A month ago in this very column, I stepped out onto the ledge and predicted that the 2019 Texas Longhorns would win their first Big 12 Championship in a decade.
A month later, I feel less confident about my positioning on the ledge, but I'm not budging from my spot.
I'm still picking the Longhorns to get the job done, but it would be disingenuous of me if I told you I wasn't having some second thoughts.
For reasons I can't completely put my finger on, I was so much more confident that Texas would beat Georgia by two scores in last season's Sugar Bowl than I am that the Longhorns will dethrone the four-time defending Big 12 champion Oklahoma Sooners. Some of that has to do with the Sooners. Some of it has to do with the Longhorns.
Mostly it has to do with the amount of benefit of the doubt that it requires me to give the Longhorns at a time in my life when it seems like every time I've done so since my very early 30s, I've been punished like I'm Doug Gottlieb with a Saturday night Twitter hot take.
Remember that time Texas started 2-0 under Charlie Strong and I gave everyone permission to dream big because apparently I was so damn thirsty to cover a good team that I convinced myself that the Michael Scott of college football would somehow land a top corporate spot with Dunder-Mifflin, marry Jan Levinson and hang out with Jim and Pam on the weekends after two damn games of sample size?
You're gonna have to forgive me for having the shakes.
While the lasting memory of last season was that dominant performance in The Big Easy, it shouldn't be forgotten that Texas played in a lot of close games. It lost to Maryland. Beat Tulsa by a touchdown. Beat Kansas State by five. Had Baylor throwing into the end zone for the win at DKR on the final play. Lost to Oklahoma State. Lost to West Virginia at home. Beat Tech by seven.
In giving Texas the benefit of the doubt, I'm moving forward with the idea that Texas is going to take a step forward in year three under Tom Herman and not hit a neutral patch, much like Mack Brown did in his third, fourth, fifth and sixth seasons in Austin. I'm suggesting that the program is ready to not only win games against its toughest foes, but that it can step into a level of performance that sees it win games in more commanding fashion than 5.2 points per game.
If Texas is going to be the team that I think it can be, which means not stubbing your toe in Big 12 vacation destinations like Stillwater, it's going to double that number ... at least.
The difference in defeating the Sooners in December and not is being able to represent that kind of quality throughout the entire season.
Even the vibe inside the Texas football walls seems to suggest that this team could be a year away, especially when you consider the volume of underclassmen contributing up and down the depth chart. This is a team with various kinds of questions at running back, tight end, offensive line, defensive line, linebackers and cornerbacks. I'm also not sure that Sam Ehlinger can stay healthy for a 14-game schedule.
So, why stay out on my limb with regards to this team?
It's simple - I believe Sam Ehlinger is the best quarterback in the Big 12, which makes him the best player at the most important position in the sport and I believe in a second chance at a 60-minute dance for a championship, he'll find a way to will the Longhorns to victory. It's as simple as that. This is a sport where being great at the quarterback position allows for a variety of sins.
Look at Oklahoma. The Sooners haven't been worth a damn on defense for most of an entire decade, but cranking out Heisman winners at quarterback has a way of securing championship hardware in a way that all of the all-American linebackers in the world can't quite guarantee in the Big 12.
Boosting my faith in Ehlinger is the sophomore-to-junior/second year to third year bounce that we've seen players like Chris Simms, Vince Young and Colt McCoy all enjoy during the good ol' days.
It's an enormous amount of pressure to put on the young man because this whole season will be a massive disappointment if he's not the Longhorn-legend-in-the-making that we all believe he's on his way to becoming, but this is where we are. This is what he came to Texas to become.
In Ehlinger, I obviously trust.
The 2019 Texas Longhorns will be the 2019 Big 12 Champions. Write it in ink.
No. 2 - Call me Mr. Glass Half-Full with the running backs ...
I suppose the ongoing onslaught of running back injuries, which received a reprieve this weekend with the return of Keontay Ingram, boils down to life ideology.
On one hand, you have a running back room that has been nearly stripped to the bone in such a way from a depth standpoint that it almost feels like the position is involved in some kind of Final Destination sequel involving sports injuries. First, it was Kirk Johnson. Then it was Ingram. Then Daniel Young. None of this even takes into account the situation with incoming freshman Derrian Brown.
