched Longhorns linebacker Malik Jefferson at the wrong time, as far as Texas Tech’s fortunes were concerned.
Strong lit a fire under Jefferson by not starting him for the Baylor game on Oct. 29, and Jefferson subsequently burned the Bears and the Red Raiders. Texas assigned Jefferson to shadow Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes II on Saturday, and he was a factor in the Longhorns’ 45-37 victory at Jones AT&T Stadium.
“We had a guy (blocker assigned) for him,” Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said Monday. “We just did some things that allowed him to have some free runs at Pat that I think made us a little jittery in the pocket and missed a few throws we probably could have made had we had him accounted for.