I'd understand if someone told me he or she was worried that a real turf monster was going to grab Jordan Whittington by the ankle this week in practice.
Man, I get it.
On the other hand, with the return of Ingram this weekend, the Longhorns currently have their two most important players at the position available. No offense to either Johnson or Young, but you'd rather the No. 3 and No. 4 backs be injured going into the season from a competitive standpoint than the No. 1 and No. 2 running backs every day of the week.
With no scholarship depth currently behind them, the Longhorns still have the two players everyone views as potential difference makers ready to go and as long as that remains the case, the Longhorns should have what they need on the offensive side of the ball.
Consider that the Texas running back position accounted for 370 carries in 2018 and the two-man duo of Tre Watson and Ingram combined for 327 of them (88.4-percent). The only other backs on the roster to receive running game carries were Young (42) and Kyle Porter (1).
Therefore, while it's not an ideal situation, it worked fairly well a year ago and if the option is having Ingram as a freshman, along with a senior version of Watson or a stronger sophomore version of Ingram and freshman skills of Whittington, I'm taking the 2019 upside all day long.
The real question that exists at this moment is what the staff will plan to do if anything happens to the Ingram/Whittington duo because I'm not sure I'm buying Roschon Johnson or any of the walk-ons being the answers. It would be my contention that the Longhorns have a "don't break in case of emergency" answer at the running back position.
His name is B.J. Foster and he could absolutely be the school's version of Myles Jack if it was something he or the coaches wanted to pursue.
Yes, he's potentially the best player on the Texas defense, but if there's a position on the field for the Longhorns where a little sharing on the other side of the ball wouldn't create chaos, it's probably with the deep set of Texas defensive backs.
It's easy to forget because of his quick transition to college defensive back, but Foster was a total difference-maker as a running back at Angleton and in another world where he was allowed to only play on offense, he would probably already be in the mix as one of the answers in the running game.
I'm not saying you make a full-time move, but I would definitely consider using him on both sides of the ball (maybe 15-20 snaps a game on offense) if the Longhorns have any further injuries to their remaining pair of healthy running backs.
It would mean giving a guy like Josh Thompson more responsibility as the chief back-up to Foster on defense, but all of the signs behind the scenes in the program suggest that there would be no trust reservations with Thompson. He's only on the sidelines because of the presence of Foster.
It's just an idea I would kick around.
In the meantime, there's no reason to panic with the current situation. That might change if the team can't find some antibiotics for the current injury bug, but for now, the team is in the position it would want to be in if it had to be in a situation like this.
No. 3 - La. Tech expectations ...
Until proven otherwise, I think we should probably go into Saturday's season-opener with a wee bit of apprehension.
I'm not saying the Longhorns won't cover the 20.5 spread because it might very well happen.
I'm just saying that the last two years should have us prepared for a possible first-game performance that includes a few potholes.
Don't freak out when the occasional tire hits them.
No. 4 - Texas vs. Florida/Miami with regards to the states of Texas/Florida ...
As I watched one of the funnest games of bad football I've seen in a long time this weekend when the college football season opened with Miami facing off with Florida, one of the things that jumped out to me was the large contrast of non-state starters the two teams from the Sunshine State had versus the number of Texans the Longhorns have in the same roles.
Check out the numbers:
Miami Offense: Five starters from the state of Florida
Miami Defense: Four Starters from the state of Florida
Total number of in-state starters: 9
Florida Offense: Eleven starters from the state of Florida
Florida Defense: Four starters from the state of Florida
Total Number of in-state starters: 15
Now let's take a look at the projected numbers based on
Alex Dunlap's Projected Depth Chart from this weekend's War Room.
Texas Offense: Nine starters from the state of Texas (assuming Zach Shackelford is playing)
Texas Defense: Ten starters from the state of Texas
Total Number of in-state starters: 19
At the end of the day, the goal is to have as many top-75 national prospects as possible on your roster and it really doesn't matter where they come from, but these numbers speak a little bit to the unreasonable expectations the Texas program sometimes receives from the public to build an elite program with almost exclusive in-state natural resources (see the 2005 national championship team).
Florida can't seem to come close to doing it with Florida kids and if I'm going to judge Miami based on its game on Saturday, maybe it could use a hell of a lot more out of state prospects.
That Herman has opened up a wider recruiting net than most of Texas football history has ever found comfortable with is a good thing. One of the keys to having an elite national program is having as many areas of natural resources as possible.
The reality for the Texas program is that it is asked to do something with regards to team building that no other program in college football is ever bothered with. Not Alabama. Not Clemson. Not Ohio State. Not Michigan. Not USC. Not Texas A&M. Not anyone.
No. 5 - The new Bud Foster?
When it was announced earlier this summer that Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster would retire following the 2019 season
The man has been such an institution with the Hokies that it's almost hard to put it into words, but I'm going to try by pointing out that the very first Hokies defense that he coordinated was in 1995, which means that he coached the defense that wiped the floor with John Mackovic's Longhorns in the 1996 Sugar Bowl.
Foster outlasted Mackovic, Mack Brown AND Charlie Strong.
College football likely won't see many Bud Fosters in the years to come, but it's hard not to notice the similarities between him and current Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando. Just like Foster, Orlando has not only turned into one of college football's highest-paid coordinators, but he's on that short list of coaches that everyone seems to believe has the chops to make it as a head coach, but never seems to be close to receiving the type of opportunity that would motivate him to leave the job that he currently owns.
Since Herman has taken over Texas, it doesn't seem like Orlando has been a hot name on the head coaching search circuit. Outside of a possible interview/discussion/whatever you want to call it with SMU after his first season. Maybe it's because offense is all the rage. Maybe it's because Orlando isn't an elite recruiter and most defensive coordinators that get head coaching jobs are known as bad mamma-jammas in recruiting. Maybe coaching defense in the Big 12 isn't the best path for a defensive-minded coach with head coaching aspirations to roam. Maybe he's telling his agent that he's happy where he is and to only bother if it's a power five job with money. Maybe it's all of that.
Whatever the reasons, the concerns about a possible departure don't appear to be as prevalent heading into Herman's third year, which is a pretty awesome development for a Texas program that seemed to change defensive coordinators every other year during the highest of heights under Mack Brown.
Herman has the guy he wants and a support staff in the Board of Regents, school president and athletic director that will make sure that if keeping Orlando ever comes down to money, they won't let Herman down. As long as Orlando wants to be at Texas, he's going to be paid more money than he probably could have ever imagined when he was working a 4-3 scheme at UConn back in the day.
Ultimately, it'll come down to what Orlando and his family want, but there are worse things in life than making seven figures in the greatest city in America to live in (says everyone it seems), which means that it might very well take a special situation to motivate him to leave for another job.
Things can change in a moment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Orlando ends up being in Austin for the long haul, potentially becoming whatever version of Foster could ever exist at a place like Texas that doesn't really do 25-year coaching tenures for football coaches.
Could he stick around for a decade, though, and emerge as a future Longhorns Hall of Honor inductee?
Yeah, I think I could see something like that being very possible.
No. 6 - Longhorns Pre-season Report Card ...
Here's a look at how each of the rookie Longhorns in the NFL did in their first pre-season action of the season.
Offensive lineman Calvin Anderson: Played 14 snaps on offense and two on special teams in the second half of the Jets' game against the Saints.
Tight end Andrew Beck: Played 16 snaps on offense and three snaps on special teams in New England's 10-3 win over Carolina. The word through the grapevine is that Beck might have a hard time making the 53-man roster, which might make making New England's practice squad a more realistic option heading in to the final week of training camp.
Cornerback Kris Boyd: Was second on the team in tackles with five in a 20-9 win over Arizona. Heading into the game, Boyd hadn't made much of an impact in training camp and there are serious questions about his ability to make the team. It appears that he needed to make an impact in the game to improve his chances and he might have done just that in his three quarters of action.
Wide receiver Lil'Jordan Humphrey: Played in 23 offensive snaps against the Jets, but didn't have a single target come his way in New Orleans' 28-13 win.
Cornerback P.J. Locke: Played for Pittsburgh on Sunday night against Tennessee
Defensive end Charles Omenihu: Played 35 naps (41-percent of all defensive snaps) in a 34-0 loss to the Cowboys.
Offensive lineman Patrick Vahe: Suited up, but did not play in Baltimore's 26-15 win over Philadelphia.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) See 2008 and 2009. I can't quite get down with that level of hyperbole just yet. This isn't Texas A&M football, it's Texas football.
(Buy) I'm leaning that way.
(Buy) Damn skippy.
(Sell) That being said, a top-10 class has become very, very possible and I'm not sure how much I believed that 10 weeks ago.
(Sell) The biggest reason is Sam Ehlinger.
(Buy) Excellent question. I spent various amounts of time over a five-hour period kicking it around in my head and I went back and forth with my answer.
(Sell) The first game should be at DKR, which means I'd pick the Oklahoma State game.
(Sell) I don't think Evans is in the same zip code as Adrian Peterson. Maybe area code, but not zip code.
(Buy) Not only that, but I'll be bringing the entire family.
(Sell) I think he's either calling games on TV or chilling in soccer stadiums in Europe.
No. 8 – Eternal Randomness of the Spotty Sports Mind …
... Rest in peace, Cedric Benson. It sounds like his funeral was a beautiful service full of laughs and love.
... I'm not sure we're going to see a better gif this college football season than Steve Spurrier's reaction to Florida throwing the football late in the fourth quarter of the Miami game on Saturday night as the Gators tried to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.
... I enjoyed Dallas beating Houston 34-0 in the pre-season a little more than I probably should, although I hated to see what happened to Lamar Miller.
... If you think the Texans would be in better shape if they had held on to D'Onta Foreman instead of releasing him, I suppose I'll point out that the odds are probably against him signing another NFL deal. He's an out of work player with a bad rep and his door won't have GMs knocking it down to bring him in. With a torn bicep that led to his release in Indianapolis, his best shot might be getting a workout invite next spring and he'll need to be in the best shape of his life at that point.
... I did not see the Andrew Luck retirement coming from 1,000 miles away. It's hard to be legitimately shocked by a sports story, but my Saturday night included 100-percent shock when the news came down in the middle of Indy's pre-season game. At the end of the day, if the guy's body has broken down to the point that he's not comfortable and his brainpower has been fried from the constant pressure-cooker, I completely understand him stepping away and I hope he finds a place where his overall mental and physical health can reach places they apparently haven't been in a long time.
... Rory vs. Brooks has a chance to be everything Rory vs Jordan hasn't quite turned into.
... Full transparency: I was rooting for Curacao in the Little League World Series.
... Weekend EPL Thoughts: In games against Tottenham and Arsenal in the last eight days, Man City and Liverpool combined to outshoot its Big 6 opponents by a combined 55 to 12. I'm going to be wondering all week how in the hell Tottenham lost at home to Newcastle. Speaking of Newcastle, but I kind of like new signing Joelinton. Man United has won 3 of its last 15 games... *gulp*. Watford better wake the hell up.
... I will never ... EVER ... take Mo Salah for granted. What a player.
No. 9 - The List: Top 10 Texas quarterbacks of all-time ...
A little more than 14 months ago, I put together my list of the top Texas quarterbacks of all-time and this is how it looked.
1. Vince Young.
2. Colt McCoy
3. James Street
4. James Brown
5. Bobby Layne
6. Chris Simms
7. Major Applewhite
8. Eddie Phillips
9. Marty Akins
10. Chance Mock
Heading into the 2019 season, I think the list looks like this:
1. Vince Young.
2. Colt McCoy
3. James Street
4. James Brown
5. Bobby Layne
6. Sam Ehlinger
7. Chris Simms
8. Major Applewhite
9. Eddie Phillips
10. Marty Akins
It's not impossible to think Ehlinger is in the No. 4 spot by the end of the season.
No. 10 – And Finally ...
This might be the most 2019 headline of the year. Peppa is going to be lit this season.
